And just to elaborate on this: it's not just snobbery about the color of the texts, for people who rely on iMessage as their primary communication platform it really is a severely degraded experience texting with someone who uses Android. We Android users have long since adapted to it by just avoiding SMS/MMS in favor of other platforms, but iPhone users are accustomed to just being able to send a video in iMessage and have it be decent quality when viewed.

Source: I'm an Android user with a lot of iPhones on my in-laws side.

Be aware that iPhones degrade MMS more than necessary and the only reason seems to be to punish Android use.

No, it really is just snobbery.

I’m in Europe and everyone uses WhatsApp, and while Android does gave higher share over here, iPhone still dominate the younger demographics. I’m not denying blue/green is a factor in the US but it’s not even a thing here. It’s nowhere near the only it even a dominant reason iPhones are successful with young people.

This is a sad state of affairs.

Interesting that some people would take that as an Apple problem and others would take it as a Google problem

Who’s at fault for not having built-in messaging that works with rich text, photos, videos, etc?

Google has abandoned more messaging products than I can remember while Apple focused on literally the main function of a phone in the 21st century. And they get shit for it

Most of the world doesn't care about built in. Apple decided against iMessage on Android for lock in. Android had RCS in 2019.

Apple get shit for it because they made it a proprietary protocol for which clients are not available on anything except their own hardware. The whole point of messaging is that it should work with all my contacts, not just those who drank the Apple-flavored Kool-Aid.

Google’s protocol is proprietary too - their encryption extension makes it inaccessible for anyone else and google will not partner or license (companies have tried).

RCS as currently implemented is iMessage but with a coat of google paint. There is no there there.

Google should get plenty of shit too for closing down GTalk in the first place. It's not an either-or. Big tech in general hates open protocols and interoperability for consumer stuff; Apple is just the most egregious offender there.

Snobbery is an expensive pastime.

The social implications of using Android phones...