Android was initially designed so that operators could customise it. The idea was apps were developed (and sold) only by operators, and everything else would be via the browser. If you had used a Nokia device in the EU in 2005 and then the exact same model in the customised form released on a US carrier you'd understand why this was such a terrible idea. The exclusion of carriers from being able to make modifications to the phone was, and remains, an active feature for end users.

People keep having to learn that developers cannot be trusted either, someone somewhere will always trend towards the very worst thing they can do, and you need look no further than this forum for the levels of avarice which have overrun the tech industry. The EU regulators live in a parallel universe where they're all dependent on WhatsApp as they've never truly internalised that there is no such thing as a free lunch and that people see them as easy marks.

I'm not sure where you got this information. The Android Marketplace arrived with version 1.0 of Android on the T-Mobile G1. Side loading has been available since the very beginning.

What you describe more closely resembles what iPhone did, except that it was never a given that Apple's carrier partners were going to be able to ship their own user facing software on the device.

Operators and OEMs can absolutely customize Android and it was more allowed in the beginning than now. As a way to reduce fragmentation and gain more control over the platform, Google started attaching more and more stipulations to allowing it's suite of software (including Marketplace, now known as Google Play) to be included on handsets.

Was there ever a case of a mobile operator launching their own software store on Android? Certainly OEMs did it, with the Samsung app store being the most prominent. Genuinely curious here, as others do note that (see the Japanese handsets post) OEMs have and even still do a bunch of customization and pre installed apps.

I was working in mobile games at the time and ended up working with Google on the Play Store launch, among other things.

But what I mentioned was not some big secret. Everyone knew Android was supposed to be the response to google having to keep stashes of j2me devices in drawers, which is ironically what everyone ended up needing to do with Android devices.

People have memory holed just what a shock the iphone caused, not just technically but strategically, and how it altered who has the power over distribution. The whole industry (google included) did not see this coming because of the power of the carriers.

It was still a better situation. An Android app might need tweaks but at least you're dealing with the same SDK/API (maybe with proprietary extensions?)

Those J2ME phones felt like you needed to start from basically scratch for each phone model.

> I was working in mobile games at the time and ended up working with Google on the Play Store launch, among other things.

Well, mobile games are distributed via ads, not the "stores."

I don't know. This distribution, network effects story. It's sort of, whatever. People were using chat apps then, and people are using chat apps now. The iOS App Store and Google Play are such shit shows, they are glorified installation wizards for 99.9% of people. Whether you have to install-wizard via sideloading or via a deep link or whatever, it's not super material nor revolutionary. I think this comes from conflating Steam with the App Store, ultimately Steam is a real, bonafide store, and the mobile app stores are more like technical restrictions that someone is using to take a 30% cut of revenues. Which is what everyone is saying anyway.

This was also the case for Palm smartphones. Since they were an amalgam of a Palm PDA and a cell phone, they kept the app model of Palm PDAs. IIRC, you could even transfer apps from one Palm PDA to another through their infrared port, or through Bluetooth if both were fancy ones.

I remember everyone scoffing at the "lol you can't type on it" dramatically missing this point.

Even back then, people were exactly clear on those two things being the true revolution of the iPhone.

Just something else I was thinking about with Android. I love the Android OS but Google’s implementation is far and away the best version and while you could technically run Android with just the bare necessities and without google apps, it may as well be unusable. So, google has “technically” made it available without their services but the juice isn’t worth the squeeze to get it working how you want it.

Nonetheless, the very first phone that shipped with Android on it was the T-Mobile G1 (also branded as the HTC Dream).

> Just something else I was thinking about with Android. I love the Android OS but Google’s implementation is far and away the best version and while you could technically run Android with just the bare necessities and without google apps, it may as well be unusable. So, google has “technically” made it available without their services but the juice isn’t worth the squeeze to get it working how you want it.

Yes, it's unfortunate that AOSP is a shell that is missing so much-- it's more an OS framework than a complete OS at this point.

The problem with this is that Apple is also a developer trying to sell you things. I would feel better if Apple's goals and the user's goals were aligned all the time instead of just some of the time.

Admittedly, Apple's real priority is just to make money on every transaction that occurs upon an idevice.

Apple makes hardware enabled platform experiences for end users who don't want to tweak and people who value their own time more than money. That's a big reason Apple causes so much resentment -- not everyone can value time over money.

It's also resented by devs who don't understand or value what a hardware enabled platform experience for end users can mean to their income if they grok it.

Is it? I have been buying apple products for over 20 years now, and like most people here make a lot more money than the people who behold an iPhone as a status symbol lol.

I still see Apple's desire to get a kickback for every transaction on an iPhone nefarious nickel and diming, and I see their "ecosystem" as deliberate vendor lock-in - and I think that "ecosystem" actually holds Apple's OSes back in terms of innovation.

I regularly disagree with Apple's choices. Not all of em? I was ok with the vision pro - not buying one, but sometimes you need to experiment with things like that. Just because I disagree doesn't mean I have to all-or-nothing it.

Per all the smug "just get an android phone" comments, I DID. I have a galaxy fold 4 and an iPhone 13 sitting on my desk. Yea, I can afford to do silly stuff like that, and I'm a goofy nerd that likes trying different things. I don't have a steadfast attachment to one platform - another reason I find the "ecosystem" stuff obnoxious.

So then Apple is just as bad as the other developers, and instead users should be able to use their own property to bypass any sort of Apple fees.

Problem solved. Let the user decide if they want to refuse to pay the Apple fee, and buy on alternative app stores.

Culturally the phone company (and the descendant cellular operators) were very much of this philosophical outlook.

