400
Nothing Phone builds a blue bubble iMessage bridge while Google and Apple fight over RCS
(www.androidcentral.com)
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Teenagers today suffer unique threats to their health and wellbeing from technology. It may be super easy for you to say "who the fuck cares about the color" but that is far from the case for US teenagers. Willingly setting yourself apart from the group in high school is a precarious move in the best of circumstances.
And for the rest of us, this goes way beyond the color being used. The SMS/MMS fallback in iMessage offers a terrible experience for non-Apple users. Low quality media, inability to manage one's own memeberships in groups, and no encryption. For those worried about the lack of e2ee: Android users participating in an iMessage conversation don't have that today. You're not losing anything from this solution.
Legal disclosures prove that Apple knowingly uses iMessage in an anticompetitive fashion. It's a moat to keep people from switching away from iPhone. They are leveraging their position in the messaging market to shore up their restrictive phone products. I wish US antitrust enforcement was stronger in this area but until then, I hope Nothing has great success in breaking down this illegal barrier.
Really interesting how different the US is. Here in central europe it's pretty much whatsapp, telegram, signal. Most people use 2 or 3 of those. Doesn't matter what device they are using
iPhones are really popular over there. Most people have one. For teenagers it's something ridiculous like 85% of them using an iPhone. In Europe we have a more balanced split, so only using iMessage wouldn't fly here.
I've seen a bit of an uptick in the use of Signal in the US, like it's worth having it installed...sorta.