I asked if people chose iPhone for the blue bubbles elsewhere a couple days ago, and while there was some good discourse on that post, the blue bubbles definitely also came up as a reason.
In my experience, when people find out my texts are green, they oftentimes would rather switch to a different platform altogether like Instagram or just not text at all.
Is this actually a deal-breaker in friendships out there?
If they don’t want to text you because you don’t have an iPhone they’re not friends you want to have.
Seen this sentiment that green bubbles = bad a few times online but never it’s never come up for me. I assume this is a teen - early adult specific issue where the idea is mostly to be part of the group
It’s been happening in high schools, to the point teens are bullied and pushed out of peer groups if they have Androids. It’s frankly disgusting that apple willingly creates this division to profit off teenagers bullying each other, and they don’t get called out for it enough.
But in the larger picture, it’s definitely going to be more common among the young, because iPhones themselves are ubiquitous among the younger. It’s something the tech space is slowly starting realize: Apple has almost total market dominance among the rising demographic, and this has led to increasing tech illiteracy due to the way Apple designs its software, and inability/refusal to learn anything else. That is a huge problem for the tech industry when the only thing they can do to find customers is dumb their software down to appeal to people that don’t know how to use anything other than iOS
Perhaps in the US but it’s not so pronounced elsewhere. I think I only know one person with an iPhone.
Everyone 30 and under at my office prefers Macs, to the point of bringing in their own machines to do 90% of their work and falling back to the Windows laptops issued by IT for the remainder.
If anybody wants to judge me based on the brand of electronics I use, my favorite band or the brand of clothes I wear, I have no interest in interacting with them lol. This whole consumerist worship-culture is just toxic.
The worst thing you can do as a consumer is be (blindly) loyal to a brand.
E.g. I like Columbia jackets, footwear, outdoor wear, etc. If however their quality goes down, or there is another comparable product that happens to be on sale (and assuming I like the look/style) I wouldn’t NOT get it because it isn’t a Colombia product.
I am an Android user but this comment should be taken very lightly. As this is not the cause the truth is that Apple is at fault here for still using SMS as the default messaging protocol. However, with that being said, SMS breaks messages on iPhone and the devices have been geared towards iPhone users in away that makes it seem like Android is the issue with image quality and texting. The marketing is excellent on Apple’s end towards the competition and it is working.
However, that doesn’t mean iPhone isn’t the problem. I have a sibling who got bullied for having an iPhone. Apple’s answer to these problems is just, “get an iPhone.” This is equivalent to, “can’t figure it out? Just Google it.” The problem with this mentality is it gives more power to monopolizing platforms. Apple is a growing giant and if they had their way you would just have an iPhone and if Apple has expressed anything in the past 8 years it’s that they aren’t exactly the innovators with mobile devices anymore. To me the problem is on an iPhone nothing would change.
A little irrelevant rant but my point is that the average iPhone consumer has been given a marketing ploy so it is a deal breaker because they think it is an issue and in all fairness it is one but only Google is trying to fix. Issue is that Google should have tried to fix it years ago. You can’t blame iPhone users for wanting to use other platforms to message you if your message is compressed heavily by Apple’s shitty and stupid fucking decision to keep using SMS to control the market. The care about user experience is overshadowed by the desire to use that as a means to make money off of a user that doesn’t understand messaging protocols. Fuck Apple.
Keep using SMS? What are Apple’s other alternatives, exactly? RCS is still a mess, the only way it has e2ee is if you use Google’s messaging app, and there’s no way you will see Apple adopting Google’s standard without having a say in it, and rightfully so - Google locks tons of proprietary features out of their APIs - EXIF data for Photos, Categories in Gmail, etc.
I think this is actually more of a comment on Google’s lack of direction with messaging - how many different messaging apps have they sunset by now? Half dozen or so? Messaging has always been a cluster on Android. WhatsApp is supposedly e2ee, but they have backdoor bugs being patched on a nearly basis - ask Jeff Bezos how his dick pics got hacked.
I mean you can install Google messaging apps on iOS (not that I would want to use them…). But try that the other way around. Apples option to not using SMS would simply be to provide iMessage for Android. Problem solved. They would very likely become the main messaging platform by doing so. Currently the majority of the market is likely split between WhatsApp, Telegram and WeChat.
But obviously they fear that this would hurt iPhone sales. At the same time this also leads to iMessage being irrelevant in the majority of markets where iPhone isn’t as dominating as in the US.
Problem are the Android users as well that refuse to adopt messaging apps just as much.
Standard protocol on Android is SMS as well. RCS behaves differently from carrier to carrier and many Android phones still don’t support it by default.