This page goes into particulars about the historically closed nature of the phone system and the cases that led to the eventual opening of bring your own equipment (Hush-a-phone, Carterfone etc):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customer-premises_equipment

No, power users rarely influenced mainstream adoption of any tech. Apple and the rest didn't become trillion dolar corps by catering to power users. Power users are niche and very picky market not worth catering to if you want to make it big.

What made the "WIntel/IBM" PC gain majority mainstream market share was that is was all open(not to be confused with open source) which allowed everyone, not just power users, but regular users too, and also any HW vendor and SW developer to decide what HW and SW they can develop and sell to users, and what users can install on their system, without the consent or added 30% tax from the original vendor or manufacturer of the system.

It was basically an open bazaar and a cost race to the bottom, where the free market decided the winners and losers based on consumer preference, but there was no global authority to say "I'm not gonna allow your SW/HW to run on the platform we developed". Microsoft or Intel couldn't gatekeep what you installed or ran on the Intel/Windows platform.

Sure, the PC platform had it's own set of issues due to overabundance of cheap low quality HW/SW that caused poor UX, and anti-trust issues from the Windows and Intel monopolies, but it was overall a net benefit due to the open playing field. Can you imagine 3dfx, ATI and Nvidia GPUs not being allowed to run on the PC platform because Intel had a closed PCI standard that only worked with their own GPUs?

If all Apple cared about is making money, would they have spent upwards of 10 Billion+ on an Apple Car only to cancel it later. At its height, Vision Pro R&D cost 2 billion per quarter, yes you read that correctly, almost 25% of their yearly net profits went into development of Vision Pro Alone. Does this sound like gouging the customer to line their executive pockets to you?

If Apple executives had lined their pockets, then why is the top Apple Executive only worth 2 Billion when Apple is worth close to 3 Trillion, that is less than 0.1% of Apple’s valuation. Apple’s top executive does not even make it to the world’s top 100 by wealth. Does that not make you think?

>Does this sound like gouging the customer to line their executive pockets to you?

Yes, it does, when they lobby to fight against right-to-repair. Yes, it does, when they price gouge the customer on storage upgrades. Yes, it does, when they hide defects in their products and push people to buy new products. Yes, it does, when they use child labor.

“Storage upgrades” are shallow thinking compared to reliable unified memory at GPU speed -- again across a billion devices.

Both of these benefit more consumers more, and more of the device lifetime, than the rarely applicable supposed harms you cite.

They were price gouging even before unified memory so your argument doesn’t really hold water. I am sorry.

The answer to that will be different for different customers, or potential customers. A lot of iPhone customers like me are quite happy with the devices more or less as they are. The vast majority of people complaining about iPhones aren't iPhone customers. Frankly I don't really see why I should care what they think.

I'm more sympathetic to actual iPhone customers, or former customers that left, but looking at the numbers satisfaction levels with iPhones are through the roof. This is a teeny tiny proportion of customers. The case for Apple harming the interests of customers directly is super thin.

The other main dimension to this is Apple's commercial relations with other companies, mainly app store developers. I'm sympathetic to the idea that such relationships should be regulated to at least some extent. I'm glad controls on links to external payment options are being opened up, and there's pressure towards more equitable revenue structures. I think this is the main area Apple's control of the platform is open to abuse, but IMHO that doesn't extend to third party app stores. The current app store should be properly regulated, I think third party stores are a complete distraction. They'll never take off, and are probably going to be a worse experience for users.

I tend to agree that the focus on "3rd party app stores" is stupid, I'd much rather we force computer vendors to have unlockable bootloader's and focus on consumer rights legislation, ensuring people can own the things they buy.

Given that a very large number of these people buy Samsung products of all companies, the idea that they’re avoiding Apple on ethical grounds seems somewhat unlikely.

It's anything but dead simple. (And I went from Android to Apple back in 2020 and back to Android in 2021. It sucked, both ways.)

Japanese Android phones bought from carriers are fucking horrible because they have modifications both from the manufacturer (eg: Sony, Samsung) and the carrier.

I wonder if this is partially why Japan is among the few markets led by iOS rather than Android. I hate iOS, but Android from Japanese carriers is such a hellscape it might just be worth tolerating the former.

1. Format a flash drive with two partitions 2. Burn the Windows installer ISO to the first partition 3. Download all the drivers to the second partition 4. Flash the BIOS with the latest version 5. Ensure you are NOT connected to the Internet and boot flash drive 6. Install Windows, disallow the metrics they let you opt-out 7. Creating a local account works because offline 8. Install drivers avoid add-on software from manufacturer 9. Edit local group policy - enable "Turn off Microsoft Consumer Experience" 9a. Alternatively, edit the Registry, DisableWindowsConsumerFeatures in HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\CloudContent 10. Connect Internet, check for updates reboot a few times 11. Open Microsoft Store and uninstall any junk apps (stubs) 12. Install whatever other software you desire 13. Configure your update settings so it is less annoying

Personally I use the community of version of Arch i3, not going to check the source on that, but will trust that community might keep an eye on anything nefarious.

Doesn't seem like Linux is completely immune from that either(i.e. XZ Utils).

But the build is amazingly stable and fast, and I will have to take it good faith that they didn't do anything that would harm me.

I can at least track down the author in various communities and seems to be semi-open about their identity. There is a forum thread any concerns I can bring up with the person responsible.

They are also taking donations. I would hope that exposes them to some liability and financial trail if they are found doing something illegal.

https://www.teamos.xyz/threads/windows-x-lite-optimum-11-24h...

Creating a local account is basic sense (no, not common sense; we aren't common people), and not connecting to the internet during install is recommended but not a hard requirement.

Installing drivers while avoiding their bloatware is, again, basic sense.

Disabling "Microsoft Consumer Experience" does nothing as far as I've experienced (and it shouldn't, the setting is only effective on Windows 11 Enterprise and Education); I never modify that setting myself.

