The DOJ is right about the 'green bubbles' in Apple iPhone Messages. Here's why | Mashable.

The DOJ accuses Apple of a 'green bubble' problem. Here's why they're right.

There are too many problems with messaging Android users on iPhones, and that's on Apple. It doesn't have to be this way.
By Matthews Martins on 
Even iPhone users want to free the green bubbles. Credit: Pavlo Gonchar / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images

Fellow iPhone users: Picture the scene. You've just received someone's phone number, and it's an important someone. A new business partner, a potential romantic partner, a long-lost relative, whatever. You're inaugurating what you hope is a long and happy texting relationship, so you fire up Messages and enter the number.

What's the last thing you want to see when you, or the object of your interest, is done typing in that "To" field? Be honest. You don't want the number to turn green, right?

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Because green numbers, as even the most casual iPhone user will notice over time, mean all sorts of annoyances compared with the cool blue chats with fellow iPhone users. In chats with non-iPhone numbers, links don't show a preview of the website in question. Pictures and videos are more likely to hang when they send. If you're also using Messages on an iPad or a Mac, green conversations take longer to update, often as much as 24 hours, making it pointless to converse on any device other than the iPhone. You won't be able to see when the other person is typing.

And you won't be able to send what has become, for many of us, highly efficient nonverbal responses — the heart, the thumbs-up, the "ha ha," the "!!!" — with a single tap. Well, you can, but you'll soon discover Apple sends a terse robotic text instead of an emoji, which is annoying as hell to your new friend.

None of these are insurmountable problems to communication. Together, along with the lack of end-to-end encryption in green chats, they clearly add up to a degraded experience, and I'm not the only iPhone user to find myself texting friends with green numbers less over time. But in isolation, it seems dumb to complain about any single issue.

So when the U.S. Department of Justice did complain this week, as part of a larger lawsuit accusing Apple of anticompetitive practices, it wasn't surprising that many social media commentators pulled two words out of context. What, the DOJ is going after green bubbles now? Did we run out of real criminals?

Beyond the bubbles

If you're a Mac-using, iPad-weilding, iPhone-toting, Watch-wearing Apple history fanatic like me, then yes, no doubt you'll spot some issues with the full 88-page complaint. DOJ lawyers certainly didn't do themselves any favors by opening with outdated anticompetitive quotes from Apple co-founder Steve Jobs — now 12 years gone — or penning a groan-worthy line about Apple not wanting smartphone users to "think different" by leaving its walled garden.

But when it comes to Messages, at least, the DOJ has Apple bang to rights. Even the most fanatic Apple partisan has to wince when reading these very specific accusations in the complaint, green bubbles not included:

Apple could have made a better cross-platform messaging experience itself by creating iMessage for Android but concluded that doing so “will hurt us more than help us” [a direct quote from emails sent to CEO Tim Cook.] Apple therefore continues to impede innovation in smartphone messaging, even though doing so sacrifices the profits Apple would earn from increasing the value of the iPhone to users, because it helps build and maintain its monopoly power.

Apple recognizes that its conduct harms users and makes it more difficult to switch smartphones ... Recently, Apple blocked a third-party developer from fixing the broken cross- platform messaging experience in Apple Messages and providing end-to-end encryption for messages between Apple Messages and Android users.

Apple designates the APIs needed [for regular texting] as “private,” meaning third-party developers have no means of accessing them and are prohibited from doing so ... If a user wants to send a message in a third-party messaging app, they must first confirm whether the person they want to talk to has the same messaging app and, if not, convince that person to download and use a new messaging app. By contrast, if an Apple Messages user wants to send somebody a message, they just type their phone number ...

Third-party messaging apps cannot continue operating in the background when the app is closed, which impairs functionality like message delivery confirmation. When users receive video calls, third-party messaging apps cannot access the iPhone camera to allow users to preview their appearance on video before answering a call. Apple Messages incorporates these features.

Many non-iPhone users experience social stigma, exclusion, and blame for “breaking” chats where other participants own iPhones. This effect is particularly powerful for certain demographics, like teenagers—where the iPhone’s share is 85 percent ... This social pressure reinforces switching costs and drives users to continue buying iPhones—solidifying Apple’s smartphone dominance not because Apple has made its smartphone better, but because it has made communicating with other smartphones worse[Emphasis mine]

Make it easy to be green

What jumps out at you from all that? For me, it's Apple's point-blank refusal to make a Messages for Android app, which would allow those degrading communication issues to disappear (assuming your Android friends download the app, of course).

