I wish we had something like AirDrop to work between android and iOS devices.
In theory, other Android devices support WiFi Direct too, maybe they just don't ship userspace apps for that, like Samsung does.
I even use it even between my laptop and my phone fairly frequently, since the top suggestion on my phone keyboard in the browser is dro.pm and I just have to add a slash (long-press "m") and a letter. It's quicker to use dropm than to open a chat with myself or send myself an email or something.
Of course this is just protected by https, and although it is source-available and the links are really gone after expiry (or when you edited it, the old contents are irretrievable), magic-wormhole is superior in that you don't have a trusted third party. For the cases where the other party doesn't have magic-wormhole installed, this might be helpful. This also alleviates the requirement of WebRTC for both parties to be online simultaneously.
> magic-wormhole is superior in that you don't have a trusted third party.
Well, magic-wormhole does need a trusted third party called Rendezvous Server. [1]
[1]: https://magic-wormhole.readthedocs.io/en/latest/api.html#ren...
The Apple ecosystem is very closed and Apple will fight tooth and nail to keep it that way. Removing vendor lock-in would, after all, allow users to try switching to another brand without an enormous amount of hassle.
In general you are right, Apple is very adamant about keeping full control over their ecosystem (and locking users in). They even sponsor a C compiler project so that they can avoid gcc. There are exceptions though, like AirPrint which is a marketing name for open standard technologies: https://wiki.debian.org/AirPrint
Does Android have something similar to iMessage?
No. The parent to your comment means open iMessage between Android and iOS.
Kind of-ish. The RCS support is rolling out slowly. Of course there is a big difference in that RCS is not end to end encrypted. Also, there is nothing stopping Apple from implementing RCS as well, but I doubt they will do.
If there's one thing that Apple hates more than lost profits, it's handing over control of anything to carriers. Cheap-subscription iMessage/Facetime for Android would strangle RCS/Duo in the cradle and put a thumb in the eye of the carriers, while bringing in some steady and significant regular revenue. Let's not forget that Apple is already offering a subscription service on Android, Apple Music. They're not averse to the concept.
We had XMPP among others, and Apple decided not to be open. We now also have Signal or Telegram, which are multi-platform.
If you say "yeah sure it is, we're even releasing it as open source" then you prevent the product falling at the first hurdle because people want an interoperable solution. Once you have adoption network effect carries you through.
Sounds like most probably a standard corporate lie by Jobs; do you have evidence to the contrary?
Things that they’ve adopted/forked/bought are but there’s not much they’ve started from scratch and released as OSS.
There is almost no expectation of it from people who know Apple.
Promising something unexpected and not delivering is undoubtedly more damaging than saying nothing.
Sorry, I was being a bit sarcastic :P ;)
iMessage isn't the first nor last proprietary chat platform. It's seen as a competitive advantage, just like BBM was back in the day.
It has some massive annoyances but it's very well embedded.