I asked if people chose iPhone for the blue bubbles elsewhere a couple days ago, and while there was some good discourse on that post, the blue bubbles definitely also came up as a reason.
In my experience, when people find out my texts are green, they oftentimes would rather switch to a different platform altogether like Instagram or just not text at all.
Is this actually a deal-breaker in friendships out there?
If they don’t want to text you because you don’t have an iPhone they’re not friends you want to have.
Seen this sentiment that green bubbles = bad a few times online but never it’s never come up for me. I assume this is a teen - early adult specific issue where the idea is mostly to be part of the group
It’s been happening in high schools, to the point teens are bullied and pushed out of peer groups if they have Androids. It’s frankly disgusting that apple willingly creates this division to profit off teenagers bullying each other, and they don’t get called out for it enough.
But in the larger picture, it’s definitely going to be more common among the young, because iPhones themselves are ubiquitous among the younger. It’s something the tech space is slowly starting realize: Apple has almost total market dominance among the rising demographic, and this has led to increasing tech illiteracy due to the way Apple designs its software, and inability/refusal to learn anything else. That is a huge problem for the tech industry when the only thing they can do to find customers is dumb their software down to appeal to people that don’t know how to use anything other than iOS
Perhaps in the US but it’s not so pronounced elsewhere. I think I only know one person with an iPhone.
It’s still about 30% here in Germany. It is rising though. And I think this is because of “clever” marketing. The highschools here in Germany started forcing parents to buy Ipads for their children a couple of years ago. Children with low income parents get it from the city for free. Nominally it is, because it is “easier to maintain”, but I honestly really doubt this.
These schools are using iPads in place of computer labs. I’m old enough to have actually managed a computer lab, and I can tell you that a fleet of managed iPads is way easier to maintain than a computer lab.
Yeah easier to maintain lmao. You mean to spy on their students.
But you don’t understand! The USA is the entire world! Everybody else in the world is just like Americans or wants to be!🙄
I know five people with iPhones here. I interact with almost three orders of magnitude more people than five…
You interact with 5000 people?
About that, yes. Not in-depth and not each day, obviously, but I have quite a sizable crowd I deal with on a regular basis. Comes from having a lot of former students I keep in touch with.
If you think that the reason Apple makes the bubbles different colors is “to profit of teen bullying” then I think perhaps you might want to go back to reddit or Twitter.
What a ridiculous statement.
Everyone 30 and under at my office prefers Macs, to the point of bringing in their own machines to do 90% of their work and falling back to the Windows laptops issued by IT for the remainder.
…I feel like bringing personal machines to work in order to do work is causing chaos with IT and network security
BYOD has been a huge shift in corporate IT over the last 10-15 years; mostly because if people bring their own gear, you don’t have to lease it.
How do you think Citrix is still in business?
They could be accessing virtual workspaces using a company VPN client. Or perhaps logging into a Citrix Receiver Workspace. Could probably access a VDI environment as well. 2FA with a work cell etc
Lots of ways for personal devices to be used in the work setting. Would I recommend it or do it myself? Nah. But it can be done.
To be fair, as a work machine, I far prefer macs. And there’s a reason why Windows has been implementing steadily more and more MacOS features into their OS over time.
For a personal machine I’d rather Windows.
100%
I’m a software developer. MacOS is my choice for corporate dev (cause Linux isn’t an option) because it’s Unix based and has a working command line. Windows causes so many problems around dependency installs and frameworks.
Windows is still on my home machines, but they’re edging closer to going linux too.
This is hilarious to me because I’m the exact opposite.
Windows for work (and gaming) MacOS or iPadOS for personal use for me.
Windows is emphatically not the same thing as Android. They’re two entirely different OS’s. No doubt you know this, it just seems like you momentarily lost the plot and made it about Windows vs Mac, when what we’re really talking about is iOS vs Android.
Oh c’mon now, Apple and iOS apps have too good of a user experience? That’s the issue? You call it “dumbing down software”, I call it implementing user experience research and design.