This is not a technical issue. It's not even a "we don't do that kind of thing at Apple" issue. The company has no problem making versions of its Apple TV experience for rivals like Samsung, even though that cuts into potential sales of Apple TVs. And as the DOJ rightly points out elsewhere in the complaint, the iPod would not have become a company-saving hit product without a key piece of cross-platform software: iTunes for Windows PCs.

 It's not that Apple is making Android users look like second-class citizens in its walled garden, exactly. But it's not doing anything to help users avoid that impression either.

But the smartphone market is allegedly too important, too massive a chunk of revenue for Apple, to allow users to communicate freely. So instead of making Messages for Android, Apple reinforces all the fun things you can do in blue chats, drawing an ever-greater contrast with the green.

It's not that Apple is making Android users look like second-class citizens in its walled garden, exactly. But it's not doing anything to help users avoid that impression either. We can laugh at the "blame for breaking chats" line, and yet we all know the way stigma can spring from dozens of tiny interactions.

We know this in part because we've all been teenagers, and the 85 percent iPhone share among teens is somewhat chilling for this reason. (The DOJ's figure is actually somewhat low; a recent survey put teen iPhone ownership at 87 percent, with 88 percent of teens expecting to have an iPhone after their next purchase.) You don't have to retain many memories of high school to imagine what digital life is like for the other 15 percent. It's a subtle form of social isolation that has sprung up in the last decade (in 2012, just 40 percent of teens reported owning an iPhone).

We've been here before. In 1997, Microsoft thought it had the perfect right to push its Internet Explorer as hard as it wanted on its monopoly platform, Windows, while squeezing out the rival web browser Netscape Navigator. It took three years of fighting with the government, which had assembled an Avengers-like squad of rival companies including Apple, before the tech titan was forced to give its customers more choice.

Tim Cook doesn't have to be Bill Gates; he could turn this around at any time. Announcing Messages for Android wouldn't necessarily make the DOJ's entire antitrust lawsuit go away, but it would reduce the public appetite for it. And it would improve the day to day experience of Cook's customers, who may suddenly find they have something to talk about with their green-numbered friends after all.

Topics  Apple

Comments

  1. I have no such issues. Just use WhatsApp or Line.

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  2. I dare say it works the other way in markets where Android is more dominant. Placing iPhone users at a disadvantage.

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  3. Apple is purposely causing compatibility problems with Android. 🤬

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No, they're not, at all. You can still SMS android users. You can use WhatsApp, Kick, Snapchat, Facebook messenger, Instagram or one of 500,000,000 other messaging a systems. iMessage literally predates Android.

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    2. they actually.. they even stated they were doing it on purpose.. Apple has actively done this multiple ways.. they literally pull this move 3 weeks ago by purposely breaking functionality to punish developers. Ya only looking at surface level apple.. Apple has been doing alot of things over the years that has block innovation and stop competition and they did it with clear knowledge that they was doing it to there push their own benefit and that's all before you get to the back end deals they done which effectively push the developers into basically subsidized bigger corporations.

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    3. well you can’t fix most tools unless you buy brand name parts that only fit their product. That’s opening quite the can of worms.

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    4. yes, of course they are doing it on purpose. Android is a very insecure Ecosystem developed by the most corrupt company in the world has ever known. Apple Can Guarantee end to end encryption as long as they control iMessage. If they cannot control iMessage, then all of your content is guaranteed To be leaked to google Facebook and anybody else who wants to buy it This is why you shouldn’t use WhatsApp because Facebook reads everythinf on WhatsApp.

      There is no reason for iMessage to be opened up to competitors when there are millions of competitors already.

      This is just an excuse By the department of Justice behind the fact that they completely failed to prosecute Trump for being a traitor.

      There are plenty of evil things Apple does. This is not one of them. A big part of this is that is suing, claiming that iMessage violates their ability to profit off of messaging system because they want to be able to collect data from Apple users and sell it to advertisers. You are simping for Facebook right now.

      Really the only safe messaging system out there right now is signal.

      Delete
  4. They have been doing that for years starting with the iPod touch.

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  5. This could be solved on ether side. iMessage is definitely better then sms. Android should just join the iMessage crowd!

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  6. IPhones are just superior and the Government doesn’t like it.