On the other hand, I turn off Automatic Updates (automatic Windows Update) and Microsoft Store's ability to automatically download and update programs via the Group Policies. This is probably what you want if Disney+ keeps bothering you.

This all said, if you're getting pestered by third-party crapware you are probably using Windows 11 Home. Just pay up for a Professional license and save your time and nerves. The cheaper price of Home licenses is offset by third-party crapware.

It does not, I've been working with fresh installs a lot this year for one reason or another and no fresh Windows 11 Professional installation has had third-party crapware pre-installed. That includes an install I just did a few days ago using an ISO downloaded straight from Microsoft.

Windows 11 Home probably does have them, though.

Honestly, I think this situation is worse for consumers than anything Apple is doing. Technically you have more choice with Windows and Android but it can be difficult for the average consumer to make an informed decision because the device manufacture cram so much stuff onto these devices without your knowledge.

Don't know if that is still true today.

Maybe in the US/West when you bought prebuilt form the likes of Dell. But in my home of EE, most PCs we had for sale in shops were locally assembled with no OS, or just vanilla OEM Windows installed (sometimes even pirated).

Crap installed by default on PCs is not something I ever encountered where I live.

Maybe it's an EU thing that stopped all the preloaded crap, no idea.

This happened because no OEM license = cheaper. These days I don't think it matters anymore, because probably the OEM license is much cheaper than it was back then.

Subsidies are also stil the wild wild west, with the regulators teppidly trying to do something about it but with no real change in sight. Buying from a carriers will reduce the real phone price up to a quarter depending on how you do it, and the carrier will have buy backs to sweeten the deal further, so you'll be eating what the carrier feeds you.

And that's all compound with the same phone supporting different network bands depending on where they're sold, and resale value plumetting because of that (even if you carrier unlock the phone, it won't support all of other carriers' network bands)

The iPhone winning so big is in no small part thanks to Apple not getting in bed with the carriers.

If it’s bad and it can be done it will be done, and at scale.

I have been tracking my data use and last year it was only 70GB. And I have trimmed a bit more out of that since, especially on the podcast side which was the bulk of the data. It is getting to the point where I might just use my photo data plan which now has 120GB a year as it is more than enough.

Put tight controls in place. You can make it extremely difficult to bypass. You could have a recovery mode like Android and bury the setting in there. I think that makes it sufficiently hard that you don't have to worry about a grandma being tricked into rebooting her phone while holding down a specific button combination and then navigating through a bunch of arcane menus without touch controls to enable side loading. But its enough that someone that is technically inclined and who wants that control over their device can have it.

The solution to the grandmother scenarios is to have a trusted relative that works closely with them, who they trust to copilot or handle completely all business dealings. If that's not possible, then they're at risk whether they have an iphone or android.

And people who do not like "unsafe" technology are perfectly free to not use it at all.

If you make something idiot-proof, they will simply provide a better idiot.

Huh? No one's forcing them to install F-Droid for crying out loud. If you want what Apple does, then use Apple's store.

It's perfectly reasonable for the default setting of a phone to forbid sideloading apps. And anyone who doesn't want to can leave it that way. That's the 'option of safety'.

Sheesh...

Why? Because historically, iOS has been the more profitable platform for mobile developers by a large margin. The payoff for building and maintaining an alternative app store for Android only is questionable, but improves significantly if the store can exist on iOS too.

Hell, when she is scammed, Apple apologists will tell her it's not really that bad, and to get off Apple's case about it...

Gruber:

> Instead, the scam LassPass app tries to steer you to creating a “pro” account subscription for $2/month, $10/year, or a $50 lifetime purchase. Those are actually low prices for a scam app — a lot of scammy apps try to charge like $10/week.

(emphasis mine)

Lucky people, I guess? They could have been scammed for more?

He also claims, without any way to know, that "it doesn't look like this was made to steal LastPass credentials".

The whole article is very much a "yeah it sucks and shouldn't happen, but this is no big deal, really, why are you getting all up in Apple's face about it?" vibe.

Ah yes, but Apple can /s

The real lesson is that Apple can't be trusted either, and the best thing you can do is allow the user to choose who to trust.

I want to say that this was deliberate. The iPhone was a new product that needed the general population to adapt, and mental models around its use. An App Store at launch would have been hot garbage. Touch apps at that point were shittacular PocketPC apps.

The HTML5/Web Apps recommended by Jobs were also deliberate in order to get developers to move toward formatting sites for mobile.

This was 5D Chess.

This conversation happened 8 years ago and it was about a product released 12 years ago. If anything, this shows how slow regulators are before they take any action and how they are effectively contributing to building the garden walls, through inaction.

AirBnB isn't opening up their platform to Expedia. Meta isn't allowing your Instagram data to be accessed by another platform. Your own company isn't voluntarily making it easier for its customers to leave.

In what universe do you exist where SMS was removed?

There would be nothing wrong with that if Apple wasn't equally as miserly with that power as the carriers they want to valiantly protest against. I'm no fan of cell carriers either, but now that we see Apple's end-goal I don't think their cause is righteous at all. In the friendliest of interpretations, they are a competing alternative enabled by disproportionate first-party integration on Apple's behalf. It doesn't take long to extrapolate their motives for deliberately neglecting cross-platform interoperability to bolster their market presence.

If it harms the market, prevents fair competition, and doesn't benefit the general public, there is no rational reason to let iMessage persist the way it is today.

I can absolutely install other messaging apps (WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, etc.) on my iPhone and contact other people on an Android device using that app. The thing that keeps me from doing so isn't the fact that said applications are locked out of a decent percentage of the phone market, but that the network effect helps Apple. Most of my friends don't know, or care to know, what Signal is, even though it's a better application re: privacy than iMessage.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/08/a-decade-and-a-half-...