If anybody wants to judge me based on the brand of electronics I use, my favorite band or the brand of clothes I wear, I have no interest in interacting with them lol. This whole consumerist worship-culture is just toxic.
The worst thing you can do as a consumer is be (blindly) loyal to a brand.
E.g. I like Columbia jackets, footwear, outdoor wear, etc. If however their quality goes down, or there is another comparable product that happens to be on sale (and assuming I like the look/style) I wouldn’t NOT get it because it isn’t a Colombia product.
Also Columbia owns brands like Prana and Mountain Hardware, so if you want higher quality stuff that’s still basically Columbia, you have plenty of options.
The same is true of many other companies.
I am an Android user but this comment should be taken very lightly. As this is not the cause the truth is that Apple is at fault here for still using SMS as the default messaging protocol. However, with that being said, SMS breaks messages on iPhone and the devices have been geared towards iPhone users in away that makes it seem like Android is the issue with image quality and texting. The marketing is excellent on Apple’s end towards the competition and it is working.
However, that doesn’t mean iPhone isn’t the problem. I have a sibling who got bullied for having an iPhone. Apple’s answer to these problems is just, “get an iPhone.” This is equivalent to, “can’t figure it out? Just Google it.” The problem with this mentality is it gives more power to monopolizing platforms. Apple is a growing giant and if they had their way you would just have an iPhone and if Apple has expressed anything in the past 8 years it’s that they aren’t exactly the innovators with mobile devices anymore. To me the problem is on an iPhone nothing would change.
A little irrelevant rant but my point is that the average iPhone consumer has been given a marketing ploy so it is a deal breaker because they think it is an issue and in all fairness it is one but only Google is trying to fix. Issue is that Google should have tried to fix it years ago. You can’t blame iPhone users for wanting to use other platforms to message you if your message is compressed heavily by Apple’s shitty and stupid fucking decision to keep using SMS to control the market. The care about user experience is overshadowed by the desire to use that as a means to make money off of a user that doesn’t understand messaging protocols. Fuck Apple.
Keep using SMS? What are Apple’s other alternatives, exactly? RCS is still a mess, the only way it has e2ee is if you use Google’s messaging app, and there’s no way you will see Apple adopting Google’s standard without having a say in it, and rightfully so - Google locks tons of proprietary features out of their APIs - EXIF data for Photos, Categories in Gmail, etc.
I think this is actually more of a comment on Google’s lack of direction with messaging - how many different messaging apps have they sunset by now? Half dozen or so? Messaging has always been a cluster on Android. WhatsApp is supposedly e2ee, but they have backdoor bugs being patched on a nearly basis - ask Jeff Bezos how his dick pics got hacked.
I mean you can install Google messaging apps on iOS (not that I would want to use them…). But try that the other way around. Apples option to not using SMS would simply be to provide iMessage for Android. Problem solved. They would very likely become the main messaging platform by doing so. Currently the majority of the market is likely split between WhatsApp, Telegram and WeChat.
But obviously they fear that this would hurt iPhone sales. At the same time this also leads to iMessage being irrelevant in the majority of markets where iPhone isn’t as dominating as in the US.
Problem are the Android users as well that refuse to adopt messaging apps just as much.
Standard protocol on Android is SMS as well. RCS behaves differently from carrier to carrier and many Android phones still don’t support it by default.
Even if RCS worked perfectly fine, if Apple doesn’t want to use it, than RCS is just as worthless as iMessage, when it comes to cross-platform communication.
Maybe the post has been edited between when you posted and now, but that’s not what OP is saying.
He’s saying that people don’t want to use SMS. They want to message him via some other platform.
Honestly, I’m the same way. I don’t like SMS and talk to my friends on Android via WhatsApp.
Especially for group chats of any kind, SMS is garbage compared WhatsApp, Signal, or Threema.
If they don’t want to text you because they care what your device is, they’re not friends you want to have.
(this goes both ways. Lots of apple hate in this thread but, wtf, just get on with life folks. if you give a shit what hardware I run, or think i care about your choices, we’re probably not going to be friends).
Yes, but it’s a feature, not a bug.
