But all you have to do is charge a yearly fee... Apple keeps talking about moving to services revenue but can't even tackle the low hanging fruit. Heck, bundle it with iCloud and make it something ridiculous like $20/month and you'll get the best of both worlds.
It's not a long-term problem because they're going to have to add support for RCS at some point, meaning Android users will have a similar experience to iMessage with their iOS friends.<p>Apple wasn't going to port iMessage to Android because there isn't any benefit. I can't charge people to use a messaging app, they're free.<p>I love iMessage, it's one of the reasons I stay on the Apple platform, but in a world where almost all my friends use some other app anyway, it doesn't really matter. Like I still have to have Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Snapchat and Signal installed in order to talk to everyone. iMessage is mostly great for less technical family members because they "get it out of the box".
They’ve launched products for other platforms with limited success, except for the big one being iTunes for Windows which was a huge success.<p>There is no reason in the end to support more platforms because problems with other platforms end up being blamed on the service. I think this is also something they strictly want to avoid.<p>If there are integration issues with X networks, Y devices and Z versions of android. Users will complain to Apple. From this perspective I think it makes sense.
I don’t understand the point this article is trying to make.<p>Yes, Apple execs thought that iMessage exclusivity would help them. Perhaps it did a little but the app still connects seamlessly to android users via sms. I never think when contacting someone, “oh wait, do they have an iPhone?”<p>As for imessage-specific features (iMessage App Store, cash, imessage for businesses etc): they have pretty limited use. And in fact Apple’s choice inhibits some of them (like iChat to your business) which seems like an own goal.<p>More importantly, Whatsapp has crushed most of the messaging apps, imessage included. Apple doesn’t seem to care or try to block it.<p>So what offense, exactly has been committed?
It works both ways though; in countries where iPhone market share is not extremely high, nobody uses the exclusive features of iMessage such as group chats and it’s just ‘automatic free sms with some extras’.