this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2023
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Nothing Phone builds a blue bubble iMessage bridge while Google and Apple fight over RCS (www.androidcentral.com)
submitted 10 months ago by DannyMac@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] blackn1ght@feddit.uk 3 points 10 months ago

WhatsApp became popular (in the UK) around the time when SMS was free for most. It was a huge jump over SMS because:

  • group chats
  • read receipts
  • worked on WiFi without a phone signal
  • picture / video messages
  • it was fast (or it certainly felt faster anyway)

From what I recall at the time, BBM was quite popular but WhatsApp won over in the end as it was cross platform. There was a big appetite to move away from SMS. WhatsApp wasn't even free at the time, it had a small annual fee on Android or a one off installation fee on iOS and still gained popularity. It's kind of surprising that the rest of the world seemed to make this jump at the same time but the US seems to be stuck on SMS.