Why wont apple make imessage for android

#Why wont apple make imessage for android for android#

BlackBerry's missed BBM boatД«lackBerry was once in a similar situation. At a time when messaging itself is becoming a platform, and Apple is turning iMessage into a platform, keeping it proprietary is a triple-edge sword. Apple could also potentially gain a messaging user base as big as anyone else.

#Why wont apple make imessage for android for android#

If Apple released iMessage for Android - and perhaps others platforms, including for iCloud on the web - then iPhone and iPad owners could both stay in Messages.app, and stay connected to their cross-platform contacts. Not everyone wants to use -В or pay for - carrier text and multimedia messaging service, however, so that's where cross-platform IM like WhatsApp in much of the western world and WeChat and Line in Asia come in. If your friends, colleagues, and family aren't all in the Apple ecosystem then iMessage falls back on SMS/MMS. If your friends, colleagues, and family all use Apple devices, a few glitches aside, iMessage is close to perfect. Yet Facebook bought WhatsApp - which started as a cross-platform BlackBerry Messenger clone - for billions of dollars, and BlackBerry, which kept BBM proprietary until it was far too late, is now worth next to nothing. There's no iMessage for Android or for Windows, and unlike Apple's Mail, Contacts, Calendar, and iWork, there's not even an iMessage for iCloud. And that's where the platform support ends. IMessage is Apple's text and media messaging service, bundled into the Messages app on iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Mac. In other words, there's still no reason to expect Messages for iCloud until you see it. And that means Apple is placing the security of the messages first, not the convenience of accessing them. The same one the company is using to sync face and Siri data between devices. Apple is syncing iMessages through the secure, end-to-end encrypted version of CloudKit that sits in darkly mirrored parallel to iCloud.

And sure it could, just like Mail for iCloud and Photos for iCloud are things.Д«ut Apple isn't just syncing iMessages. The same is true today, with iMessage sync giving some faint hope that Messages for iCloud could be a thing.

The trick is to have all of these ideas at least partially on the drawing board so that if and when things change, and you need to move, you can move as quickly as possible.ДЇor every iTunes for Windows, Safari for Windows, and iPad mini that was opposed, even temporarily derailed, but ultimately shipped, there are countless more still sitting on the shelves, real or virtual. (And for different reasons -В Music on Android makes sense where Maps does not.) I'd be startled if no one in Eddy Cue's org had ever spit-balled Maps for Android and iTunes for Android.ДЄnything that's an internet service is ripe for just that kind of thinking, even if Apple's current position in the market makes all of them a no-go. So, if Apple hadn't knocked around the idea of iMessage for Android, there'd be cause to worry. You don't get to a 'thousand nos for every yes' without trying a thousand and one ideas. Now, Apple explores, mocks up, and even prototypes anything and everything any of us could think of, as long as it makes enough sense.

Apple launching Beats for Android probably gave a lot of people a lot of ideas about what other apps the company could take cross-platforms. Last year, just before WWDC 2016, rumors of iMessage for Android picked up again. Juxtaposed against the value of the one and the tragedy of the other, many questioned Apple's decision to keep iMessage locked on Apple devices. I wrote the editorial below almost four years ago, shortly after Facebook bought WhatsApp for close to 20 billion dollars and BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) finally went cross-platform when there was nobody left to care.