Which, to me, demonstrates the core problem: Apple succeeded by remaining focused. Google failed because it has some form of institutional ADHD when it comes to messaging services. Google even had a six year head start on Apple with Google Talk, and still managed to fail because they couldn't remain focused.

People are upset that Apple succeeded, but they aren't even running the most popular messaging service out there.

In NA, Messages is the true source of Apple’s power and the key to their evil anticompetitive empire, the only ones who can stop their masterplan are the men in suits from the DOJ.

Outside of NA, it’s the app you use to get TOTP codes and phishing attempts.

You’re right that the real story isn’t that Google missed out competing with iMessage, it’s that they missed out competing with WhatsApp despite having control over the OS and being able to bundle their own messaging app!

Google is not even competitive with third tier apps such as Viber which is really funny. I read HN compulsively yet I don’t know what the name of Google’s current chat app is or even if they have one.

Perhaps you should read HN less then. Along this line of thinking, any business adopting any open standard is a bad thing. Don't you think it's a very weird take?

Doesn't benefit the public? Are happy iPhone users that rely on iMessage every day including it's SMS integration not benefited, or not the public?

You keep suggesting that Apple replaced SMS. They didn't. So per this new statement, they have no multi-platform commitments because they haven't done anything to warrant it.

Is it? Globally, iMessage is far from the most popular messaging application. If it's an attempt at EEE it's not a great one. IE was far more successful in degree and longevity of impact.

And no, they didn't. They just implemented CSS and other things exactly counter to the spec in a number of spots, along with other incompatibilities in order to make developers have to choose: 80% to 90% of the market, or conform to standards?

> That perfectly describes iMessage if we're to believe all the commentary on social media about how iPhone users get the "ick" from seeing a green bubble.

The only people who care about that their own messages on their own phones show up as green bubbles are children. The rest of the world doesn't give a shit. They see green bubbles because they use WhatsApp.

I wish this current generation would learn what’s actually important to fight for. Green bubbles are not on the list.

All they did was put an optional message service in the same app.

One that isn’t even the most popular making it strange to say there is no competition.

They did a bit more than that. There were the glory days that if you ever left the Apple ecosystem, but iMessage ever had an awareness of your number, no other iMessage users could reach you until or unless you did some incantations that Apple didn't make obvious, ideally from an Apple device (that you may not own anymore), to allow your friends to keep sending you even green bubble messages?

I know multiple people who had to go to Apple stores to try to do this process.

So this isn't an exclusive Apple problem.

It is a wild projection, a common one amongst members of this esteemed congregation.

Removing SMS supports invalidates and revokes the 3G/4G/5G network compliance with standards and certification, whether you are Apple or an invisible fifth column. It also voids the right to display the very same 3G/4G/5G sign in the upper part of the smartphone screen and opens a very expensive path to litigation from all sorts of patent holders from the 3/4/5G patent pool.

Maybe Ma Bell's success was in-part due to their free long-distance calls. It's kinda moot speculation when you look at their top-down business strategy though.

Running the IM equivalent of an open SMTP relay is a ghastly experience for users. You literally have to gatekeep because the alternative is going back to circa-2000 levels of spam.

Deep down you know exactly what would happen because we’ve all lived it with spam voice calls again recently - we’ve been trying to reach you about your car’s warranty…

Destroying a working, positive experience on the apple platform and dragging it down to 2000s level is the explicit goal for a lot of people. The pain is the point - not to bring android up but simply to tear things down and walk away.

The vast majority of spam is explicitly permitted by Google. What are you talking about? Do you not use e-mail? They have a Promotions tab, they could make spam - that is, marketing emails - go away in an afternoon, if they wanted to. They just don't, because those same companies are Google Ads customers.

Now, the spam argument for iMessage makes little sense IMO - you're still going to get the same message via SMS. However, with Apple in charge, there is a chance that there will be some kind of "report + temporal ban" feature. Carriers have no incentive to create such feature.

It is certainly not lmao - try sending mail to google from your own smtp server on your own doma

Seeing some spam occasionally doesn’t mean the vast majority isn’t being rej

> They have a Promotions tab, they could make spam - that is, marketing emails - go away in an afternoon, if they wanted to.

opting into newsletters is explicitly not spam, so either you don’t understand the basics of being on the internet or you’re arguing in bad faith.

Which is probably also implied by the “I saw a spam once therefore google runs an open SMTP relay” take honestly. You know that’s not true either. We both know you know. Why are you doing this?

again:

Google doesn’t provide your desired standard of openness either, in their own oligopolistic fiefs/gatekeeper domains like gmail. And everyone understand why it’s a bad idea. Forced open interop is an unworkable idea and forcing an unworkable idea on iMessage is the whole goal. Flooding iMessage with spam 2000s-style by forcing an “open relay” into the system is the whole point, whether you realize it or not.

Just like forcing “choice of browser” was never about giving users freedom either - but about wiping away the last counterbalance against chrome’s dominance/monopoly in the browser market. Hence the flood of shit like web integrity and adtech ever since.

C'mon. Signing up for a store to buy a thing doesn't grant permission to bother me with a newsletter, you very frequently just can't opt out until they've sent you something.

That's the "I'm not touching you" of compliance and spam-in-spirit should have a mudhole stomped into it--and yet does not.

They could completely design the spec by themselves with all the pro-consumer features that one could imagine including things like distributed spam filtering and then force the carriers to adopt it either by using the stick (force adoption by X date or lose the iPhone) or the carrot (shift proprietary iMessage features to the new standard so that users demand the carrier adopt it -- basically green bubble any carrier that doesn't use the standard). No other company in the country could do this.

