It’s a win for Apple, but isn’t it also sort of a loss because they’re not popular enough to count?
“Victory, we can’t even get 10% market share!” sounds like something Apple would celebrate.
@Bitrot Kinda like that. Most friends of mine don’t even own an iPhone. Those who do, generally use Facebook Messenger to speak to each other. If anyone is not on Facebook, they are surely on WhatsApp, or they can be reached via the classical phone calls and SMS messages (but I’ve yet to meet someone who I need to use these with, as they are clearly inconvenient as hell). If there’s a group chat, it is generally on WhatsApp.
I heard Telegram is popular as well in the post-soviet space. It is my fallback as well, and I’m not in one. Plenty of Romanian channels (news or organizations), and I speak with a couple of friends from there. I realize this is just “a different WhatsApp” from the POV of a centralized silo, but the features are great and I’d clearly trust Telegram more than Meta.
@briskI’ve always had android and never had any iMessage issues since whatsapp, telegram etc are much more popular here
@And009 yea, WhatsApp and other Meta products are especially so ubiquitous.
Hope signal becomes the default or brings in some kind of support without the meta tracking
The government labeling something that Apple fans love as “not needing regulation” is purely a win for Apple. Imagine if 99% of text messages sent were via iMessage, and the EU kept the same ruling. That means that Apple has a functioning monopoly that is not considered a monopoly because there’s technically an alternative.
Imagine if 99% of text messages sent were via iMessage, and the EU kept the same ruling.
If 99% of messages were sent via iMessage the ruling would have been different. if it ever fulfils the criteria needed to be considered gatekeepers, then they will be designed as such.
I’m sure the rule would be different. My point was mostly to say this is in no way bad for Apple
Imagine if 99% of text messages sent were via iMessage, and the EU kept the same ruling
That’s not how the law works, though. If they manage to grow iMessage’s user base to a significant level, they’ll be subject to the DMA. The conclusion isn’t “Apple doesn’t need regulation”, it’s “iMessage isn’t big enough to be considered a threat to the messenger ecosystem”.
Knowing Apple, they’ll probably try to stop their users from switching to iMessage so they don’t get popular enough to need to follow DMA restrictions.
Did you just say Apple would try to prevent their users from switching to iMessage? Apple knows iMessage is a massive selling point for iPhones which is the reason Apple is so afraid of opening iMessage up to begin with.
iMessage is a massive selling point for iPhones
What? No one buys an iPhone for iMessage. That’s absurd.
It is a major point of social pressure. People get legitimately upset when they start a group chat and realize one of the members doesn’t have an iPhone. That absolutely makes it valuable to Apple
That’s a minor irritation, hardly a reason to completely swap ecosystems. This sounds fringe/speculative. There is no way this is an actual driver of iPhone adoption. Any sources?
I agree it’s a minor irritation by most standards, but when all that’s on the line is making jokes about someone based on their choice of phone there’s no reason not to pressure someone else. As to sources, I see it happen all the time. I used to be the one who upset people, then I bought an iPhone and almost everyone I texted got really excited to see the color of our chat change. I’ve also seen countless memes about green chat bubbles and people ruining group chats because of their Androids. I’m not sure you’re going to get much more reliable sources than anecdotal ones for something like this.
I’ve been told that that’s how the kids roll these days in the US.
As a us citizen this is news to me
Well, if you don’t know that, it means that either, you are not a US citizen, which we ruled out, ooooor… oooh, I hate to break it to you but… you have lost touch with “the youngsters” as they say. You are old.
iMessage is a massive selling point for iPhones
Not around these parts. I know other European countries have more iPhone users, but across the EU almost everyone has a different messaging app. Could be WhatsApp, could be Facebook Messenger, could be Telegram, could be Viber, but iMessage/SMS/RCS isn’t very popular at all.
Apple removed the ability to install PWAs in the EU update, presumably because they don’t want to give competing browsers the same privilege and are mandated by law to provide an equal playing field, so I don’t think it’d be too far-fetched that Apple would actually dislike growing their iMessage user base. They’re selling plenty of iPhones without it.
