The transition of the major social networks over the last 10-15 years -- from being a space for friends to interact to being a space to consume content produced by "unconnected" entities like influencers -- has created a huge opening for someone to claim the friends and family network. There is no one better positioned (at least in the U.S. where iPhones are the majority handset) than Apple.
I think Apple already has claimed the "friends and family network" via iMessage. Did Facebook go to a groups/influencer algorithm by choice or is it the result of IRL friend posters all moving to private chats once everyone got iPhones?
Everytime iMessage is mentioned, I do a double take because it is almost non existent here in Turkey. And from what I hear, seems like most Europeans do not use it too.
WhatsApp has like 99.9% market share here and I assume it is a lot bigger than anything else in the EU too.
I wonder why is that though. Everyone around me has an iPhone basically and I haven’t received a blue bubble in years. The messages app is not even on my home screen.
As I understand it, many Americans (and all iPhones?) had unlimited-SMS phone plans circa 2009. So the pay-per-message economic conditions that caused many Europeans, etc., to switch to WhatsApp back in the day didn't do anything in the USA.
Then when the same iPhone app seamlessly started sending iMessages (blue bubbles) to other iPhones rather than SMS (green bubbles), people just kept using that.
When Whatsapp launched, SMS still wasn't free, the exception being some carriers that offered "free" SMS to numbers of the same carrier if the sender was on a premium coverage plan. In sum, majority of the population was still paying $0,10-$0,20 despite already having data plans. So it was an easy win for WhatsApp.
>> So the pay-per-message economic conditions that caused many Europeans, etc., to switch to WhatsApp back in the day didn't do anything in the USA.
I see this listed as the reason often but I had unlimited SMS then too. In fact I remember visiting the US in 2009 and I was charged to send AND receive an SMS which was a shock.
I think the actual reason is that communication across borders in Europe is very common and those SMS's were not included in the unlimited plans as they were messages abroad. So they were subject to fees (usually high ones). I think this is the reason it was common - especially given how common it is for students to study 'abroad' in other European countries. There were a few competing apps for this at the time (Vibr I think was another but was more call focussed) but WhatsApp won in the end.
>> So the pay-per-message economic conditions that caused many Europeans, etc., to switch to WhatsApp back in the day
> I think the actual reason is that communication across borders in Europe is very common and those SMS's were not included in the unlimited plans as they were messages abroad. So they were subject to fees (usually high ones).
So, you completely agree with what you seem to be taking issue with.
Yepp, this is my theory too. When you live in a country with friends 2 hours away by car in a totally different country, paying extra for "long distance" is absurd when tools exist to communicate with no extra fees.
Viber is alive and well nowadays and is the dominant messaging app in quite a few geographies. Given that Facebook Messenger seems to also have about the same MAU as WhatsApp (and seems to be dominant in the US), I don't think you can say any one of those "won".
>> Viber is alive and well nowadays and is the dominant messaging app in quite a few geographies
Interesting! I haven't heard mention of Viber since around 2011. When I said WhatsApp 'won' I meant that wherever I have been in Europe WhatsApp seems to be in use by people and by businesses. It's almost accepted you'll have an account and used as an alternative to email/phone numbers. I understand global MAU may show a different reality and certain locales may still be dominated by other platforms.
Huawei and other Chinese phones are not banned in the EU. So you can get your hands on 100€ to 200€ smartphones which are more than enough for most people. Hence a lot less iPhones (but a ton more spywares).
That's only true if everyone in the group has an Apple phone, which has decreasing probability with every additional member. Excluding people from a conversation because they don't have the right brand of phone would be pretty antisocial.
Unfortunately it happens all the time in my friends circle, and it's for technical not anti-social reasons. Group texts that include Android users are so buggy that they tend to die out, whereas iMessage-only groups tend to be long lasting. For this reason we use WhatsApp for the core group chat, but there's still a ton of side-conversations and meme-ing in iMessage groups.
>> For this reason we use WhatsApp for the core group chat, but there's still a ton of side-conversations and meme-ing in iMessage groups.