It’s a super low investment and quick way to identify people you should avoid.
I think this must be a cultural thing because no one in the UK sends SMS messages. Everyone just uses WhatsApp or signal or telegram. I’m android and have literally never had anyone mention the colour of my bubble. I didn’t know this was a thing!
I think it’s mostly an US thing. The rest of the world has moved away from SMS.
It’s mostly a US thing because Android is the standard pretty much everywhere except the US.
American Android users are part of the problem, because they refuse to use messenger apps and cling onto SMS as well
that’s because other countries have affordable data & available wifi…
iMessage also runs on data/wifi. So I don’t think, this is really about affordable data and more just stubborness from the Android side.
I use SMS in Denmark with people I don’t know personally. Apps like Telegram or WhatsApp aren’t common here (yet) unfortunately.
Everyone has Facebook and uses Messenger. The absolute worst of all the choices…
US haven’t moved away from Imperial either 😂
Americans please
SMS is also basically free in several places, so there’s that.
also the case here. but why bother with old crappy sms wen you got 3g,4g and 5g?
Yeah, this is definitely a US-centric thing. Almost nobody I know (UK) uses SMS as their default, it’s usually the last resort before just ringing the person.
I’m from the US and people are using SMS less and less I feel like (though again, I’m biased because Android). Even most of my networking for work is done on Instagram, which to me is incredibly bizarre.
Canada too, but at least we don’t rely on whatsapp/meta
Wait, this is over SMS!?!? How quaint! I haven’t seen anybody use an SMS for anything outside of spam in years!
Apart from SMS Auth and occasionally a “NEW FIRE BUD 10/10 stardawg smoke ring me” messages, apart from those SMS is dead…
You’re right on the money with this comment, what a strange country they have over there…
no one in the UK sends SMS messages
I do, I use stuff like WhatsApp and Discord too mainly of course, but an SMS is fast and reliable, as opposed to the others that require a decent data signal on both the sender and receiver (which is often lacking on my network unfortunately).
Plus, I can schedule SMS messages for a particular time so as to not wake the recipient up if I want to send them a message in the middle of the night, very handy!
Plus, I can theme my SMS app however I want, changing colours, fonts, etc, to be exactly what I like, as well as picking out an SMS app that has the features I’m looking for in the first place (I recommend Chomp). I find applications like WhatsApp to be extremely limited in this regard. Not a deal breaker, but I do love customisability and choice.
I certainly don’t use SMS anywhere near as much as Discord, but it’s wonderful to have it, and I use it regularly :-D
P.S I’ve wanted to use Signal for years but nobody I meet uses it :-( Such a shame, it seems neat!
P.P.S Telegram looks neat too, unfortunately again the adoption with people I know is strangely just 100% furries and nobody else, so I stick to the client that everybody uses rather than having a bunch of them installed (Discord & occasionally WhatsApp).
Fair enough! Maybe it depends on where you live, too. My parents live in rural Cornwall so if I send an SMS they might not get it for a few days (no signal where they live) but their WiFi is good so they’ll definitely get a WhatsApp (or other) message.
If your “friends” make so much fuss over text bubbles, probably the best course of action is to find better friends.
If you think you’re better than me because you have an iPhone and I run an Android, I don’t want to talk to you anyway.
People are so fucking petty and elitist over the dumbest fucking things.
If you live anywhere outside of the US, the question is irrelevant, because everyone uses whatsapp etc.
Within the US, if you are over the age of 30, it probably doesn’t matter.
if you are under the age of 30 AND in the US, I mean, if someone does judge you for it, you at least have a great way to filter shitty people out of your life lol.
In some social circles, yes. Teenagers tend to cling into anything that could potentially be interpreted as a social status symbol or group identity - in the US, for some bizarre reason, people still use the default messaging app and SMS so iMessage and it’s “green vs blue bubble” design immediately fills this space. This can also show up in very shallow dating scenes, like someone using Tinder and just looking for a random hook up with a nice dinner beforehand - they could see the iPhone as a sign of wealth and available money to spend.
