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Switched to android from iOS, immediately miss imessage :(
- Thread starter BearPawB
- Start date
Wow, nice.
All of my 'android' friends I just use SMS or if its a picture I will email them it so it's still free. Not rocket science mate.
FonkyByNature
Member
I understand what you're saying but try to tell that to old people or people who don't want to clutter their phones with more 3rd party apps. I used to have an Android phone and while i liked it, it still was a pain to communicate with most of my family because of the lack of iMessage/Facetime.
It's all about convenience and ease of use and Apple got that in the bag imo.
Anyone in a country where iPhone market share is less than 50%. Aka, pretty much the entire world:
FTFY
The Albatross
Member
I am... Allo is really beautiful and an excellent messaging platform, but let's be serious, Google cannibalizes their own messaging platforms and I have no faith that they'll actually put any weight behind this. They recently launched a web client beta and it works just as well as the iOS/Android client, and they've steadily added features.
But Google is too inconsistent with their messaging platforms for me to ever really push one. I have a fantasy football group chat on Allo and we have a lot of fun with it, but to me it seems pretty clear that Allo is used by Google for machine learning and AI, a platform to develop new features for the Google Assistant.
Charles Brandon
Member
Why would you do this? It makes no sense.
What happens when one of the members of your group doesn't live in the US and has a foreign phone number?
Isn't it expensive texting them?
So 2017 technology for your Apple friends and 1980s tech for your Android friends?
Isn't it expensive texting them?
So 2017 technology for your Apple friends and 1980s tech for your Android friends?
WhatsApp is fine but fuck Viber
sometimes i game
Member
This is the biggest barrier, for sure. The solution is using things they already have - many (most?) people already have FB Messenger installed, for example, which handles media well and has fun, iMessage like stickers and reactions.
On your end, you can use apps like Giphy to one-tap send links to gifs instead of gifs themselves and iMessage will show them a preview media thumbnail, so its not that different on their end. You can use apps like WeTransfer to easy send big videos, too.
Otherwise, yeahpp...it hurts to have to deal with video compression and all this nonsense. We just don't use apps like Whats App or GroupMe in America - would be smarter for us to, though. iMessage is so behind-the-scenes that it wins by default, which is a shame.
Americans knowing people with foreign phone numbers? Ha!
This here alone would be enough for make to jump ship from that setup. How do they reply to that image? Via the email? Back in the SMS chat where the image isn't visible?
hydrophilic attack
Member
WhatsApp seems to be catching on in the US at least from the people that I know.
I'm the only Android user in my core group of friends so we all went in on WhatsApp.
Also doing a city volleyball team with some other friends and I was surprised when it was suggested we use WhatsApp instead of emailing.
anyone have a breakdown of iOS vs Android market-share over the past 4 years or so in the US? If Android is gaining ground it makes sense to me that WhatsApp would increasingly be used.
I'm the only Android user in my core group of friends so we all went in on WhatsApp.
Also doing a city volleyball team with some other friends and I was surprised when it was suggested we use WhatsApp instead of emailing.
anyone have a breakdown of iOS vs Android market-share over the past 4 years or so in the US? If Android is gaining ground it makes sense to me that WhatsApp would increasingly be used.
Google hangouts, Facebook messenger
I had a group project last year where one of the guys had an android and just recommended we use hangouts and google drive and shit to communicate and share stuff for it. I liked the web interface. But the majority of people I know, including my entire family, have iPhones so iMessage is the default. My mom can barely use a smartphone as it is, I couldn't imagine telling her to download another app and set it up to communicate with me lol
Also someone responded to the insinuation about Americans knowing people with foreign numbers and he kinda has a point. The only people outside the US I communicate with is on places like gaf or something
If messaging platforms were enough to lock people into an ecosystem we would all still be on AOL or blackberry. People in the US have no problem switching when there is good reason to. We have no compelling reason to switch to WhatsApp
haha why are people so scared of email? Yes reply to the email. Email apps on a phone are basically text apps just looking slightly different and having slightly different functionality.
Guys I feel like no one is gonna convince the other side to use their messenger service.
Let's just have a fight to the death instead to make out a clear winner!!
Why are you using a GIF from Anchorman? Dot you realize that Step Brothers is far superior? No one I know even watches Anchorman.
Yeah I don't understand why he wouldn't use Facebook Messenger.
Why is he using a gif and not a superior webm? Apple users use gif instead of webm because safari can't play webm
I'm just surprised someone would think a solid solution includes splitting a conversation between two threads on two separate services.
TheCochese
Banned
They put that shit back into the FB app, yeah, I might use it. Not installing multiple apps from them.
paradise_circus
Member
The messengers we use in Berlin are mainly WhatsApp and Telegram.
CloudyTuba
Member
WhatsApp is basically the standard everywhere except the US, but it's gaining speed here also. That's the way to go if you want something similar to imessage with high android adoption rates.
I'm resisting because I like keeping things simple and sticking with Google Voice as my sole messaging platform because it's compatible with everyone (it's just texting) and also allows me to send gifs and check messages from my PC. And it's free. It's all I need and anything else feels superfluous. Fuck all that other fragmented shit.
I'm resisting because I like keeping things simple and sticking with Google Voice as my sole messaging platform because it's compatible with everyone (it's just texting) and also allows me to send gifs and check messages from my PC. And it's free. It's all I need and anything else feels superfluous. Fuck all that other fragmented shit.
sometimes i game
Member
I recently went to Barcelona and I saw more Android phones than iPhones, for sure. In America, I see iPhones more than Android phones, even if sales stats across wide demographics report otherwise.
There are millenials and business people who like Android, but speaking as a 27 year old dude in marketing, almost everyone I work with and interact with has an iPhone. I don't screen them to do so, it's just how the cookie crumbles.
