Interoperability, Privacy, & Security
ftc.gov
ftc.gov
iMessage is a private service, run by a private company, exclusively for customers who buy physical products from them [1], which does not in any way, shape, or form prevent any other messaging services from working on said products.
I simply do not understand how the FTC or the DOJ can come in and say, “Some third-party reverse-engineered your service to support devices you have implicitly said through years of non-support [2] that you do not want to provide this service to, so you now have an obligation and/or requirement to support third-party interoperation.”
--
[1] iMessage is neither available on Android nor available on iCloud. Consequently, you must purchase or otherwise obtain an Apple hardware device to use iMessage.
[2] And, somewhat explicitly, through documents and statements during litigation.
Apple lets anyone who buys their devices use any messaging service they want, with no OS-level restrictions on the capability of those messaging services (that is, a third-party app can effectively take the place of iMessage with no loss of device or app functionality).
Apple happens to provide a first-party messaging service which any user is able to completely ignore in favor of one of its many competitors, and many, many do (see literally every place other than the United States).
I don’t see how Ma Bell and iMessage are in any way analogous whatsoever.
iMessage is not an app, but Apple Messages is. On iOS and the App Store, Apple forbids third-party apps from supporting SMS/MMS from the device, which unfairly disadvantages competitors to Apple Messages (and competitors to iMessage).
> The FTC will closely scrutinize any claims that competition must be impeded to advance privacy or security.
While Apple has frequently made the claims that the FTC is now scrutinizing, I think a more likely outcome is that Apple will be compelled to remove restrictions from iOS and the App Store that are found to be anticompetitive.
The Apple restriction that applies most to Beeper is the fact that iOS and the App Store disallow third-party SMS/MMS apps. If iPhone users gain the ability to choose a default SMS/MMS app other than Apple's Messages, iPhone users would be able to make their default messenger app Beeper (Beeper Cloud) or a wide range of messengers that also support SMS/MMS on Android.
These alternatives don't lock iPhone users in to iMessages, which doesn't support anything other than Apple devices. These alternatives also don't mark SMS/MMS with the green bubbles that have been stigmatized by some U.S. iPhone users as a result of that platform lock-in.
The gubmint overreach crowd suddenly got real quiet on HN today.
Can someone explain iMessages to me? I've been a lifelong Androider and really don't understand. I'm able to text, and have group texts with my friends and family that have iPhones. The only difference I've heard of is that the bubble colors appear different and then I get snide comments about it. Which I promptly return in equal measure about owning my device, the freedom to do what I want, and how they will one day find out their walled garden is actually a prison courtyard.
But like what am I missing here what is the actual difference? I'm not trying to be sarcastic I genuinlly don't understand.
In the Messages app, messages sent with the iMessage protocol are displayed in blue bubbles and messages sent with SMS/MMS are displayed in green bubbles. The Messages app automatically uses iMessage if the recipient has a phone number registered to use iMessage, and otherwise falls back to SMS/MMS. In group chats, the Messages app only uses iMessage if all participating phone numbers also use iMessage.
On iPhones (and iPads), Apple does not allow apps other than Messages to access the device's SMS/MMS functionality. This means every iPhone user's only SMS/MMS app automatically switches to iMessage when possible unless the user specifically deregisters their phone number from the iMessage system. With Apple's restriction, iOS users cannot switch to a different messaging app that supports a combination of on-device SMS/MMS and a newer protocol that is not iMessage.
In the U.S., some iPhone users who are accustomed to features found in iMessage but not supported by SMS/MMS are upset when they are in a conversation with a phone number that is not registered to use iMessage. This was originally due to SMS/MMS having fewer features than iMessage, but has evolved into a social signal for some U.S. iPhone users who are typically younger. This has led those iPhone users to stigmatize the green bubbles in Apple's Messages app and exclude Android users from their conversations.*
The portion of Apple's conduct that is most applicable to FTC regulation, in my opinion, is not that Apple limits iMessage to Apple devices, but that Apple implements App Store restrictions to forbid iOS/iPadOS from supporting third-party SMS/MMS clients.
* Why Apple’s iMessage Is Winning: Teens Dread the Green Text Bubble: https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-apples-imessage-is-winning-... (https://archive.ph/gGNel)
That's the gist of the problem... buying has lost all meaning (it used to be that you own something you buy, we just rent things now). Apple still fully controls what you can and cannot do with "your" product.