But of course, complete control over a proprietary iMessage protocol that they can lock competitors out of is apart of the business strategy.

I’d argue that a much more urgent matter is opening up “accounts” so that they can never lock and delete my online data without recourse. This is way more important than iMessage on Android, to which there are plenty of options already.

Apple can create whatever they want, but they're going to get the scrutiny they deserve. iMessage should be an on-ramp to better communications for everyone; instead it's become the flaming symbol of Apple's deliberate negligence. This is absolutely the point regulators should be stepping in and ensuring Apple isn't headed down an anti-consumer pathway that ensures market harm.

We would have never had iMessage, Whatsapp, Messenger, etc. Other countries would have far surpassed us in messaging communication tech.

Regulations are a double edged sword.

The web is what it is today because its open. The telephone network is what it is today because its interoperable. Imagine if the web was bifurcated based on the operating system you wanted to use (that was Microsoft's vision in the late 90s and early 00s: to create a large section of the web that required Windows). Imagine if a Verizon customer had a limited feature set when calling an AT&T customer (like the inability to leave a voicemail for instance). No one would tolerate these things. But yet people will argue in favor of this with messaging (as long as its Apple doing it)

It doesn't seem the same, but that's effectively also stifling to innovation.

For one thing, if the whole reason something like iMessage got created was to ensure an Apple monopoly, if they couldn't use it to do that, they just wouldn't build it, not build it open instead.

For another, what does "open and interoperable" even mean? There isn't necessarily a defined protocol for these things already. So who would come up with one? Almost certainly, the big companies would have to be involved, and they could steer the standard to benefit themselves, even just by making it closer to something they've already built (which makes total technical sense too - of course you want to base the protocol on existing tech!).

But that means that compliance is much harder for smaller companies, which would mean you're giving a huge advantage to a big player anyway.

As opposed to the no-regulation world, in which Whatsapp was a startup that could do whatever it wanted, and ended up being the default messaging platform that half the world uses.

2G/3G/4G/5g did not hinder the mobile industry it only fostered it .

Standard payment interface like UPI did not stop apps for payments being built , India didn’t need a Venmo or WeeChat to innovate here before standardization

Innovations happen despite or without regulations if there is market demand for it . FRAND patents exist for a reason.

I can’t think of any common example where interoperability killed innovation

A lot of email protocol communication has been replaced by private, non-open solutions such as Slack, forums, Whatsapp, etc.

There should be open and closed protocols. If you want to use an open one, then go ahead, If a closed one works better for you, then go ahead.

. . . and likewise did not require regulation for companies to be interested in adopting.

Also, SMS is the open protocol so we have at least one interoperable standard for people to choose from.

(Or to take another example of the operate-blatantly-illegally-until-you-bribe-your-way-to-legalization and loss-lead-til-monopoly industry, it's almost like having the taxi market controlled by Uber and Lyft instead of myriad local cab companies is a bad thing)

(Or to bring it back to the point of the thread, it's almost like having the mobile phone app market controlled by Apple and Google is a bad thing)

What is Apple supposed to do? Spend time and money on interop to better the lives of Android users? There’s nothing wrong with them doing so if they like, but I fail to see any obligation they have.

We live in a world where every landline telephone can dial another with no trickery or fuckery from your phone manufacturer.

That is a good thing. We should extend that functionally to smartphones.

Blue/green might be irrelevant to you, but it is definitely not irrelevant to many people.

> Even a txt costs me if the Android is overseas

Sounds like your telecom sucks. Why are you demanding something of Apple. Why don’t you get your government to regulate your own telecoms?

The bulk of apples iPhone business is on US carriers. Who, on a good day, are in the Stone Age.

This is probably one of the things the government will be regulating.

But like you said, if it's a minor thing then Apple will have no problem complying and it's no big deal.

The solution to what? Apple supports SMS/MMS. They've pre-announced (something they rarely do) RCS support. They support VoLTE for HD voice calls.

Let's say the federal government eminent-domains iMessage protocols. Then what? Do you really think Apple's just going to carry traffic from untrusted devices, and for free?

This statement says a few extra things that Craig Federighi probably didn't realize he was saying.

1) It suggests that the iPhone wouldn't be able to hold its own in a market where interoperability with Android was easier. That demonstrates a lack of faith in it.

2) I've noticed that any time a corporation starts to clutch its fingers around its flagship product and make it less open, it starts to die. Oh sure, there's an upfront benefit perhaps in sales, but you're literally selling the future of your thing to profit from it today, by doing this.

It is just a statement of the obvious. Price tends to trump every other consideration, unless the difference is pretty big. See also airline ticket pricing and the race to the bottom in comfort & features. If there is no differentiator, a lot of people will just get Android phones because they cost less. They'll put up with quite a lot of abuse as long as they save a few bucks. It'd probably end up like gmail.

But, huge swaths of the public regularly pay much more than the minimum required to have better:

• Cars

• Clothing

• Restaurants

• Theater seats

These are just the first few that come to mind.

Now, is the difference between high- and low-end clothing "pretty big"? I guess it depends on what you mean, but both will fundamentally cover your body.

For airlines, people just want to get from point A to point B, and nothing else really matters at the end of the day. Even on higher end airlines, flying is unlikely to be a truly pleasant experience, unless maybe you pay almost an order of magnitude more for first class or something. People just want to get it over with.

I mean, I think we're saying the same thing here. But whereas I feel you're framing this as a "bug" in how consumers operate, I think they're behaving quite logically. People will pay more for things they actually care about. When they don't care, they choose the cheapest option.

Turns out that the curated experience of iPhone combined with a lot of fumbles from various android vendors has kept iPhone image of being the best and most desirable phone.