When someone is in a group message of mostly iPhones, but they have an Android, the group message turns to chaos. iPhones will create multiple threads with different texts in the thread. This helps breed dislike of non-iPhones by iPhone users, and social pressure exists for people to not have Android phones and wreak havoc in group chats. It's silly, but it is real and Apple knows it.
No way. I don't want to install Facebook just to use Messenger.
It was surprising switching to Android after being an iPhone user for so long, didn't have to think about it before.
These days I just opt not to send videos and silly gifs. Which I'm more or less fine with, compared to having to track down an alternative, it just baffles me more that Google has this gif search integrated into their keyboard so well but yet the majority of them can't be sent.
These days I just opt not to send videos and silly gifs. Which I'm more or less fine with, compared to having to track down an alternative, it just baffles me more that Google has this gif search integrated into their keyboard so well but yet the majority of them can't be sent.
So I'm an iPhone user and my usual priority is
1 - Send a whatsapp message/gif/voice recording/whatever to the group/person that I'm interested in talking to.
2 - If they don't have whatsapp, send them a message through the messages app. If they're on an iPhone then they get an iMessage, if they don't then they get an SMS.
I find WhatsApp easier as you can have multiple group chats with the same people, giving them different names (so you can discuss different things and it's easier to find what you're talking about), as well as sharing photos etc without worrying about whether everyone has imessage and if you'll get charged for sending them picture messages. Much more convenient. You can also use the desktop app or web client to do all your messaging too, which is great.
Having said that, I don't really see iMessage as anything worth shouting about, it's basically just SMS messaging that goes over the internet. I don't give a shit about disappearing text, balloons or stickers so as long as a message gets sent to someone that's really all I care about. In the UK we don't really get charged for SMS messaging other than media messages etc so it's never really something worth thinking about.
I understand that the USA hasn't really adopted WhatsApp though so a lot of the convenience is gone when the people you don't know aren't using it. Once it reaches critical mass there's really no reason to use anything else though.
1 - Send a whatsapp message/gif/voice recording/whatever to the group/person that I'm interested in talking to.
2 - If they don't have whatsapp, send them a message through the messages app. If they're on an iPhone then they get an iMessage, if they don't then they get an SMS.
I find WhatsApp easier as you can have multiple group chats with the same people, giving them different names (so you can discuss different things and it's easier to find what you're talking about), as well as sharing photos etc without worrying about whether everyone has imessage and if you'll get charged for sending them picture messages. Much more convenient. You can also use the desktop app or web client to do all your messaging too, which is great.
Having said that, I don't really see iMessage as anything worth shouting about, it's basically just SMS messaging that goes over the internet. I don't give a shit about disappearing text, balloons or stickers so as long as a message gets sent to someone that's really all I care about. In the UK we don't really get charged for SMS messaging other than media messages etc so it's never really something worth thinking about.
I understand that the USA hasn't really adopted WhatsApp though so a lot of the convenience is gone when the people you don't know aren't using it. Once it reaches critical mass there's really no reason to use anything else though.
The group message thing is easily solvable by enabling MMS group messaging on the iPhone settings in my experience. I had an iPhone friend complaining that our android friend was ruining the group but it turned out the iPhone friend was the problem since he was the only other iPhone user in the group without mms group messaging enabled
Coz I can't be arsed to download another app? I would always still use the default messaging app to take advantage of imessage. So I have no desire to use whatsapp to send pictures to android people.
Like I said I will just email it instead. And it doesn't happen enough for me to worry about it
TheCochese
Banned
And I don't want to install another app just to use FB Messenger. Funny how that works.
Yup. I don't need to send memes to my family.
SolidusDave
Member
I guess this must be the key factor apart from the apple hardon.
It was really a big deal in Europe back then. Several people at work or friends from other countries who wanted to text (without bankrupting themselves) with their friends and family back home just like they were used to before moving.
Also country borders are closer and while you don't even see the EU borders anymore, the network operators certainly do...
Actually texting/calling across the EU now charges you as if you were texting/calling someone within your home country, the network operators were forced to drop roaming charges.
Already having all my contacts on Facebook messenger I never understood the need for WhatsApp, and now that messenger allows phone number registration and both being owned by Facebook I find it even more redundant than before.
Never touched an iPhone but I have so many friends with Androids that I wouldn't opt to use a one brand service anyway.
Never touched an iPhone but I have so many friends with Androids that I wouldn't opt to use a one brand service anyway.
There are many posts on this thread, the OP's included, on why users are guaranteed an inferior experience if they move to a platform where iMessage isn't available. Even the iMessage are subject to some disruption, like a video not going through due to not fitting in MMS limits or group chats breaking apart. It's also impossible for anyone to create a cross-platform iMessage alternative because iOS forbids 3rd party SMS apps.
Textbook vendor lock-in.
IISANDERII
Member
Can confirm. I've been an iPhone user for years and have iMessage disabled. Whatsapp is definitely superior.
SolidusDave
Member
Yes, I should clarify that I was mostly talking about the time when Whatsapp got popular.
That sounds like the perfect reason why one wants to switch to a universal app that works the same for everyone.
Instead people
buying the better smartphones
Charles Brandon
Member
You can't be arsed to download one app that would take about 30 seconds and would allow you to chat to your android mates? ...ok
TheCochese
Banned
One question that might clear up Euroland on why so many Americans buy iPhones: do you mainly buy your phones from carriers, or from third parties? If the former, is there any bloatware?
Most buy from Carriers.
Oh right, yeah. You're right, that definitely helped it get popular.
That's very recent. But the fact is you're still charged at all depending on your plan. Would you post on GAF as much as you do if there was a fixed price per post, image and GIF posted?