I don't understand why you would use two chat systems when you know one is excluding some friends? Why not just centralise on WhatsApp which you're already using? Serious question. I can understand why switching is a big ask but when you're already using the multi-platform option part of the time switching back and forth seems unnecessary and inconvenient.
Because the majority of my communication is already in iMessage and I don't want to bother with another app. I also by default opt out of any Zuckerberg operations that I can, they get enough of my data without me having an account on any of their platforms as is.
In the USA, someone insisting on using an Android when everyone else in their social circle has an iPhone (and they do!) is what's seen as anti-social. No one wants to use the degraded green bubble SMS experience so they simply exclude the Android user and continue using blue bubble iMessage.
I have never ever seen this. If your "friends" treat you badly because of your phone choice, they are not really your friends. Also, iMessage is not that great. It's nice but it is not amazing like some people make it out to be.
I totally agree with you, but it's pretty obvious why this behaviour exists. At the end of the day, a cell phone is as much a status symbol, something akin to the clothes you wear, as much as it is an actual phone. Would you potentially lower your opinion of someone wearing a strange piece of clothing? The principle is exactly the same.
I'll do you one better: in this specific situation, the antisocial buck stops at the friend group who doesn't all chip in and buy their Android friend a "keep in touch" iPhone.
But the point remains that a cynical UX/technical/business decision that does not need to be so is rending real relationships between actual people. If Tim Cook had the power to render anyone who didn't pay him $400+ mute to their friends and family through some sort of black magic, we'd call him a comic book supervillain.
I bought an Android specifically so I don't have to use an iPhone, speaking as a former iPhone user. "Friends" chipping in to buy me an iPhone isn't something I'd actually want.
Honestly, if your "friend" group is willing to exclude you because you're not using a particular brand of cell phone, then I have some bad news for you: They might not really be great friends.
This is not really true since RCS launched. It does most of what people care about. Everyone sees Emojis and a few other special Fx and videos and pictures now look good for everyone and don't get nerfed as soon as one user is on Android.
Maybe RCS doesn't do all the esoteric iMessage stuff but it doesn't necessarily have to, half those extra features are gatekeeped on having the latest iPhone or whatever and so they don't get used as often.
This is potentially true; I've noticed green-bubble chats are much less annoying in the last year. Do they send over Wifi now? That was also a killer iMessage feature on trips with bad cell coverage.
It surprises me people who actually have this problem don't just switch to a different messaging app. There are many, and the effort required is minimal.
It's called a network effect for a reason. People don't want to use multiple apps so they generally will want all of their friends to be using the same app. Switching to a different app for one friend group adds significant friction.
This is why we need legally mandated interopability for call communications platforms above a certain size. It's absurd that the situation today is worse than the early 2000's where you could use one program to talk to your ICQ, MSN and Aim friends.
Before there was the pandemic and 'Zoom Fatigue' there were other applications such as Skype, Google Meet, WebEx, Go2Meeting and many more that went through a variation of Doctorow's 'enshittification cycle' although it isn't so much that these became commercially exploitative but rather the honeymoon period ended.
If, for instance I want you to try a new "meeting" program your response is likely to be "this could be such a hassle" and the vendor has a strong incentive to make it work well so I can say, "Remember how well Skype used to work ten years ago? Zoom is like that now". In that early phase the vendor invests in quality, once it has an established user base it is 'competing' on the basis of dominance of a two sided market and there isn't any need to invest in quality. (In fact, investors insist on disinvestment because they want to take profits after years of losses.) Eventually it gets so bad that even the two sided market dominance can't save them anymore and a new competitor comes in.
If chat and messaging programs were interoperable, vendors would be competing on quality instead of relying on two-sided market dominance, and we'd have seen the user experience improve rapidly and dramatically over the past 20 years instead of going sideways. I mean, "remember how good ICQ was?"
That is ironic, given how the whole push to get Apple to support RCS came from google in the first place. They had that website with the open letter to try and tell Apple that supporting RCS was in everyone’s best interest and would enable Apple and Android users to be on even footing, etc etc.