But for most adults, living normal lives… I don’t think so. At least, never have been an issue with any of my friends, family members, academic peers, coworkers…
in the US, for some bizarre reason
Is it really that bizarre to use the default messaging app that uses the most widespread protocol(s)?
Yes? SMS is ancient, limited, and Apple’s added proprietary layer on top of it isn’t interoperable so “most widespread protocol” doesn’t even make sense.
There’s a reason Asia, Europe and South America aren’t using SMS in 2023.
And you know, it’s a smartphone, installing apps is kinda the whole point.
Right, the rest of the world uses…. other proprietary messaging apps that have no interoperability between them. You can’t talk from signal to WhatsApp, or WhatsApp to telegram, or telegram to signal. You all need to be using the same messaging app.
The reason why the rest of the world never really got on with SMS in general is because most providers elsewhere in the world still charge for SMS messages while they’ve been free in the US for over a decade. When you have to pay for texts, you tend to look for an alternative real quick.
The thing is the interaction between Apple and Android phones is shit through SMS, and that’s entirely Apple’s fault. I’m pretty sure everyone would be more happy using an app that works for everyone. If you take India for example, almost everyone uses WhatsApp. There’s just straight up no concept of not having WhatsApp. It works the same for both operating systems. So the myth that it’ll be difficult to unite with one app isn’t really true. I don’t like Meta any more than the next person, but the messages are end to end encrypted and lets iPhones and Androids communicate as equals. I’ll definitely take that over one group having a superior experience and the other having a subpar one. I doubt you can really refute that, as there isn’t really another solution due to Apple’s pigheadedness. Sure, you could use Signal to not use a Meta app. But SMS with an uncooperative giant company isn’t the way.
WhatsApp is great at marketing their e2ee, but nobody talks about the fact that they have so many backdoors out in the wild - they’re found annually. See: How Jeff Bezos’s photos were hacked.
That’s fair. I’ll be honest when I say that I’m ok with sacrificing some privacy for convenience. Many people on this platform wouldn’t agree with that. Not using WhatsApp in my country basically isn’t an option unless you just want to be a loner that doesn’t contact anyone, and I’m not the type to call people all the time.
Apple didn’t add anything on top of SMS. iMessage users data and has all the ‘cool’ features. If it cant reach someone via iMessage it falls back to plain old SMS.
Yes. It falls back to the protocol that doesn’t have any of the last 20 years worth of added features. How amazing.
I think you are misunderstanding what the average person does with their phone. The vast majority of people have phones and the vast majority of them are not tech literate enough to go into the app store looking for how to message people. They just use defaults.
Yes they are, they are… Everyone in Europe. I don’t know a single person, including those in their 70s and 80s, without WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger.
Yes, because that’s socially forced on us. I don’t want to have multiple different messaging apps (2 of which from the same fucking megacorp) to have to navigate around.
Person A like to message via app A, but person B likes to message via app B, and person C messages via both app A and B so it’s impossible to keep a fucking unbroken line of conversation going etc etc.
Not to mention that means that I HAVE to have these apps on my phone as a result. No matter how strict you set up your privacy controls to restrict their access, there’s inevitably shit that they still scrape from you, even stuff you’ve specifically rejected access to.
And then on top of all that, you’re giving them all of your conversaions with people. They may tell you it’s all encrypted and all that shit, but I don’t entirely believe it.
It drives me up the wall. Let me have one messaging app. Let it be the default app on the phone.
Well… If the entire world except one region manages to install a third party messaging app, I’d say I’m not misunderstanding anything and the average person is more than capable of doing so. WhatsApp is installed in over 92% of Brazilian smartphones - this includes grandmas, tech illiterate people, and all other examples you couldn think of.
Maybe not bizarre, but I think the regional differences are just intereting. I am living in central europe and I honestly don’t know anyone who used SMS in the last 5-10 years. The only reason to use it is when your data ran out.