It is very vaguely feeling like if another big player was to come in they could actually make some waves that causes everyone else to jump. To the benefit of the users. But I doubt that will happen.

At that time, the only thing to keep me on the iPhone was iMessage - not that I didn't want to be a green bubble, it just the SMS experience sucks in general, RCS wasn't a thing you could use at that time. However, once I've met my future ex-wife, that stopped being an issue because we used fb messenger to talk.

Fast-forward to summer 2023, I'm in a process of divorce, watching Apple event. Get possessed by Steve Jobs, pause presentation, order new iPhone and Apple Watch Ultra for self-pickup, finish watching the presentation, drive to pick up my new phone and watch. Quick migration and up and running.

Android (Pixel) Pros:

- back button, the thing I knew I will miss a lot

- all pixel exclusive features like call screening

- I prefer stock android control center

- sideloading (i've made my own reddit client for android tv and used it for loooong time)

- kotlin > objc (irrelevant since swift)

- fingerprint scanner on the back of a phone was a genius decision

Android (Pixel) Cons:

- google inconsistent web interfaces

- apps have much lower quality

- Google wants you to use Chrome Cast, so you can connect your phone to a monitor

- Most non-stock android makes me want to vomit, specially Samsung

- Google didn't know how to position Pixel (is it a flagship? is it a mid-level? is it a low-end? wtf was pixel 5?)

- Watch experience is meh

- under screen fingerprint scanners suck

- Wired Android Auto sent me to therapy a few times (jk, but it was frustrating)

iPhone Pros:

- Apps better quality

- Better watch integration

- iMessage (won't elaborate)

- AirPods switching experience is near damn perfect

- idk just look and feel subjectively better

- Wireless Car Play easier to find than Wireless Android Auto

iPhone Cons:

- control center, so many times I've turned off wifi or bt instead of what I wanted to do

- lacking "back button experience" from android

- didn't use usbc until last year

I'm an Android user, and a little less than a year ago I actually bought an iPhone, specifically due to Apple's iMessage lock-in (nearly all of my friends have iPhones, and the especially broken group messaging between iMessage and Android was the primary driver of my desire to get an iPhone).

Except the problem was that, after over a decade on Android, I had zero desire to switch over all of my data and apps over to iPhone. For better or worse the "Google ecosystem" is where all my stuff lives and I just didn't have a desire to spend a bunch of effort just to switch. I ended up giving the iPhone as a gift to an iOS-loving family member.

That's the thing about both iOS and Android platforms - I think you'll find anyone who has been in those platforms for more than a couple years will be extremely reluctant to switch just due to the effort. Our cell phones are often the center of our digital lives now: apps, headphones, watches, etc. The lock-in I think is more from that "ecosystem effect" than any amount of particular lock down.

For example, in Scandinavia the current marker leader on all platforms is Facebook Messenger, despite this also being one of the only markets where iOS is the dominant platform compared to Android. Further south on the continent, WhatsApp is the undisputed leader.

People have all of these apps, and it's my impression that using iMessage exclusively is extremely rare. Cross-platform support is a feature that impacts which app people use, and they are perfectly free to use a different messaging app.

The fact of the matter is that in the US, especially for specific socioeconomic groups, iOS is by far the dominant platform, and for many people since iMessage is the default, their definition of "texting" is simply iMessage. You state, "it's baffling to me that your friend group wouldn't simply switch to a messaging app with good group chat support" - except that completely ignores network effects, and many times I am literally the only person on Android. If I'm, say, going on a vacation with friends and literally 10 of them are on iOS and I'm the only one on Android, it's a losing battle to try to convince the other 9 to switch, especially since nearly all of their other contacts are on iOS/iMessage. A restaurant in Austin, TX, famous for their funny signs, even had a joke about it: https://www.instagram.com/p/CwLKeGRLieb

The reason the situation in Europe is different is primarily due to 2 factors:

1. iOS was never as dominant in the EU as the US

2. Perhaps more importantly, what is often forgotten is that in the EU and elsewhere about ~15 years ago, per-SMS rates from telecoms were egregiously expensive, while in the US by that time they were mostly unlimited with a flat monthly rate. So there was never a huge drive to get off SMS in the US (this is why WhatsApp first took off much faster outside the US than within it). In a pretty brilliant "Embrace/Extend/Extinguish" move, iMessage initially simply because the default SMS app on iPhone. Users never really "picked" any messaging app, they just continued to use the "texting app" that had always been on their phones.

That's less likely to happen to you in Scandinavia, perhaps since Puritans found it safer to set sail for New England than keep trying to evangelize Vikings.

Also, yes, everyone's perfectly free to use a different messaging app, and in different cohorts everyone does, which suggests it's not Apple's "walled garden" causing these difference.

* This has been true at various times, including times FB has said it isn't true. I did see the WhatsApp founder walk away from a billion dollars over various issues, and stopped using it then too.

https://www.news.com.au/technology/online/social/im-a-sellou...

Unfortunately our anti-trust laws were written in the 19th century, so they deal with very specific types of anti-competitive behavior. Modern tech firms basically grew up in an environment where the goal was to maintain the absolute minimal level of competition and user choice that stays within the law.

I'm not a group messenger, and basically mute any group messages I'm a part of, so please excuse my ignorance. What's actually broken between iOS and Android with group messaging? Are Android-only group messages better? Will RCS improve this at all?

I'm not saying is impossible or something, but it's just way more effort than it was worth to me. E.g. so many iOS apps by default are set to use iCloud. All of my photos for years were in Google Photos. There is a Google Photos app for iOS, but it is in no way as seamless an experience as on a Pixel (e.g. camera integration). And I think a lot of people would say that if you get an iPhone but specifically avoid Apple's services like iCloud for photos so you can stay on Google's services, that defeats a huge part of the value of being on the iOS ecosystem in the first place.

