Looks like Nothing is partnering with a US-based third party called Sunbird to build this service. From Sunbird’s site (https://sunbirdapp.com):
> Will the app be open source?
> Some of the messaging community believes that software that is open source is more secure. It is our view that it is not. The more visibility there is into the infrastructure and code, the easier it is to penetrate it. By design, open source software is distributed in nature. There is no central authority to ensure quality and maintenance and by putting that responsibility on Sunbird, development would not be feasible. Open source vulnerabilities typically stem from poorly written code that leave gaps, which attackers can use to carryout malicious activities.
Not sure I’d be willing to trust them with my Apple ID credentials.
I take the opposite view, look no further than all the security holes in Microsoft Windows compared to Linux which is more difficult to actually maliciously hack that windows.
Security by obscurity has failed every time it's been attempted. every. time.
> I take the opposite view, look no further than all the security holes in Microsoft Windows compared to Linux which is more difficult to actually maliciously hack that windows.
Honestly this is a bad example, given the Linux kernel maintainers shitty attitude towards security bugs, and that Windows these days does have a good security design and has had since Vista/7.
> From other sites, it seems it uses a Mac Mini in a server room as a proxy for iMessage to accomplish this, with the massive drawback of having to provide Nothing your Apple ID credentials.
> Open source vulnerabilities typically stem from poorly written code that leave gaps, which attackers can use to carryout malicious activities.
So in their minds, closing the source automatically leads to well written code? And conversely, if they decide to open their (presumably well-written and secure) code in the future, it will somehow magically turn into poorly written and exploitable code? smh
This reiterates the same fallacious argument large corporations use to put one over open-source. And since it sounds plausible to the layman, it is parroted by them. Quite shocking to see another example out and about.
How gross and disingenuous. If they want to keep their source proprietary to create a moat then just say so. Lying about open source software being shoddy and insecure just totally puts me off.
They are not wrong that it is easier to penetrate open source software, but in regards to a messaging app security is not a big issue due to the most risky stuff being handled by platform provided api and mobile operating systems having a modern security model.
Is this a US specific thing? Why do people want to have their messages seen in blue bubbles so much? Why not just use another messaging app such as WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, etc?
Because iMessage seamlessly integrates into SMS/MMS, and very few Americans rely on alternative apps for their primary messaging platform.
As for why blue bubbles? No idea. Best guess is it's seen as a status thing - green bubbles are non-iPhone users. The only other theory I have is that iMessage is cross-platform with other Apple devices, but that is a strong argument for other messaging apps IMO.
Then the question becomes: "_SMS?!_". Nobody in Europe uses SMS.
I think I've cracked it though. I've noticed that Apple's service inside the U.S.A. is different to the level of service they provide outside of it (briefly; it's better). This led to the 60%+ market share there, whilst the rest of the world is Android dominated.
iMessage was adding cool features, and it makes sense that if most people you know already have it, there's no reason to look at things like WhatsApp. The rest of the (Android dominated world) had to look for something else for the same fun, which is why WhatsApp is the de facto messaging platform in Europe.
I think I have some unique perspective here, actually, as an American who's been living in the UK for the past year.
I think you're right about the feature set. It's a big historical win for iMessage, and it took a while for Telegram, WhatsApp, etc. to catch up.
I think the other thing here is that a lot of people in Europe have friends from other countries, or travel outside of the country often, and European phone plans don't generally offer good international rates. In the US, most plans offer unlimited SMS/MMS, including international messages -- it wouldn't cost me any more to send SMS to people in Europe from my old American plan (i.e., it would still cost me nothing beyond my base plan price). For Europeans, using WhatsApp is a convenient runaround for this issue. It's a single platform that works internationally, with no particular hurdles aside from "Do you have WhatsApp?"
As an extra little anecdote about the challenges present here, I had to get a Google Voice account and transfer my American number to it, and I now use the Google Voice app to message my family back home. It's pretty annoying, and generally a terrible experience for me, but getting people in the US onto another messaging platform is pretty much a lost cause at this point. I have all of the major messaging apps on my phone - iMessage, WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, Facebook Messenger, etc. But I just text with most of my American friends, except some of the more privacy-conscious tech nerds who use Signal.