Yeah my last 52 texts are all from companies about my orders or my bills etc. No actual humans use SMS anymore
As someone who had visited Europe a ton , I know why you guys use Whatsapp. It’s because you all have so many weird phone numbers lol
No, it’s because WhatsApp was free at a time where SMS were not (you might have a few included in your plan, but you couldn’t rely on that)
That’s actually great insight that I didn’t have. Thank you
Its only a dealbreaker if you are dealing with someone who is exceedingly vapid and worthless as a human being, and you should be grateful for it, because it lets you know real quick not to waste another ounce of effort on their dumb asses.
Let me guess, you are from the United States? Every time I heard about this is only from the US, never see anyone outside giving a single fuck about that.
Also, do you really wanna be friend with someone that choose friendship by the phone their friend uses? WtfYou can have a preference, even a strong one. You can also discuss it with people. But shutting people out because of their phone? That’s a major personality red flag anyway.
This is so American…
“Let me send an SMS, while I ride my horse to go to my bank and do other things that people used to do in 1870.”
“Oh, their SMS color is different! I dislike people with a different color than me.”
People that buy Apple are some of the most superficial beings on this planet.
Who gives a fuck about text bubbles?
Find friends that aren’t so shallow.
I don’t think it’s literally about the color. It’s that SMS has no features. I don’t like talking to people over SMS either. I like modern chat platforms, like Signal and Telegram, that support reactions, high-quality media, receipts, encryption, etc.
Android is switching over to RCS where available, as long as you use the Google Messages app. The default app on a lot of phones don’t support it, but all major carriers in the US do support it. RCS is far superior to MMS or SMS. RCS also supports reactions, receipts, etc, though I’m unsure about whether or not it supports high quality media, but I do know that I’ve had no issues getting good pictures texted to me from other Android users who have RCS. If apple would follow suit, this would be a non issue, but Apple refuses to play ball, so they can use it as a marketing tactic. I’d bet that if they opened up iMessage to Android, there would be a whole lot of people adopting it, just so we’re all on the same page, but yet again, Apple refuses to play nice. This entire thing is Apple’s fault for wanting to keep iPhone users in a walled garden.
I wouldn’t say Android is switching, I’d say Google is switching. There’s no support in Android itself. Third-party SMS apps cannot hook into RCS. There’s limited carrier support. Google is running the RCS relay, and it’s only at the app level, not the OS level. This might seem like an academic distinction to some people, but certainly not to the billion or so users in China, anyone who likes third-party apps, or anyone who prefers deGoogled Android OSes.
Most carriers still don’t support RCS themselves, Apple would need to build their own relay like Google did.
RCS itself is not necessarily E2E encrypted, though Google has hacked that on top if you use their app. This is not an improvement over other closed systems like iMessage. It’s just another closed system.
And because it’s Google, the left hand has no idea what the right hand is doing. Doesn’t work on Google Fi or Google Voice, last I checked.
You couldn’t pay me to adopt another Google messaging platform after they’ve jerked me around endlessly with g-chat/Hangouts/Duo/Voice. I’ll use RCS when it’s truly open and standard. As long as Google is the gatekeeper, I’m out.
The whole system is a mess, largely thanks to Google’s mismanagement.
RCS is also a walled garden. Embrace a messenger app that everyone could use today like Signal or Whatsapp
I just know that those 12 people who down voted this are also some of those superficial beings. Like really? Grow up, the products you use shouldn’t have any effect on your ability to be friends with someone. I find it extremely hard to believe that their are full grown adult human beings that believe this is.
You make the choices you make, that includes the people you interact with.
I prefer not to interact with paper thin personalities that buy Apple products.
Are you 14? In that case maybe.
It’s bewildering to me how this continues to be an issue only in the US, the rest of the world figured out this problem around 2010, and I’m not kidding. It’s like you guys are still arguing about Beta vs VHS in 2023
Laugh in Europe
Y’all are using WhatsApp, owned buy Facebook. Don’t get too smug now. :P
Signal, Telegram , WhatsApp.
All of them and because my telephone decides the keyboard, it’s a pretty unified experience.
One social group is on one app, the family on a second, and the privacy, techsavvy group uses a third.
Laughs in most countries
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