> regardless of what aesthetic and design choices somebody in Apple's UX team makes for their built-in messaging app
It's not about aesthetic design, and it's not just about high schoolers. Lots of grown up Apple users don't like adding Android users to their group chats, because falling back to MMS degrades the messaging experience for everyone. Things like images sending in low enough resolution to be useless.
As a European moving to the US, I can attest how hard it is to get Apple users to switch their group chats to WhatsApp/Facebook/Signal. I don't think I'm in a single such group that isn't majority non-Americans.
You can say Apple doesn't need to care about Android users being socially isolated. But some Apple users might like an easier way to include their non-Apple friends.
> As a European moving to the US, I can attest how hard it is to get Apple users to switch their group chats to WhatsApp/Facebook/Signal
I see this as more of a cultural problem. When I travel back to India, I don't complain that I can't use iMessage since iPhones are a rarity. Instead, I install whatever app I need to be involved in a group. And I weigh the cost against the value I get - if it's too much of a change for too little gain, I'd gladly sit it out.
I'm not saying the solution is to force users to buy iPhones. But the core problem isn't purely technical either.
> Instead, I install whatever app I need to be involved in a group.
While it wouldn't be their preference, I'm sure most Android users wouldn't mind installing iMessage to better talk with their iPhone friends.
That would require iMessage being an open standard, or Apple releasing a client for Android. Some commenters mention that the Digital Markets Act might force Apple to do this. I guess we'll have to wait and see.
Meanwhile, and assuming they don't want to open iMessage, it would be nice of them to just support a better fallback option.
It's not about aesthetic design, and it's not just about high schoolers. Lots of grown up Apple users don't like adding Android users to their group chats, because falling back to MMS degrades the messaging experience for everyone. Things like images sending in low enough resolution to be useless.
As a European moving to the US, I can attest how hard it is to get Apple users to switch their group chats to WhatsApp/Facebook/Signal. I don't think I'm in a single such group that isn't majority non-Americans.
You can say Apple doesn't need to care about Android users being socially isolated. But some Apple users might like an easier way to include their non-Apple friends.