I have Beeper. It works well, except that it doesn't support registering your phone number without an iPhone, so you can only use iMessage with an email address. I believe they are working on fixing that now.
How could they work on fixing that? iMessage currently requires a cell phone to activate a number on the iMessage network. Are you saying they're partnering with Apple to change this? Are they going to sim clone your number?
The entire integration with iMessage is reverse engineered. They need to reverse engineer the phone number registration part to get it working on Android phones.
Trivial for Apple to shut them out, unfortunately. It would be great to have an easy to use, low friction messaging platform that wasn't controlled by FB or the Telcos.
I like Signal but haven't been able to get my family members on board.
That platform or exists. It is not free. The price of admission is buying an apple device. Part of the price pays for the platform. All of that seems reasonable
None of that is even slightly reasonable. A messaging platform that(for no technical reason) only works on one hardware platform is a complete non-starter.
As a small business owner who relies on SMS for coordinating repair pickups and drop offs, as well as media transmission, just seeing the blue bubble means I can instantly ascertain whether their hardware is capable of in terms of shared features like location sharing, compatible media sharing, etc. When I see a green bubble, often times I don't bother trying to send hi-res photos via SMS and I just go straight to emailing or using another platform like instagram or what have you.
Hopefully the EU (or, in an alternate reality, the US) will eventually force Apple to finally implement RCS messages (or, less likely, open up iMessage).
Why punish Apple for Google failing to create a good messaging service? Google failed to compete against iMessage in the US and failed to compete with Whatsapp worldwide. Now you want the government to step in to help Google make more money?
Let the competition dictate it. No need for the government to get involved. Maybe Google can spend $50 billion to create and market an alternative to iMessage if they truly care instead of these half-ass attempts once every 2 years.
Let's be real here. The only reason Google is pushing this is because they're losing Android users to iOS in the US due to the green/blue bubbles. It's a huge thorn for Android in the US. There is absolutely no reason any government, particularly, EU to push private messaging services to open up so Google can make more profit.
Apple implementing RCS messages should allow anyone to build a messaging app that will be able to integrate directly with iMessage.
It is letting the competition dictate it by leveling the playing field for a behemoth like Apple with every single other messaging app developer/company.
Large tech companies vertically integrating by using their walled gardens as a weapon is literally the point of the EU regulations. For EU regulators, its not taking a side in apple vs google. Its taking a side in mega corporations vs any other company or person
No, it would not allow anyone to integrate directly with iMessage. Apple would ship a competent way to send RCS messages and keep on adding more spices to iMessage.
RCS is better than text, but let’s not delude ourselves, it will likely never be better than iMessage or even WhatsApp.
Well you're talking about a userbase that's ecstatic to be overcharged for every single thing, and are heavily conditioned by Apple to view themselves as superior to other people because they bought a product.
The current scenario is so broken. You have multiple different platforms that do not interoperate with each other.
Different platforms have become the standard de facto in different regions of the world (iMessage in us, WhatsApp in Europe, WeChat in china, ..).
All of these platforms belong to private companies.
A sane landscape would be having platform interoperability, at least for the most common features and then let companies compete on features, not on user networks.
In Europe it is virtually impossible no to use WhatsApp, especially if you have kids. I don’t like it, but it’s one of the service I use the most, because I’m forced to.
I have a few messaging apps on my phone. It doesn't bother me at all that I communicate with my family using iMessage, some friends with Whatsapp, and some friends with other chat apps, and work using Slack.
What's the problem exactly?
To have a standard? Isn't that what phone numbers and SMS are if you want a standard way of reaching someone?
If you have other standards, you reduce innovation because in order to change anything, you have to get 100s of companies to agree and comply.
But if Whatsapp, iOS, Viber, WeChat, etc wants to make something better, they can write the code and release it tomorrow.
Users have chosen the private model. It's better. It's faster. It innovates more. If you want a standard, it'll just become like SMS years later. I don't want one single app. Each app does something better.
It's absurd. Imagine if it extended to voice calls. You could only talk to Apple users if you own an iPhone. Apple, and I guess you, would love it.