I first bought an iPhone 5c on a whim, which is well out of support by apple, 5 versions behind the modern iOS. If you turn it on, all the default Apple apps work, in 2024.

You can stream Apple Music and download podcasts with no App Store whatsoever. It’s a powerful little device, more then ten years later.

Compare this to the Android system, where google has wholesale deprecated their podcasts app. You’ll have to find a 3rd party one if you want to access that functionality.

The point I’m trying to make is that for Joe Consumer, everything on an iPhone just works. Modification isn’t even something they consider doing.

In the end, Epic and Spotify get a fat 30% boost in revenue and nobody notices anything different.

Without Apple’s introduction of the smart-phone, millions of app development jobs would not exist. Apple’s 30% tax is reducing profits of some developers, the biggest ones are complaining but none of it is gutting the economy, app development is not being shifted overseas because Apple made the cost of development too high. If anything it is the literal opposite, SWE salaries are still increasing because the demand for app developers still outpaces the supply, and people are more than willing to pay 6 figures+ for a good SWE.

The funny thing is your frame has some truth to it, it’s just your entire thinking is hopelessly muddled that you focus on everything that doesn’t matter. There is case, where the government can step in, raise the price of the iPhones to employ more people, cause net consumer harm but still be better for society. That is in iPhone manufacturing where all the jobs have been shifted overseas and no trade worker in US gets employed to make iPhones. This is a real problem, and yet no one in the FTC cares about this, they may not even know this problem exists in their desperate bid to grab power and come up on the front page of NYT with a big win. And what will they achieve? They will let some other app developers make more money, but no offense to 99% of HN, you guys are highly paid and a 30% higher potential margin really doesn’t matter. They will dictate design decisions to a company that is probably 100000x better at design than the FTC is and get fawning reviews from NYT, get invited to talks at universities, maybe even get called to a late night show (has happened before) and that is probably all that matters to them.

Would anybody notice a difference if they lost 60% of their revenue? How about 95%? I mean it’s just a third party’s ledger right, so who cares?

Joe Consumer doesn’t even notice the garden has walls.

His Apple maps frequently pointed to slightly wrong places (like 50 meters off) when given coordinates shared by messaging apps. Sometimes closing the maps app and reclicking the link fixed the position. It got to a point that he started sharing destination coordinates with me so I could open Google Maps on my phone so we could navigate confidently.

Also he complained that Canva and Instagram apps were slow or broken for some operations on the phone. For example trying to share a longer video in reels resulted in app crashing. But those are not Apple apps so I'm not even counting all these third party issues. But it was like death by a thousand cuts.

Since replacing his iPhone for a newer model, everything was fixed. For now.

Changing the color of the bubbles would just shift the shitty behavior to another product.

It’s one thing to want to fit in, but then we should also force clothing to not have visible brands so kids can’t compare what clothes they have, and youth sports teams so kids can’t exclude non-sports playing peers.

Whereas a green bubble means degraded experience for the entire messaging group just because of that one guy.

Also, one’s appearance can also cause a group to be viewed and treated differently, akin to degrading the “experience”.

Or a much easier approach, Apple could fix that, if they wanted. But they don't because iPhones would lose their status symbol (blue bubble) and teens could then buy other phones without suffering rejection in groups. Apple can't have that.

If culture among teens is hard to change and Apple values income above all, it's up to regulators. But US regulators aren't as active than EU.

Well, let's be clear here: Neither Epic nor Spotify are selling anything with Apple today. Epic's games are not available on iOS, and Spotify requires you to make all purchases through their website.

Spotify's motivation for wanting change on the iOS platform is primarily due to how limiting Apple's profit share and App Store rules are toward expanding its lines of business. Spotify wants to be able to sell one-off audiobooks; but the margins are already razor thin, and would become impossibly thin if Apple had to be paid 30% of every sale. In the most egregiously and obviously monopolistic thing Apple has ever done, they also sell audiobooks via the Books app, where I'm (wink) certain they're paying the 30% fee to (wink) themselves.

One alternative Spotify hasn't tried is marking audiobooks up 30% to account for the fees. Maybe this is something that is contractually extremely difficult to do? Like, authors and publishing agencies don't assign pricing rights to Spotify, they have to sell the audiobooks at the same price they're available for sale on Amazon/Apple Books/etc. I don't know. But, regardless of that, it's a shit card to deal consumers, anyone with half a brain would just buy the audiobook from Apple Books where its 30% cheaper, and Spotify is very reasonably trying to drive traffic to platforms they have higher agency within.

This isn't really about boosting revenue by 30%. Its about unlocking fundamentally different business models from Apple's grasp; business models which Apple has found extremely profitable for itself, yet refuses anyone else to share in.

Spotify is a loss making company finding reasons to blame its problems. What annoys Spotify is that Apple Music exists, this is the age old problem between vendors and distributors, where vendors hate it if Walmart comes out with its own peanut butter jar to sell. The fundamental problem with the vendor here is their product is not differentiated, Apple isn’t worried if Walmart sells other smartphones, they don’t care but Reese’s is extremely worried and will make a huge hula about private labels and such. Spotify as a technology has nothing unique, their audio isn’t even lossless yet, their music is now available through Apple, Amazon, YouTube, Tidal and who knows what else. They basically have some network effects due to social media and are living off a first mover advantage, meanwhile as their see their dominance erode they are trying to find boogeyman’s to blame. If Apple removes 30% tax, Spotify won’t magically become a successful business, Spotify still needs to find something more differentiated than the sea of music streaming apps out there. Netflix kind of did it with originals and superior efficiency, Spotify won’t be able to do anything until they take a hard look at their business and truly diagnose why it’s such a trash heap.

