iMessage on Android had support — but Apple killed it anyway
iMessage on Android had support — but Apple killed it anyway
Update: Regardless of the news below, at least Google is making it easier for Android users to text their iPhone friends .
Apple'due south iMessage could have made it to Android back in 2013, had Apple non decided to nix the project and keep it an iOS exclusive. But information technology turns out not anybody was on board with that decision.
This revelation comes every bit part of the ongoing legal dispute between Apple and Epic Games. According to released depositions from Eddy Cue, the executive responsible for numerous digital Apple tree services and storefronts, reveal that he wanted to bring iMessage to Android eight years agone. Just Apple killed the idea pretty speedily.
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The Epic Games case has previously revealed that Apple killed the idea of launching iMessage on Android. Merely newly-released documents show that the decision to kill the idea was non completely unanimous.
Both Craig Federighi, SVP of Software and Engineering who is in charge of iOS, and Phil Schiller, who is in charge of the App Store, were against the idea. They believed that launching a cross-platform version of iMessage would "simply serve to remove [an] obstruction to iPhone families giving their kids Android phones."
It turns out that Cue disagreed with this argument, having already recommended that Apple make iMessage on Android "an official project". The thought of that projection being that information technology would give users on both iOS and Android a way to "exchange messages with one another seamlessly."
Cue's argument was that Apple had the all-time messaging service at the time, and by porting it to Android it could become "the industry standard". iMessage on Android would likewise prevent Google from asserting its authorization in another field. As Cue pointed out, the search giant already had search, email, video, and browsers under its belt at the fourth dimension.
Unfortunately, the residual of the conversation that could pertain to iMessage is redacted, and nosotros tin can't see what else Cue might take said on the topic.
A lot has changed since 2013
But with the do good of hindsight, we know that Cue'south fears never played out the style he imagined. Google has struggled with messaging apps over the years, and there have been several attempts to offer instant messaging that never really took off.
The company has been pushing for mass adoption of iMessage-similar RCS messaging over the past couple of years, but that hasn't made much of an impact. Certainly not since RCS isn't supported on the iPhone.
Instead, the Facebook-endemic WhatsApp cemented itself as the go-to cantankerous-platform messenger of selection. Though yous could fence that WhatsApp was already on its way there, which is why Facebook paid $19 billion for the company.
The question is what impact iMessage on Android would have had. Practise people really buy iPhones just for iMessage? Information technology's one of the nicer benefits of using an iPhone, and communicating with other iPhone users, but it's hard to say how much of a selling point it is.
Parents who desire ameliorate ways to keep in bear on with their kids may well buy them iPhones to go along everything nice and slap-up. If iMessage were on Android, parents could but as easily purchase ane of the all-time inexpensive phones at $200 or less. An iPhone SE costs $399.
Having iMessage launch on Android viii years ago would accept been a huge benefit to Android users, and put Apple in a position of ability where instant messaging was concerned, But at the same fourth dimension, it wouldn't sell whatsoever more than iPhones or Apple Services. Then where'due south the incentive to do it?
Unfortunately, the prospect of having iMessage on Android now seems out of reach correct at present. Cue himself testified that it would have been possible back in 2013, but "that wouldn't exist the case over fourth dimension, considering of the features that were added to Messages".
In other words iMessage has continued to evolve on the Apple platform over the years, and it's suggested that at that place would be a lot more logistical hurdles than just porting the app to Android as it is.
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Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/news/imessage-on-android-had-support-but-apple-killed-it-anyway
Posted by: harrisdreatenty.blogspot.com
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