This is why we have regulated interoperability on many mass-market technologies. Imagine requiring a Ford to use certain gas stations or a Sony TV to view certain channels. There is no upside for the consumer when mass-market products leverage their popularity to create walled gardens.
You can send a SMS to iPhone users, and they'll see that in iMessage.
If you want a group chat with friends, there are a bunch of apps for that. If your friends wants those cool features but refuse to use any one of existing apps besides iMessage to talk to you, then they are not your friends.
I guess the coutnerpoint is that SMS was invented in, what, the mid 90s? And MMS invented in the mid 00s (?) when things like group chats or sending a video (!) over a phone (at least > 500KB) were inconceivable. We are long overdue for a new, modern, open standard. Apple has in a way invented a pseudo-standard and a) refusing to let others in and b) refusing to also support any other open standard. I think it's reasonable to expect we have a modern standard that supports now-simple things like half decent video transfer, files, groups, locations, etc.
the counterpoint is also that, internet is evolving way faster than those standards are able to keep up to speed.
Considering the issues folks are mentioning here about moving on to RCS and then possibly being unable to receive messages, etc... Americans can just do what the rest of the world does and use any app available on the app/play stores to chat. Whatsapp, kakaotalk, line, telegram, etc...
In fact they are forcing the big messaging monopolies to open up. However, iMessage doesn‘t play a big role here. It‘s WhatsApp they are after and I‘m glad they are.
Arguably false. Are you trying to imply that Apple users are the only common users of messages other than text or that Apple users use third party messaging instead?
Lots of providers implement RCS, lots of people use it. Perhaps none of the people in your particular region/circle of contacts do? My contacts almost all use signal. The exceptions where there are people that don't have any third party messaging apps, they use RCS. To those people, it's "just like a better MMS", they don't know any different, it just improves their messaging with no effort.
At least for the region I know, there are _a lot_ more Android users than iOS users, and third party messaging is really common. In practice, SMS is the last resort if you have nothing else.
All these conversations are always a rehash of "use this proprietary thing instead of that other proprietary thing". I am baffled that the conversation never ventures into technologies that put the user in control.
funny how you recommend Tgram and mention unencrypted RCS. By default all tgram messages are not e2ee (only if you use secret chats that are super limited in functionality so most users use classic chats) basically having access to any message (personal/group)
Because Google wants Apple to adopt RCS in order to prevent Android users in the United States from switching to iOS due to green/blue bubble social pressure.
I don't care what Google wants, I care about an open standard and ending vendor lockin. Did you think it was a problem when Microsoft refused to release MS Office for Apple as well, many years ago?
I use Google Docs exclusively. Sometimes I'll use Apple's built in document apps for local.
Microsoft probably makes more money having Office on Macs than not having it.
Office software competition would have built up from Macs not having MS Office. And MS Office would have stronger competition than today.
I would be cautious of using this with an Apple ID that has any purchases or oauth sign ins. Could be a EULA violation. Then suddenly lose access to all data. No recourse. Thanks, Walled In environment!
Also I wonder if there is any feature disparity between nothing/songbird and iMessage. In my experience, dealing with these bridges is far from perfect. Especially if one or more of them is closed source like imessage. Never know when a change will happen and break your flows
What kind of people still use phone numbers to send messages to people? This is exclusively an American phenomenon; the rest of the world moved away from SMS ages ago. I don't think any of my iPhone-using friends or acquaintances even know what iMessage is.
Same for me in France, nobody uses iMessage, part of the issue is the lower share of iPhones and the other part is iMessage being branded as an SMS app will mean it will never take off since SMS are dead.
Exactly my point. No one outside the US (not sure about Australia) uses SMS any more, it's a ridiculously antiquated technology. I guess Americans still cling to it because it's a huge country and they can send SMS to everyone they know in the whole world for free, since everyone they know is in America. For everyone else (or Americas who actually have friends outside America), SMS is stupid because sending them internationally is horribly expensive.
Yes that exactly what happens. iMessage became the "your package is being delivered" app since pretty much only parcel delivery company are sending SMS.
Telegram needs a phone number register but then you can text people only by username.
