The long fight to make Apple’s iMessage compatible with all devices has raged with little to show for it. But Google (de facto leader of the charge) and other mobile operators are now leveraging the European Union’s Digital Market Act (DMA), according to the Financial Times. The law, which goes into effect in 2024, requires that “gatekeepers” not favor their own systems or limit third parties from interoperating within them. Gatekeepers are any company that meets specific financial and usage qualifications, including Google’s parent company Alphabet, Apple, Samsung and others.
The app is called Messages. The entire point of the article is to discuss iMessages versus SMS so I absolutely do think it’s important to get the distinction right in this case.
But the statement made is not incorrect. I agree that a note that it’s because the conversation switches to S/MMS would be handy, but they’re not incorrect.
(When photos and videos are sent to an Android user through iMessage), (Android users receive lower-quality photos and videos [via being downgraded to SMS/MMS).
The statement in the article is literally incorrect. You cannot send a message to an Android user through iMessage. That fact is at the core of the discussion and they got it wrong. It’s not degraded from an iMessage. The conversation is just happening over SMS/MMS, as the Messages app has supported since launch in 2007.
The surrounding context of that statement is talking about the app, not the protocol. From the Apple user’s perspective, they see no difference except for the bubble color.
