Using SMS or iMesssage seems to be a very US centric thing to do. At this point i only get these kind of messages from companies.
In Europe i'm gussing people quickly migrated away built in messaging system, to basically whatsapp because its availible on all platforms
In any case it feels like a very low level thing to use the phones built-in messaging system. If someone sends me a message using imessage i would reply to them on whatsapp and ask if they are Ok ;)
Totally US centric. Android has a bigger market share everywhere else, so these supposed iPhone lock-in tactics cannot work. But I believe it's something about sms costs and data plans. Here, Italy, telcos started to offer affordable data plans way before unlimited sms. MMS never took off because the huge costs. I used gtalk on symbian phones. Then Hangouts, a bit of Skype. At some point Whatsapp prevailed but sms were long dead.
Yeah same. In Asia, almost every single person uses WhatsApp (or Instagram) for chatting/messaging. I don't know a single person who still uses iMessage or any such thing. It's definitely a very US-centric thing.
The thing is that US is still the "trend setter" - if using iPhones is fashionable and using other phone is not and puts teenager out of the group then they'll want it at all cost, not to mention young adults and Tinder related stuff some people mentioned in their comments where green bubble apparently means "worse, poor, sketchy". And as adults they will be submerged in ecosystem.
If I were google this ~85% US ownership would make me incredibly, insanely scared about my phone related business. And not only phone related as device is gateway for everything. This is basically writing on the wall of what comes in not so distant future - it seems that Apple era is coming - which is sad for multiple reasons: their desire to totally control and lock down software AND hardware, their stance towards web browsers and API's: I'm expecting even more resistance when it comes to implementing browsers capabilities and even more eagerness for gimping existing ones or implementing something "apple way"
In Europe i'm gussing people quickly migrated away built in messaging system, to basically whatsapp because its availible on all platforms
In any case it feels like a very low level thing to use the phones built-in messaging system. If someone sends me a message using imessage i would reply to them on whatsapp and ask if they are Ok ;)