They’ve lost 532 million in their most recent year, the lowest they’ve lost is 32 million. They’ve not had a single profitable year in their entire public history and it seems to only be getting worse for them. I just cursorily follow the stock market and the second you told me Spotify is profitable all the red flags in my head blew up, glad that you confirmed my bias, they are even worse than I thought.

Then you talk about Spotify user metrics, either you are willfully ignorant with no understanding of how to read metrics or you’re just hoping I won’t respond? The obvious metric that you need to judge Spotify by is market share, which Spotify has been on a slow decline on since at least 2019 where they went from 34% to 31% according to tech crunch. The internet is growing, their MAU, revenue etc will all grow, most internet companies can boast that. I literally don’t need to shift my narrative, I know Spotify pays artists poorly, Apple Music does too, any system that pays by stream count is a winner takes all that benefits the biggest artists in my view, Tidal does a much better job.

Probably the fact that I actually know what I’m talking about, and am not falling for your ignorant citations and stats, might be a crack in your world view, you might have been under the comfortable delusion that everyone who doesn’t agree with you has not done the research and is not smart when it turns out that you are actually incredibly ignorant in your research. In fact if you take this as a learning lesson for your life and maybe probe further you will find that for most complex issues, at the highest levels everyone deeply understands the facts, but still can turn out with radically different interpretations of them, consensus on anything other than pure math is hard to achieve. I reckon you’ll be stuck in Plato’s cave forever though, I heard it’s quite comfortable down there.

My Galaxy S1 still plays podcasts just fine....I keep it hooked up to bluetooth speakers just for that.

Google disabled the ability to download new/updated apps that could run on this phone long ago, but the apps already on the phone still work. Indeed, it works better than the iPhone 5c, since I can use any micro usb connector to charge my phone, but the 5c is stuck with a proprietary connector that isn't made or sold anymore.

The point I’m trying to make is that for Joe Consumer, everything on an iPhone just works.

This hasn't been true for years, if it ever was. Siri never worked properly, and most people complain about the horrible accuracy of the fingerprint and face unlock. Text messages sent to/by Apple users frequently disappear into the ether, discovered only when the communicants physically meet up. The cloud software is prone to overwriting files or accidentally deleting them. And don't even get me started about all the people holding their phones the wrong way...

Also the only reason Epic and Spotify are after them is not some altruistic reason but they want to be the guys charging the 30% margin.

It’s a bit of a grey victory but I’ll take it.

The epic game store charges 12%; against which developers are partially handcuffed due to steams price matching requirement.

Apple trying to take 30% of subscriptions while operating a competing service as a value-add that can afford to be a loss leader is highly anticompetitive.

A better Apple (with less adversarial partners) might have tried to structure the commission as a profit share, not a rev share, to keep high and low margin businesses on the platform, but alas.

But of course that’s not going to keep them from asking their government to give them more.

Lots of school kids who get mocked for being "Green Texters" with crummy images and videos in their group texts. They really want their parents to shell out for an iPhone so it stops. Just because non-tech people don't know the cause, doesn't mean it doesn't affect them.

If you can't use iMessage, you'll simply be excluded from group chats.

Speaking exclusively from the cross-platform perspective, things are better nowadays with the expectation of Instagram and Discord, but you'll still be excluded from group chats for not having iMessage.

I think this is a pretty big generational difference. I think most US citizens born after 2000 are well aware of the green bubble stigma as a simple fact of life.

A bunch of teens got together and decided that some things were social stigma aren’t.

I’m sure there’s some schools where you can’t be included unless you are wearing Abercrombie clothing, or have a MK purse. Is it time to step in there too?

No, they did not. There is no teenage illuminati pulling the strings. The green bubble phenomena appeared throughout teen social life as iPhones became widely adopted.

> I’m sure there’s some schools where you can’t be included unless you are wearing Abercrombie clothing, or have a MK purse.

These are imagined phenomena which don't have bearing on the real phenomenon in question.

> Is it time to step in there too?

No. If there comes a time where Abercrombie and control widely used social infrastructure, in a way that prohibits non-Abercrombie wearers from participating through technological means, resulting a widely-acknowledged negative social phenomenon, then that'll be time to step in there.

But the Abercrombie thing is imagined, and the iPhone thing is real and has been happening for a decade.

I'm sorry that was your experience, but it's not a widespread phenomenon like the green bubble phenomenon is.

What's the point of having the goons if you're not going to use them?

You think it's wrong for the state to enforce a rule that prevents a certain type of behavior. Where does that end? Unsanctioned violence? Environmental destruction? Surely you're not advocating for anarchy.

Ok, so you agree with reasonable limits on the power of these "goons." Do you then think Apple's behavior simply doesn't warrant this kind of enforcement? Why not just say that instead, and explain why?

Spewing random sarcastic libertarian screeds just makes the whole discussion worse.

Yes, life would be better if everyone mutually agreed to use things crossplatform all of the time. but they don't/haven't, so there is this friction.

At least in EU they seem to be active (USB iPhones anyone), albeit slower than I'd like.

Also, in democracies with a somewhat free market, you can simply choose not to buy phones that do not ship the port you prefer.

Actually we don't even tend to bother even talking about which phones you have. It's just meh. My best friend doesn't even know what iMessage is as an example.

Might be that US got the free texts first though. Not sure anymore what was the timeline with that.

Also, there are carriers in europe that offer bundle discounts and better data packages for opting out of sms altogether.

It's not about free texting or not, IMO it's either about mobile data or laziness.

It's ridiculous - all I'm asking is for the convenience of email.

Maybe Apple should open up their ecosystem, that way multiple other app stores can compete and drive that percentage price down to zero.