Technology

59157 readers

2403 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

Follow the lemmy.world rules.
Only tech related content.
Be excellent to each another!
Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
Politics threads may be removed.
No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

213

Apple’s iMessage is not a “core platform” in EU, so it can stay walled off (arstechnica.com)

submitted 8 months ago by einat2346@lemmy.today to c/technology@lemmy.world

68 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] abhibeckert@lemmy.world 22 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

iMessage is a typical American thing which, we Europeans, have a really hard time comprehending what is the obsession with it.

To help you comprehend - the big difference is SMS has been free for a long long time in the USA. No other text messaging service has ever been able to get off the ground because why on earth would anyone sign up for Viber / WatsApp / Messenger / Signal / Telegram / Threema / etc, when you could just use SMS which works fine and works for everyone?

Then iMessage came along, and you could keep using "SMS", only now it's more reliable, has high resolution photos, delivery confirmation, etc. That was a real improvement over SMS, with no cost at all other than having to stay on the iPhone platform, which you were already on, and who's going to switch? You've got all these apps you found/like and who knows which ones work on Android?

Also, it's not just the USA. iMessage is big in other markets too. Also ones where SMS has historically been free. The cost of having to pay to send SMS between London/Paris is a pain we never really experienced here, so there was no motivation to try WhatsApp/etc.

[–] oldfart@lemm.ee 8 points 8 months ago

Woah. What a great explanation. I legitimately never understood the deal with iMessage too and you made a logical explanation that clicks. Thank you.