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Comment by oplav | Hacker News Reader

Do you use any other Apple products? I feel the same way about paying a premium for a phone I don't like, but iMessage is what is keeping me from switching (back) to Android.

My personal computer is a 2014 MacBook. My work computer is a MacBook. Being able to message freely from my laptop to others on iMessage is a really nice feature.

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I dream of a world where all my messaging takes place in Keybase for this reason.

With android you also can do this on MacOS, as well as Linux and Windows.

And then in a few months' time you can do it in a new app with a slightly different UI!

messages.android.com

I can't figure out what's great about iMessage. Is it just what I get when I send a text message to someone who also has an iPhone, and it uses a blue bubble to show it's encrypted?

In practice, I have maybe one friend who regularly uses text messaging. Everybody in my neck of the woods uses Hangouts, Messenger, Threema, etc.

Well native iMessage is a lot nicer to use than a pile of web/electron apps. I say this as an Android user whose 8GB MacBook struggles under the weight of a handful of messaging apps.

FYI, Telegram can also be used from a laptop without a phone being involved.

This requires the network I communicate with to move from iMessage, a platform that already works for them, to Telegram or any other app for my sake.

By staying for iMessage you're rewarding Apple for creating an antisocial messaging app and excluding other platforms.

I didn't mention that because I thought it's obvious. Hooray for network effects.

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