But then oops, turns out Google’s on wireless service doesn’t even support it. Maybe google didn’t think Apple would call their bluff?
Google stole Microsoft's position of "arrogant company that just doesn't get it". What I found about Google comms product was that they worked the worst on slow internet connections of any product. Back when I had 2 Mbps or worse DSL, I could get on meetings with anything that wasn't Google Hangouts, Google Talk, Google Meet, etc. It's like it was with Docker Hub, which had low timeouts that made it impossible for me to actually download images to install anything substantial.
That, plus other little slights like only buying high-quality aerial photos of upstate NY years after Microsoft did left me feeling that Google saw me as a non-person because I didn't live in the bay area, NYC, LA or DC.
Usually you actually need to not use third party apps. RCS on Android is usually restricted to Google Messages (or maybe Samsungs built in messages app). Everyone else got the boot
You also sometimes have to enable in the settings for Android Messages (and have a supported carrier). iMessage also has an option to enable RCS but I believe its on by default in the newer versions of iOS
I don't know, I haven't used Android in quite a few years, but it was my understanding that it was in Google's default SMS app. When I got iOS 18, all of my texts to Android users switched automatically to RCS, so they didn't have to do anything.
I wrote an "SMS" to the previous tenant of my new flat recently and it got seamlessly upgraded to rcs. With me on an android and them on an iPhone. This was using Google messages, which was the default on my zenfone for sms
My friend group chat was suddenly RCS after updating iOS today and it’s great - no more “So and so liked ‘the entire message body’” messages, we all just see the thumbs up reaction
In the US, using iMessage involves flipping a switch in some Messages setting--and everyone I know in the US just texts, except for texting with international folks.
Quick note that I'm in the US and my experience is: most random people use SMS; closer friends and family some use Signal, some Discord, some email; colleagues use Slack; overseas taxi drivers etc. use WhatsApp.
This obviously offers more than just sending an email. And since the majority of Apple users aren't very tech savvy, I can see this catching on quickly.
You do not need to own an Apple device to either create events or join events.
> I'll send an email for free, thankyouverymuch.
This seems fine! There are open protocols (email, ics) if they work for you, but Apple specifically developed this in a way to neither require an Apple device or Apple Account to interact. Which is better than some of the competitors! (Facebook and Google tend to create social tools which explicitly require everyone to have accounts.)
> You do not need to own an Apple device to either create events
You need an "iCloud+" account to create, though. Which I as a non-apple user have no idea what is, and probably is useless for me to pay for not using anything apple beforehand.
> Apple today introduced Apple Invites, a new app for iPhone
If Android users have to login to a website to use this, what's the appeal? There are hundreds of simple meeting/event webapps out there, many not even requiring authentication.
> If Android users have to login to a website to use this, what's the appeal?
I'm not trying to convince you or anyone else to use this. It just was pointing out you don't need Apple accounts or devices to participate opposed to something like Facebook events.
> There are hundreds of simple meeting/event webapps out there
Okay? Go crazy using those! But don't claim that this requires an Apple device to create or join events (like the OP I was responding to). And don't claim that this requires an Apple Account to join events (like many other commentators are).
The problem is that by vendor-locking these services to Apple users, they create an environment that alienates non-Apple users. If they want to truly claim the friends & family network, they need to remember that everyone has friends & family that aren't in the Apple ecosystem.
So long as Facebook remains available to everyone, even if the content feed is a mess, the event planning space is going to be more accessible to everyone and will end up being the defacto friends & family ecosystem.
I'm not an iCloud+ member, so I can't go in an look for myself, but ideally this would be just a fancy way of extending your iCloud Calendar invites where Gmail, Outlook, etc. users can still create events and invite people in roughly the same way. If as a Linux & Android user I am only able to RSVP to Apple users' invites, but I am never able to invite them to anything myself, then I literally cannot embrace this product without investing considerable money into their hardware, which I am not going to do.
Hell, if they featureset was compelling enough, and they had an iCloud app for non-Apple hardware platforms, I might actually consider being an iCloud+ member, but I guess it's not worth it to Apple to collect a monthly payment from me if I won't make the downpayment on an iPhone and a Macbook...
