I'm kinda surprised another company hasn't made something to legit compete with iMessage yet. Like even Samsung only uses RCS and mostly through Google messages. I kinda wish something like beeper would take off but at the same time I wouldn't trust the remote server running iMessage issue.
I'm kinda surprised another company hasn't made something to legit compete with iMessage yet
WhatsApp, FB Messager, Telegram? RCS is also a legitimate competitor.
The blocker isn't the tech, it's Apple's control of the ecosystem and iMessage's integration to SMS on iOS / macOS. I'd imagine if Apple provides an option for user to "switch default SMS app" to a 3rd party one, there'd be no reason why any one of the above wouldn't see a huge uplift.
By the way, the iMessage domination thing only really applies to North America. Rest of the world lives and breathes WhatsApp, WeChat, FB Messager etc.
I know I've been using signal and Snapchat but it would be nice to have something supported by a larger company that wouldn't harvest your data (as much) as Facebook. I don't think I'll be switching off of signal anytime soon anyways since I had to drag my friends through hangouts dying and then allo dying. I like telegram's features but I don't think I'd ever want to use it due to some of the privacy issues I've seen about it.
I'm kinda surprised another company hasn't made something to legit compete with iMessage yet.
I'm going to ask what you mean. Even WeChat, which is one of the worst "main" chat applications I have the displeasure to use, does everything it does.
I probably could've been clearer I guess what I meant was a hardware company making a competitor
I'm kinda surprised another company hasn't made something to legit compete with iMessage yet.
There have been more iMessage competitors than I can even count. None have been able to amass enough users to challenge iMessage in the US. RCS is a different approach that has a shot, but even that would require apple to implement it in order to reach ubiquity. Apple has the US messaging market by the balls and it sucks.
What annoys me is that Google still hasn't opened the API for RCS all these years later. That could at the very least open the possibility of more widespread adoption as a fallback for other apps instead of SMS. But instead they're too busy crying that Apple won't adopt it to actually be bothered to make a unified approach on their own turf. I don't see how they can imagine Apple will want to adopt it when they're keeping it so close to their chests that nobody else is allowed to use it other than basically them and Samsung. It's maddening.
I guess by competitor I mean in the sense that's like a free service that doesn't harvest data and is e2e. Only thing I can think of with mild adoption rates is signal although I think that it's also my bias since I use it. Hardest part is being able to run these services with little to no income from the service and apple is able to get away with it since they make money off of other stuff.
I'm kinda surprised another company hasn't made something to legit compete with iMessage yet. Like even Samsung only uses RCS and mostly through Google messages. I kinda wish something like beeper would take off but at the same time I wouldn't trust the remote server running iMessage issue.
WhatsApp, FB Messager, Telegram? RCS is also a legitimate competitor.
The blocker isn't the tech, it's Apple's control of the ecosystem and iMessage's integration to SMS on iOS / macOS. I'd imagine if Apple provides an option for user to "switch default SMS app" to a 3rd party one, there'd be no reason why any one of the above wouldn't see a huge uplift.
By the way, the iMessage domination thing only really applies to North America. Rest of the world lives and breathes WhatsApp, WeChat, FB Messager etc.
I know I've been using signal and Snapchat but it would be nice to have something supported by a larger company that wouldn't harvest your data (as much) as Facebook. I don't think I'll be switching off of signal anytime soon anyways since I had to drag my friends through hangouts dying and then allo dying. I like telegram's features but I don't think I'd ever want to use it due to some of the privacy issues I've seen about it.
I'm going to ask what you mean. Even WeChat, which is one of the worst "main" chat applications I have the displeasure to use, does everything it does.
I probably could've been clearer I guess what I meant was a hardware company making a competitor
There have been more iMessage competitors than I can even count. None have been able to amass enough users to challenge iMessage in the US. RCS is a different approach that has a shot, but even that would require apple to implement it in order to reach ubiquity. Apple has the US messaging market by the balls and it sucks.
What annoys me is that Google still hasn't opened the API for RCS all these years later. That could at the very least open the possibility of more widespread adoption as a fallback for other apps instead of SMS. But instead they're too busy crying that Apple won't adopt it to actually be bothered to make a unified approach on their own turf. I don't see how they can imagine Apple will want to adopt it when they're keeping it so close to their chests that nobody else is allowed to use it other than basically them and Samsung. It's maddening.
I guess by competitor I mean in the sense that's like a free service that doesn't harvest data and is e2e. Only thing I can think of with mild adoption rates is signal although I think that it's also my bias since I use it. Hardest part is being able to run these services with little to no income from the service and apple is able to get away with it since they make money off of other stuff.
WhatsApp is E2EE but it is run by Meta, so YMMV.