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    1. I think it’s more like Apple refuses to Share everybody’s private data with the government, but Google is more than happy to put in back doors into android

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    2. no.. it's not.. they literally have been doing monopolistic practices..it's not new or unknown.. the reason the government went after them is cause in their recent action was so blatantly monopolistic that they had to do something. They was actively engaging in malicious compliance..they even made it so that if a free game got popular on there platform.. the completely free game would owe them money. They also want the ability to see your taxes.

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    3. Not from the perspective of anyone who understands how to program their own phones.
      It's closed environment and all you get is what they offer - nothing more.

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    4. spoken like someone who doesn't know wtf they're talking about 😂😂🤡🤡

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    5. Look at all the upset Android users in here upset that they can’t get the amazing features of a IPhone.

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    6. If you believe that you believe that water ain't wet

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  7. It’s an encryption thing- SMS texts are less safe then iMessages encrypted messaging protocol

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  8. The issue here is a simple one. Apple are being punished for their refusal to create a backdoor through their I message encryption. By forcing them to be more “open” it weakens the security and allows that easier access to law enforcement and governments.

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  9. So the DoJ and apparently the author of this piece both missed that Apple has stated they’re implementing RCS later this year to be more compatible with android devices.

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  10. Apple sucks, about time.

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  11. "Apple therefore continues to impede innovation in smartphone messaging"

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    Replies
    1. And I live in Europe so my WhatsApp data is still my data and not Facebook's.....

      Delete
  12. The DOJ are not serious people.

    Apple is doing hundreds of evil, anti-competitive things. This, however, is the most retarded argument that Garland could come up with.

    This case will be even more of an embarrassment to America than our failed case against Microsoft.

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  13. man I’ll give you ten bands. Just hit me up with that account number and routing number and I’ll send it over.

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  14. I used the Google Messenger and never have any problem messaging iOS people

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  15. Fuck anything and everything about every piece of federal government. 🖕🏼🖕🏼

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  16. Who texts Android users? 😂

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    Replies
    1. you’re not wrong. A lot of iOS users message Android users on separate apps. I use FB messenger for most of them.

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    2. android is the best

      Delete
    3. https://media1.tenor.co/m/73QTbr86yUYAAAAd/wow.gif?c=VjFfZmFjZWJvb2tfd2ViY29tbWVudHM&fbclid=IwAR3jhqBz-j9DeFYn05r-f_7UiEkNCwOPsh7CCL_ikmngWcEDF1SxWx8mOa0

      Delete
    4. apple know it's bear because Apple uses Android parts for there phone

      Delete
  17. Last time I got a new phone, my boss insisted I get an iPhone. I told him they cost to much money and I was happy with the Android phones I have been using.

    I got the new Android phone, and immediately my boss tried to send something to me in a text, it didn't work, I told him I don't have a iPhone, and he said, you should have gotten one. I said, as soon as you pay for a new iPhone for me, and don't expect me to pay it off, I will follow your instructions.

    Lol

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    Replies
    1. well done , it's him who should buy a new Android to be compatible with his employees

      Delete
  18. This isn’t an issue.
    SMS allows iPhone and Androids to receive messages. Apple’s iMessage has end to end encryption, which would be a technical lift to implement on Android, for no benefit other than a blue bubble.
    Furthermore Apple is already implementing RCS to improve communication. But serves Android right if it’ll be a purple bubble or some other color.
    Also… Apple does not block other app messaging platforms like WhatsApp or WeChat or Slack and FB messenger.

    The DOJ is really grasping at straws.

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  19. This is such BS. Let the market place fight it out. VHS v Beta. Canon v Nikon. Do you think RED cameras will have a RF mount? Should Subaru let Honda have their AWD system? Ya know Coke should share recipes with Pepsi….

    A company is under no obligation to share with competitors. This is massive overreach. I’m lib AF and this is garbage. A reseller develops a store and publicly states its terms, the developer knows ahead of time what those terms are, chooses to ignore them then decides to cry about when the store chooses to not carry the product (wink, wink, epic).

    We have so many other more pressing issues that the DOJ should be focusing on. Like Jarad and Saudis, Epstein’s black book (I don’t care which side of the aisle they’re on), organized crime….

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  20. It’s hit or miss if my sister-in law gets my messages

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  21. Apple with a worldwide 30% market share makes Android users feel inferior with a green bubble. So, now the DOJ is fighting for other people’s feelings and poor choices? This is my tax dollars at work where product and service selection isn’t just Explorer and Netscape.

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  22. Is this why an android user doesnt get my sms til hours later? I thought they were avoiding me

    ReplyDelete

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