> So long as Facebook remains available to everyone, even if the content feed is a mess, the event planning space is going to be more accessible to everyone and will end up being the defacto friends & family ecosystem.
For now. We're in the process of seeing Twitter die like every other social network has died before it, Facebook will have it's time as well.
Undoubtedly. I agree 100%. I still think that Apple needs to consider how accessible Facebook is/was if they want to produce a product capable of replacing any part of it.
> So long as Facebook remains available to everyone
This is not a given even today. Creating a new Facebook account involves a ton of scrutiny, you need to upload an ID, and until your account is older and established it’s likely that anything you do can get auto-scanned by some spam bot and get you banned for using some keyword, even in private chats.
I don’t have a Facebook account but I needed to create one a few years back to use my oculus quest (this is before they finally came to their senses and separated the accounts) and I had a lot of trouble convincing FB that I was a real human.
I had a Facebook account long ago, deleted it (and my Twitter and my LinkedIn) both because I thought social media was going crazy and because LinkedIn had personally brought ruin into my life.
Recently I made a new Facebook account to go with my Quest 3 VR headset. I don't find too much appealing about Facebook, posted a little, haven't used it much. I wanted to make an Instagram account because I want to post flower and sports photographs, really inoffensive stuff that would do well on the platform. Whenever I try to create an Instagram account, linked to my Facebook account or not, I get a message saying there was an error and I should try again later but later never comes.
Talking to support about it gets no response. I don't know if my history of deleting my account long ago is the cause or if it is something else.
A person I know who committed a misdemeanor is now on probation and one term of his probation is that he stay off social media, though he can use ordinary web sites. I saw a poster for a board game club which is exactly the kind of community activity that his probation officer would approve of, but the only information on the sign is the title and a QR code that points to... A Facebook group. There are plenty of other people who choose not to use Facebook for various reasons who are also excluded by this.
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The world badly needs something to support community organizations because of the problems pointed out in this movie based on Robert Putnam's work:
It's not difficult to approach this as a startup, but it is a devilishly hard problem to sustain it without being attached to something toxic like personalization-based advertising. There are plenty of foundations which could afford to fund this kind of effort (e.g. you could kill it at $1M a year if you weren't paying Bay Area wages and didn't have nonprofit bloat) but if anything the ability to fill out the paperwork from grants is inversely proportional to being able to execute on this sort of thing.
> Hell, if they featureset was compelling enough, and they had an iCloud app for non-Apple hardware platforms, I might actually consider being an iCloud+ member, but I guess it's not worth it to Apple to collect a monthly payment from me if I won't make the downpayment on an iPhone and a Macbook...
You can create events from the web iCloud interface without an Apple device.
>If they want to truly claim the friends & family network, they need to remember that everyone has friends & family that aren't in the Apple ecosystem.
They are completely aware of it an actively leverage it to use your friends and family against you to force you into Apple's ecosystem. It's the main reason why Android will have to get pretty bad before I bend to such incredibly dirty tactics.
I'm not convinced they're leaving a lot of money on the table by pitching a free app at a billion iPhone users vs. the famously lucrative Linux desktop market.
This is what it's been for me as well, for several years— all meaningful friend-group interactions are now taking place in group chats, sadly this is entirely in Whatsapp and FB Messenger for me; would love if there was a reasonable migration path to getting these interactions entirely off of Meta properties.
Apple and Meta's wet dream is exclusionary friends and family networks tied to their future AR hardware. Half the people at the Christmas party pointing and zooming around an AR globe to talk about their travels and the other half with the wrong brand not able to see anything. Maybe they just place the virtual globe on top of one of them and completely block them out to get more space since they aren't seeming relevant.
The transition of the major social networks over the last 10-15 years -- from being a space for friends to interact to being a space to consume content produced by "unconnected" entities like influencers -- has created a huge opening for someone to claim the friends and family network. There is no one better positioned (at least in the U.S. where iPhones are the majority handset) than Apple.