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Comment by ronyeh | Hacker News Reader

But they pick an ugly shade of green though.

I currently have an iPhone 15 Pro Max and have also used Android devices in the past. I like to switch each time I get a new phone.

Apple definitely picks an ugly color to make you feel uncomfortable texting with a non iPhone user. They should at least let users choose the color (which will never happen).

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The green predates the existence of iMessage. That green is the color that was used from the beginning of the iPhone in 2007; iMessage was only added in 2011. iMessage was given a different color than the preexisting one.

Trying to claim that Apple picked an "ugly color to make you feel uncomfortable" is simply false.

The original green bubbles used a different shade but more importantly they used black text. iOS 7 switched to white text and a shade of green that means the contrast for SMS failed Apple's own guidelines. Even for people with decent eye sight it can cause additional eye strain and be perceived as ugly even if the green on its own would be fine.

To be fair the blue they choose is also not ideal, but it is a lot better than the green.

https://medium.com/@krvoller/how-iphone-violates-apples-acce...

iOS 4 : https://i.imgur.com/3LIpvX9.png

iOS 5 (introduction of iMessage) : https://i.imgur.com/v2Wths4.png

iOS 7: https://i.imgur.com/7k8QL3z.png

Yes, it was green before, but it didn't look so vile. Since the redesign of iOS in 7 the difference of green vs blue is a difference in legibility.

All texts were green for years before iMessage (and blue texts) existed, so I highly doubt it was picked to be ugly on purpose.

It’s the system “green” color. It’s used anytime there is a UI element that’s supposed to be green, same as system “blue” is used for iMessage and everything else in the OS.

They didn't pick it for that:

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/277597847631822848/11...

> Apple definitely picks an ugly color to make you feel uncomfortable texting with a non iPhone user.

But what's Apple's motivation? Making me feel uncomfortable reading an Android user's messages does little to influence that Android user into buying an iPhone.

That said, I don't know why Apple thinks the transport protocol (iMessage vs SMS) is so important that users want to see a color indicator for every message.

> They should at least let users choose the color (which will never happen).

You can turn on high contrast mode in Messages settings which gives you a forest green color that's imo pretty nice to look at.

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