Even if RCS worked perfectly fine, if Apple doesn’t want to use it, than RCS is just as worthless as iMessage, when it comes to cross-platform communication.
Maybe the post has been edited between when you posted and now, but that’s not what OP is saying.
He’s saying that people don’t want to use SMS. They want to message him via some other platform.
Honestly, I’m the same way. I don’t like SMS and talk to my friends on Android via WhatsApp.
Especially for group chats of any kind, SMS is garbage compared WhatsApp, Signal, or Threema.
If they don’t want to text you because they care what your device is, they’re not friends you want to have.
(this goes both ways. Lots of apple hate in this thread but, wtf, just get on with life folks. if you give a shit what hardware I run, or think i care about your choices, we’re probably not going to be friends).
Yes, but it’s a feature, not a bug.
It’s a super low investment and quick way to identify people you should avoid.
I think this must be a cultural thing because no one in the UK sends SMS messages. Everyone just uses WhatsApp or signal or telegram. I’m android and have literally never had anyone mention the colour of my bubble. I didn’t know this was a thing!
I think it’s mostly an US thing. The rest of the world has moved away from SMS.
It’s mostly a US thing because Android is the standard pretty much everywhere except the US.
American Android users are part of the problem, because they refuse to use messenger apps and cling onto SMS as well
I use SMS in Denmark with people I don’t know personally. Apps like Telegram or WhatsApp aren’t common here (yet) unfortunately.
Everyone has Facebook and uses Messenger. The absolute worst of all the choices…
I would never install any of the Meta shit apps no matter what. I quit FB in 2017 and never looked back
Yeah, this is definitely a US-centric thing. Almost nobody I know (UK) uses SMS as their default, it’s usually the last resort before just ringing the person.
I’m from the US and people are using SMS less and less I feel like (though again, I’m biased because Android). Even most of my networking for work is done on Instagram, which to me is incredibly bizarre.
no one in the UK sends SMS messages
I do, I use stuff like WhatsApp and Discord too mainly of course, but an SMS is fast and reliable, as opposed to the others that require a decent data signal on both the sender and receiver (which is often lacking on my network unfortunately).
Plus, I can schedule SMS messages for a particular time so as to not wake the recipient up if I want to send them a message in the middle of the night, very handy!
Plus, I can theme my SMS app however I want, changing colours, fonts, etc, to be exactly what I like, as well as picking out an SMS app that has the features I’m looking for in the first place (I recommend Chomp). I find applications like WhatsApp to be extremely limited in this regard. Not a deal breaker, but I do love customisability and choice.
I certainly don’t use SMS anywhere near as much as Discord, but it’s wonderful to have it, and I use it regularly :-D
P.S I’ve wanted to use Signal for years but nobody I meet uses it :-( Such a shame, it seems neat!
P.P.S Telegram looks neat too, unfortunately again the adoption with people I know is strangely just 100% furries and nobody else, so I stick to the client that everybody uses rather than having a bunch of them installed (Discord & occasionally WhatsApp).
I don’t understand the apple cult. I’ve tried their phones. I prefer Android phones.
I have heard of some people who think non apple users are subpar, but those are the ones you want to avoid.
I worked for Apple for about 4 years and few people had Apple devices, despite the discount. I was supplied an iMac and MacBook Pro, but also a Windows PC and notebook that most work was done on because of software support. Most employees were obviously into their tech, so Android was by far the most popular for mobile devices. I remember a guy with a Windows phone.
No one judged, though. Having obviously used a lot of gadgets extensively, people understood that people land on what they like the most and there’s no right or wrong with personal opinion.
This is the key. Different products are intuitive for different people. Some people prefer less customizability with less barrier to entry. I recommend Apple products for a lot of users even though I strongly prefer Android/Linux/Widows. I also strongly prefer the Mac trackpad and gesture support. I use a Mac laptop for anything not work related because I hate the way trackpads work on Windows (even using the superior Mac trackpad).
All that said, if someone else prefers iOS, or Windows trackpads (or even likes those awful little buttons on Lenovos), then they should use them! Use what works for you!
I’ve had (have) iPhones supplied by work and I just can’t get away with them. To the point it just sits there on my desk and never get touched unless I need to 2FA or something through it.
And even that takes me an unreasonable amount of time to figure out every time. A lot of that is down to lack of experience, but I’m sure most is down to it just being unintuitive vs an android. And I’m a Pixel user, and before that a HTC user so always been a very pure Android experience.
If you live anywhere outside of the US, the question is irrelevant, because everyone uses whatsapp etc.
Within the US, if you are over the age of 30, it probably doesn’t matter.
if you are under the age of 30 AND in the US, I mean, if someone does judge you for it, you at least have a great way to filter shitty people out of your life lol.