Both Signal and WhatsApp have announced usernames, Signal already has a beta version of the app with username support out.
They (Signal) made this[0] blog post last week with APK downloads for testing it in the staging environment (completely without phone number). So if you want to test it, you can already do that right now.
I think it will hit production in early 2024, pretty soon.
Whatsapp is also going forward with a similar feature as a reaction to the Signal updates [1], although not entirely sure if it will work with no phone number at all.
> Nothing Chats is built on Sunbird's platform and all Chats messages are end-to-end encrypted, meaning neither we nor Sunbird can access the messages you're sending and receiving.
> Nothing is powered by Sunbird, and Sunbird's architecture provides a system to deliver a message from one user to another without ever storing it at any point in its journey. Messages are not stored on Sunbird's servers and are only live on your device – once a message is delivered, it can only be recovered locally from your personal device.
> Marques Brownlee has also had a preview of Nothing Chats. He confirmed with Nothing that, similar to how other iMessage-to-Android bridge services have worked before, “...it’s literally signing in on some Mac Mini in a server farm somewhere, and that Mac Mini will then do all of the routing for you to make this happen.”
It seems to me like if they are doing the typical thing of using a bridge like https://github.com/mautrix/imessage then that isn't really E2EE, the messages are being stored, and could be accessed by Sunbird. I don't really see how their claims could be true. Does anyone know? Am I missing something?
Hey, I worked on that bridge! (I’m the Brooklyn guy).
I highly suspect that they’re doing a sort of Matrix hosting thing and can then claim E2EE because Matrix encryption or whatever. But based on how the bridge works (or used to? it’s been some time), then yes - there IS a point in time in which it has to be a plaintext string. Unless they somehow managed to reverse engineer iMessage’s encryption - in which case, well shit, there’s bigger problems now - eventually you have to tell IMCore/imagent and/or ChatKit what it is that you want to send, and who to send it to. And thus it can’t be E2EE otherwise it would be unintelligible to the recipient.
Curious to know if they’re actually talking to imagent and using chatkit (and thus have iMessage features ie typing receipts, sending reactions) or if they’re just using AppleScript and reading the sms db…
God I should go back and rewrite Brooklyn. Now that I’m more than halfway through a CS degree and know how to make a binary search tree and how to not leak memory. lmao
FYI for others, MKBHD just did a video on this and he warned that when using sunbird you are signing onto a physical mac mini somewhere, giving it access to your apple account which isn't great if you keep important things on there.
Short of someone having fully reverse-engineered iMessage I didn't see it any other way given the way it operates (e.g messages in browser).
Their piece about E2E seems especially misleading. I can see how it's "technically true" i.e it's E2E from their servers to the clients + iMessage being E2E itself, but consistent omission of what the E are sounds designed to mislead into thinking that it's device to device. The consequence of a hosted server being pwnd would be catastrophic, essentially meaning full access to the iCloud account.
One of the unspoken underpinnings of iMessage not being available on Android is that the endpoint (the phone) might not be secure, so iMessage had a sort of guarantee that its E2E wasn't compromised via that endpoint. Now I wish Apple would just get an iMessage app on Android out of the door.
I also don't see how they plan to have this be free forever (and what the business model is), especially given the costs associated with hosted Macs.
I mean I personally don't say it is E2E (it is not), rather than they do by having one E being on their side, and thus their verbiage being misleading.
Everyone is concerned about providing their Apple credentials but I think you can always create a throwaway Apple ID on a separate e-mail (or move yours off your primary email) so that there's nothing sensitive in the account besides the messages themselves?
Do most Android users actually care one way or an another?
IMO, it seems like there's a small, if vocal, minority of folks with a deeply weird inferiority complex around blue bubbles and most people don't care at all. None of my Android using friends seem to give a shit.
It’s an Android thing – Apple users are just getting on with their lives, most people outside of the US use an app like WhatsApp, WeChat, or Telegram (iMessage isn’t even in the top 5 globally). Google is pouring millions into a big marketing campaign trying to get people to think of green bubbles as inferior because they’ve accepted catastrophically botching their messaging play and are hoping to get the EU to bail them out. The more they can get Android users to feel insecure about iOS using the same color it’s always used, the more likely that play is to succeed.
