iMessage on Android: Diet Coke of Messaging
If you’re a non-resident of the USA, the iPhone might be a mere tool for you or a luxury symbol. But still, it never has been the only medium of communication. For all of us, there are a plethora of tools like WhatsApp, Telegram, and WeChat by which we communicate with our loved ones irrespective of what device they’re on.
But if you live in the States, it’s quite a different story altogether. Around 50% of all people over there use the iPhone, not because it’s a great device but for communicating in blue.
If you’re somewhat confused here, let me help you to make this out…
Context:
So, in the early days of texting, where it all used to be SMS, people all over the world were charged for their text messages by the service provider. Of course, in some countries like India & China, this form of communication took a while to catch-up, but in the US, it was a different story altogether.
In the US, people send more than two trillion messages a year. And most of those texts are not the free kind. Some carriers charge as much as 20 cents to send & another 20 cents to receive. In fact, they generate $20 billion in revenue for mobile businesses like Verizon and AT&T. On top of that, these messages are not encrypted (they’re still not today), which creates a high risk of breaching someone’s personal data.
This is where Apple wanted to stand out & did something a bit unheard & actually did remarkable in the space of personal communication.
iMessage:
In 2011, to revolutionize the communication space, Apple released a new chatting software called “iMessage” which was baked into the native Messages app on all iOS devices. It was first introduced as an alternative to plain old SMS for all iPhone and iPod Touch users.
It was better than SMS in many ways (it still is). Firstly, it used the internet rather than SMS protocol to exchange messages among the users. This allowed the users to avoid the hefty amount they were paying to all the service providers. Alongside that, since it was based upon the internet, it also allowed the users to send high-quality media, which was previously impossible because of the stringent compression of MMS protocol. On top of that, they also added some new features like reactions, memojis, and read receipts, with time, which made the app a must for all iPhone users. And it was also much more secure than SMS since it had ‘end-to-end encryption’ from day one.
Later, they brought iMessage to all their devices including the Apple Watch, which made the app experience stellar across their devices & made the walls of their ecosystem much taller & stronger.
The Problem:
This is where the problem starts. Back in 2011, when iMessage was released, the iPhone was a popular phone but didn’t had half of the smartphone market as it does now. In many markets like Japan, this is true as well, but in the US it had a different set of problems. Instead of being a basic fiddler of the tech they own, most US citizens like their phones as default out-of-the-box & it also translates to the apps they use. They use the default apps for everything the app tends to do. And this behaviour has led them to use the default Messages app on iOS & other Apple devices. Now since Apple has half of the US smartphone market, this translates to having a huge user base of the default Messages app in the Apple ecosystem as-well.
But is using the default app a crime? Of course not!
But here’s the catch. iMessage with its full feature list works only on Apple devices, which means that it has to revert back to old SMS when it’s exchanging media with a non-Apple device. This means the so-popular blue bubble turns green (which was made ugly on purpose) & gone are features like high-quality media sharing, read receipts, etc. But is that the most pressing issue for a non-Apple user? Yes, it is, if you are left behind by your friends and family in every group picnic party, you’re not included in the groups as you destroy the look of the elegant group chat full of blue bubbles, and your sent media is crap as if you’re using a 144p camcorder.
According to a recent survey, around 87% of young adults use an iPhone & those who don’t are either directly or indirectly pressured to buy an iPhone or to be left behind the peer group. And this is all because of the ecosystem they’ve built on which iMessage still remains to be a key pillar.
This is daunting!
The Solution (kinda):
Just imagine. You’re a new, enthusiast smartphone brand based in London & all you want is to make a decent market share & possibly take a piece of pie of the giants. You’ve done that in markets like India and Europe where there’s a share of enthusiasts in the landscape, but you’re not able to do the same in a huge smartphone market like the USA. What would you do?
Either you can make your phone available to the US customers via various service providers like Verizon & AT&T or you can sell it through online marketplaces by offering a strong feature set. Many have done that but failed to do so, especially to Apple. But Nothing® wants to change this. All they had to do was to make a phone ‘good enough’ for the masses & offer what Apple has got. Many did the first, but Nothing did it all (sorry for the pun). They brought “iMessage on Android”.
This was all done by a clever partnership with a company called “Sunbird” which deems to provide the iMessage ecosystem even if you’re on an Android phone. They do it by simply rerouting the message sent by the Android phone (using an Apple ID) by a Mac Mini hosted on a server in a remote-location near to the user & promises to be secure and reliable. Currently, this will be only available to Nothing Phone(2) users with a standalone first-party app called “Chats” in North-America & some European markets.
For now, this might be a great deal to look out for, but only time will tell what it will truly behold…
