I used to have an iPhone and never opened iMessage. I was thinking that it is different name for SMS. So 70% iOS penetration doesn't mean 70% iMessage use.
Viber was pretty popular here (Spain) before WhatsApp supported voice calling. People used them side by side, Viber for voice, WhatsApp for text. Now WhatsApp dominates everything, with Telegram coming in a very distant second. Telegram seems popular for groups because I believe it doesn't show everyone your phone number. A lot of Teachers seem to setup Telegram groups for their students so their student's don't see their phone number.
That's very true and such a nice feature! I think the one time I ever used Telegram was to send my girlfriend a multi gigabyte video file, so she could forward it into her student's Telegram group from her phone.
In fairness, almost no one uses iMessage in the EU. That’s why I have WhatsApp and Signal, even though most people in the EU I know have an iPhone. iMessage is pervasive in the US though. That said, iMessage is really, really good and has features none of the other apps have due to tight integration with the iOS internals.
Signal is common in Western governments, particularly the more sensitive and diligent parts. If you work with government people, and I do, that tends to be the messaging app of choice and sometimes policy. WhatsApp also tends to be commonly used in Europe for official government things despite being forbidden for such purposes, but that isn’t seriously enforced. If you wanted an intelligence backdoor into the entire European political apparatus, WhatsApp is the way to do it. Colloquially and by inference, Signal seems to be considered the most secure common messaging app in governments, though this doesn’t mean it is actually true.
I’ve used a lot of messaging apps around the world but never had a need to install Telegram. I know it is used in Eastern Europe but I never had a need to install it even when I was there.
I’m just a user but my messaging footprint is more global than most.
I think this is really why it never caught on here (having fallback to SMS by default). I have an unlimited voice and data plan here in Spain, and don't get any SMS included at all. There's not even an option with my provider to have any included. 0.1 euros per SMS, it's kinda crazy. I maybe send 5 or 10 per year, usually some kind of response to an automated 2fa system or etc. If iMessage ever took off I'd always have to be aware of the green/blue bubble thing and make sure to never send a message using SMS. WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal/etc is just easier since you don't have to think about it.
For sure, content sent over iMessage has been used for remote exploitation repeatedly historically, though the attack surface becomes smaller every year. Android’s attack surface is at least as large, but the ecosystem is so fragmented that it is more difficult to attack. Content codecs are an issue everywhere. Aspects of iOS “lockdown mode” severely reduce this attack surface, at the cost of reducing the kinds of random media that can be trivially consumed.
I’m not an expert. My impressions from people that are in a position to know is that a modern and properly locked down iOS device is extremely difficult and/or expensive to penetrate. Most people are pretty careless about security regardless. Many orgs that are willing to spend money for security do end up with iOS devices. It is hard to say what that means. I’ve never heard anyone say that Android is more secure than iOS, and the Android versions used in security sensitive contexts are quite unlike anything that would be tolerated on a normal person’s phone.
I'm specifically talking about attacks that happen with no user interaction, just receiving a message gives root access on the phone. They have happened at least 4 different times in 2023, and all were similar in that imessage wasn't (and i guess still isn't) properly sandboxed.
So while the actual bug got fixed, the issue of imessage not being sandboxed didn't get fixed.
This has nothing to do with how careless or careful one might be, since there is no user interaction required.
Also "Apple won't be forced to open up iMessage by EU"[0] (12 points, 18 hours ago, 3 comments), "Apple's iMessage avoids EU's Digital Markets Act regulation"[1] (104 points, 16 hours ago, 170 comments)
I keep seeing people comment that "message isn't popular here". Anti trust laws shouldn't be about how popular something is. That's like not ticketing someone for speeding because they are driving a minivan.
If anti trust behavior is anything other than bullying companies you think are too powerful there needs to be criteria for the specific behavior that is independent of it's current effectiveness.
So even when the market in the EU has spoken and rejected the product that is iMessage, we should consider it a market failure that demands anti-trust intervention because Apple is a "bully"?
Under what circumstances do you believe anti-trust regulation isn't warranted?
Nobody uses iMessage _because_ it was crap and is still locked in. If it would just connect to other messaging networks I would probably switch to it as it could provide better standard integrations with other apps. Unfortunately products aren't optimized for users but for profit and regulation here is dropping the ball again.
Current list of gatekeepers is FAAMG and TikTok[2], and to be considered for it requires three years worth of a large market share[1].
Not even Discord or Slack seem to make the cut at the moment, so I wouldn’t be too worried about the “peasant class” being forced to comply with the DMA.
It’s always amusing to hear Americans complain about the lock-in of blue bubbles.