Consider that if Google’s goal was actually interoperable messaging they could have opened up their own services at any point since they shut down federation for XMPP, and they could right now be offering E2EE as a free community standard rather than something carriers pay Google to get. They spent money buying Jibe and are hoping to use RCS adoption to make that more profitable.
IMHO, you can tell that Google's also at fault because there's no Android messaging besides SMS. Android users outside of US (where SMS is not used) have to rely on Whatsapp/Line/Kakaotalk/Facebook Messenger.
If Android had invested in that, they would have something that's very commonly used in everywhere except US.
In Europe - NL/CH/IE, specifically - everybody I know uses WhatsApp and Signal (except the Swiss who sometimes insist on Threema), even between iPhones-- iMessage never even comes up. I don't think anybody's sent me an SMS in literally years, bar one North American-based guy I used to work with.
(I'm sure someone out there knows a clique of European iMessage partisans, but that someone is not me!)
Yeah same here in Spain and I have a lot of Dutch friends. Nobody has sent me an SMS in years and I don't have iMessage. Some of my friends have iPhones but they just use WhatsApp or telegram like everyone else (for Dutch friends WhatsApp is the main thing, here in Spain it's more telegram but also because its group chats are infinitely better and I'm involved in a lot of groups)
My kids both got social shit and low-level exclusion for being green, with stories of the same for their peers. It's like being seen as dressing in hand-me-downs. Shouldn't make a difference, and doesn't to the wearer, but it does to the others. All stupid yet thanks to the way people are socialized, true.
9to5Mac.com are reporting that Apple are going to support RCS messaging soon:
> Later next year, we will be adding support for RCS Universal Profile, the standard as currently published by the GSM Association. We believe RCS Universal Profile will offer a better interoperability experience when compared to SMS or MMS. This will work alongside iMessage, which will continue to be the best and most secure messaging experience for Apple users.
I'm curious what people think the game plan and business dynamics is for this decision?
Really don't encourage using an external service to use imessage. Giving your apple credentials and also the dependency on Sim cards to make it stable is just trouble waiting to happen.
To this day, the best solution for imessage on Android is BlueBubbles or Airmessage. I use both for redundancy. It does require having my Sim in an iPhone, and having a Mac, for everything to be bulletproof.
I don't recommend it to people who aren't technical, but it's helped me with my dating life to have blue messages...
I was just thinking of doing this myself. I'm hoping Apple doesn't shut it down. I recently switched to an iPhone because all of my friends use iMessage (I'm in the US). I'm not happy about having to switch, but it's how they choose to communicate and it's a heck of a lot better than SMS/MMS. I'm planning to buy a used Mac Mini and connect it to some messaging gateway or build my own. Then I can use whatever phone I want (used to be a pinephone user).
Look up BlueBubbles. It’s pretty easy to setup a server on a Mac with almost all the features. It’s how I get iMessage on my work laptop (linux), so I don’t have to pull out my phone when my wife messages at work.
as to the rest of you like you have to share your Apple ID with Nothing/Sunbird and are like that's a disaster waiting to happen not for me, I barely used my Apple ID and actually since their cloud service wasn't end to end encrypted and zero knowledge I started disabling my cloud backup and deleting what was in my Apple cloud before I went over to Android. I told people my Tech Tip was not to to use them but use SpiderOak, Very little has changed. Only problem with my advice is like, Write your password down and put one in a secure deposit at the bank because if you forget it they can't help you.
This is extremely unethical to offer as a service. Apple account credentials have to be stored as plain text to continuously reauthenticate with apple's servers and the broken e2e means they can store whatever they want from your messages (as well as all other parts of your apple account, like photos and icloud backups).
If they wanted to do this properly the answer is to reverse engineer whatever protocol imessage uses under the hood and make their own client - this is most likely just a simple rebrand of the few FOSS tools that already do the same imessage relay thing.
And of course, when apple inevitable does fight this, the average person will chimp out thinking it's apple doing apple things when in reality no other company would allow a third party to harvest their user's credentials and data in this manner.
From other sites, it seems it uses a Mac Mini in a server room as a proxy for iMessage to accomplish this, with the massive drawback of having to provide Nothing your Apple ID credentials.
Uses the Sunbird app https://www.sunbirdapp.com. Requires one to sign in using their Apple ID which, I presume, is actually stored/signed in on an actual server somewhere in their DC.
Technically and legally this should be possible. Unfortunately there are both ethical and technical reasons to avoid Sunbird. The Sunbird developers are spreading a FUD hit piece against open source software[1], which rubs me very wrong. They also clearly don't understand software development best practices.
The following statement from Sunbird makes no sense, and only serves to imply that they don't practice code review: "There is no central authority to ensure quality and maintenance [of open source contributions] and by putting that responsibility on Sunbird, development would not be feasible."
If they're worried that open source contributions will sneak flaws past code review, then they clearly aren't ready to review existing closed source contributions either.
Make sure you get your dog or a random stranger to accept Metas terms and conditions on the accounts you may or may not be using otherwise they will try to send you legal threats based on their overbroad terms and conditions
Then you just have Beeper. It costs a lot of money to maintain bridges to these messaging apps. It's not sustainable to have all of them in a single app.
you dont need a single app, you need a single protocol. For something so relatively simple, the only reasons to not unify standards are anti-competitive reasons.
But I think it's because when a message uses iMessage, then there are reactions and other features available, where messages from Android are regular SMS and will lack those
I asked a bunch of teen to 30+ year old friends and family, and every one would say that for the purposes of dating, they would require iOS usage due to the perceived probability of an Android user being an incompatible match being too high.
It literally does. I'd imagine the kind of people that they don't want to associate with are exactly the kind of people who wouldn't like them anyway. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.
What on Earth would drive that perception? Do iOS users prefer dating other people who will spend lots of money on a status symbol? This sounds like nothing but a thinly-veiled attempt at discrimination based on an assumed level of wealth. (Which, if you've priced out Pixels lately, is not at all accurate.)
Ok but the point still stands. My impression of iOS users is they simply feel they prefer the UX, whereas you feel, as an Android user, that you’re making an ideological choice. As someone who cares little for the ideology of consumer choices, I don’t think we’d get along, which reinforces the original point about personal compatibility.
Based on the original comment, the poster heavily implied they’re an Android user specifically for ideological reasons. And indeed, a recent comment confirms this, at least the using Android part: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37771766
Honestly, this was self-evident from the comment. I’m surprised you’re questioning this. Similarly, when I say I don’t care, I really mean I don’t care. I don’t want to spend time thinking about things I don’t care about. So I would be unlikely to enjoy time with someone who forced me to think about things I don’t care about. That doesn’t mean I do care about it.
It feels a little bit like you’re taking plainly self-evident facts and trying to find some deeper meaning or nuance where none exists. That feels like an error-prone way to view the world.
Not really for ideological reasons: I simply find iOS frustrating. I bought an iPod Touch V1 when it first came out and was impressed relative to PDAs of the era; 2G iPhones weren't even available in Europe at that time. I own an iPhone that I use secondarily, and I've tried to switch to an iPhone as my primary device on 3 occasions after being swayed by various people in my life banging on about how great they are ("...now, since they fixed [niggle you're complaining about!"). It invariably ends in, as I usually render it, me "wanting to spike it on the concrete within about an hour of picking it up." The inflexibility of the launcher environment, inability to sideload applications outside of my account's market region (supermarket apps, car parking apps, etc.), browser eccentricities, and so on. I consider these to be technical quarrels. My freetard tendencies haven't prevented me from using Macs heavily for the last two decades.
But on some level, I think I agree with you: the system is working, and just as someone might not want to date me because I use a low-status Android phone (regardless if it cost as much or more than an iPhone), or I prefer a different brand of shoes to the ugly white sneaker currently held in highest esteem, I would not want to date that person if they are so...shallow, I suppose, since I can't think of a less inflammatory term...as to select their mate based on trivialities.
Incidentally, my wife has been an iPhone user since she switched to a smartphone with the 3GS. She has used a spare Android device for a few months between iPhones after an untimely accident, but finds it frustrating because it's not like an iPhone. She also actively prefers Windows, having tried macOS. We met at age 20 in the dumbphone era, and have somehow been married 10 years, and together 19. We bought a farm a couple years ago, and I've recently retired from tech and taken up hobby farming. She loves the quiet of the Irish countryside, and so do I. The house and farm were bought with cash. We've never had a new car; in fact, we've never had a car newer than 9 years old or costing more than €7950. Had she selected against me as a partner all those years ago because I had a Siemens phone rather than a Nokia, our lives would both be very different, but thankfully we both value things that tip the balance materially, rather than peacockish status signifiers that may have nothing to back them up but a costly monthly installment plan with the mobile service provider.
Cheap in the US perhaps. Here in Spain even the SE is 579€ and you can get a great budget or midrange Android for much much less. Which will have lot of mod cons the SE doesn't have like a modern bezelless design, amoled and in-screen fingerprint. Usually even a 3,5mm Jack.
Most people carry Redmi phones and use wired headphones here. It's absolutely about wealth.
A message from an Android user is no different to a spam text message. I expect in Europe most people use WhatsApp anyway so it’s less of an issue.
But in the US, communication with Android users on iOS sucks. Garbage quality media, none of the usual features like reactions or groups or sharing things works well.
Yes, meaning that if all you knew about someone is that they have an iOS device, you would not be able to tell what their wealth/income status is (other than maybe they are not in the bottom 10%).
The cheapest Pixel is $499, so it’s not like Apple users are paying more than the market will bear — and even if you get the Walmart discount phone you’re paying more than the savings in service pretty quickly, so this is a pretty democratic competition compared to all of the other ways people buy things they enjoy or signal affluence: people pay many tens of thousands more for premium SUVs, high end clothing costs considerably more than that iPhone, etc. Half the people here have the same phone as actual billionaires, and we don’t spend any time in their circles otherwise.
Your comment history suggests you have a personal identification with Android, which I think is making it hard to evaluate it rationally. I’d suggest considering whether that’s really a lot of money for something people use so much every single day, and whether your position might be one of the goals of the intense PR play Google has been making to get the EU regulators to make them less of an also-ran in the messaging space - they know it depends on convincing the regulators that Android users are being discriminated against, which is why you hear so many stories about that which turn out to be sourced back to Google and the phone companies.
Compare it to all of the other things people use as status symbols: it’s a tiny fraction of a car, less than a decent suit, and wouldn’t go that far at a nightclub or nice restaurant. Google has been intensely marketing this idea that green bubbles are discriminatory as part of their PR push but I’m skeptical that even if Google got everything they wanted from the EU, the shallow people wouldn’t instantly move on to some other signifier.
Group threads in one manufacturer-provided chat program get annoying.
Venturing outside the defaults by using Signal or WhatsApp (or Threema or Messenger or...) would mitigate this. I suspect the root of the problem is folks accepting defaults unquestioningly, resulting in de facto manufacturer lock-in.
iPhones are popular. I grew up when almost nobody had cell phones or even pagers, and remember the exact same thing happening for having the wrong shoes, jacket, Trapper-Keeper, Walkman, bike, skateboard, etc. or, in high school or later, car. This is why there’s such a booming industry in counterfeit clothes or rapid knockoffs because certain people really prize being able to fit a trend.
If Google gets everything they ask for, the shallow people will instantly move on to something else because that’s how people like that work.
Imagine there was a Whatsapp competitor but available only on iOS and by some quirk of history it was the most popular messaging app in the united states.
I think bubble color implies that SMS and iMessage are interchangeable applications, but they are not.
iMessage has people without an associated phone number, so you need the so-called "blue bubble" in order to talk to them that way, for example if they only use it from macOS.
> Will the app be open source?
> Some of the messaging community believes that software that is open source is more secure. It is our view that it is not. The more visibility there is into the infrastructure and code, the easier it is to penetrate it. By design, open source software is distributed in nature. There is no central authority to ensure quality and maintenance and by putting that responsibility on Sunbird, development would not be feasible. Open source vulnerabilities typically stem from poorly written code that leave gaps, which attackers can use to carryout malicious activities.
Not sure I’d be willing to trust them with my Apple ID credentials.