@skullgiver For Apple, the US I think is their main market. Here is still that thing that you need to be rich enough to afford, so this is why iMessage is not such a great thing.
I think that by staying below the EU radar they get to keep their walls for the US users, where regulations are more lax and don’t pose any risk for their business model.
Perhaps, but even in the USA Apple seems to be attracting antitrust investigations.
Bu that’s the point, it isn’t a selling point in europe. People here mainly use WhatsApp. As a european iPhone user with a lot of other iPhone users in my social circle I pretty much never get an iMessage. I got one two weeks ago, but before that my last iMessage was in 2018. I’ve never heard anyone here talk about blue vs green bubbles and never heard iMessage mentioned in an Android vs iOS discussion.
iMessages is like a footnote here. I was surprised it was even considered.
Now that you’ve let your guard down, Apple is free to do whatever they want. It’s exactly exactly what Apple wanted.
they wanted to be irrelevant in the European market for chat applications?
no, merely considered irrelevant— for legal purposes. why? read the headline.
Im not sure you understands how this work. but anyway… they can do whatever with their service. I (or any person I know) dont plan to use it 🤷
Im not sure you understands how this work.
nobody use it it Europe, therefore not worthy of consideration. doesn’t take a genius to figure out, but if it was strain for you, I understand why you feel threatened when small dogs get the concept.
they can do whatever with their service
again, not a concept that’s difficult to understand. but I understand why you’re upset why you’re mad that you neighbors cat understood it before you did.
I (or any person I know) dont plan to use it 🤷
I don’t concern myself with what the kids who eat heir own poo do.
best of luck with combating giardia!
Insulting people isn’t nice. The only rule on this understand is to be(e) nice. This is not appropriate behavior for our instance. You didn’t need to insult someone to make your point. I’m giving you a 7 day ban to think things over.
Dude, you tried to lead OP off on a weird tangent that
a) they didn’t follow you on and
b) was nonsense and lacked understanding on your part from the get go.Stop insulting people as being stupid when clearly you didn’t (want to) understand what was said and just tried to tell people who told personal anecdotes that their anecdotes are wrong…
If they do get popular (and that’s a big if), then they will become subject to DMA rules. This isn’t a one-off investigation, the EU will reconsider if they manage to gain market share.
maybe…
but hat could take many years to spin up another massive lawsuit like this, and, by then, Apple could possibly have profited kajillions, and/or have modified their communications protocols just sufficiently to skirt regulations. or one of a dozen other legal maneuvers around this or a number of other possible future regulations…
Could it? It took them half a year to do the initial investigation, and half a year to consider the objections. It doesn’t really matter that Apple could go to court over this, because they would’ve spent the same amount of time in court if the EU commission did deem iMessage to fall under the DMA.
I’m not sure how much Apple will profit from iMessage. Barely anyone in the EU seems to use it, and because it’s free after a single purchase (or second hand purchases!), it seems like it’ll only cost them money. Even in the few countries where iPhones make up the majority, people still need to have WhatsApp installed to talk to all of their friends and family.
The DMA still applies. It’s why “sideloading” (installing apps from outside the app store) and non-Safari-based web browsers are coming to iOS. The EU doesn’t need to work around “future regulations” because the regulations that apply now are fine.
I would’ve preferred Apple being forced to open their messenger platform, but they simply aren’t relevant enough to pass the (very reasonable) “10% of the EU needs to use your service to be forced to open up” threshold.
I try not to predict the future. it took them a long time to get here. I they’e going to loop back around, I can’t see it happening again soon.
I don’t think they’re going to loop back around soon, because I don’t think iMessage’s market share will explosively grow any time soon. From what I can tell, the only growth in the messenger space seems to occur on Snapchat, the rest seems to have stagnated.
It didn’t take the EU a long time to get here at all. Last May companies were told to report in if their user base came close to 10% of the EU market (ignoring that request would be pretty bad, as in “periodic fines for 5% of worldwide daily revenue” bad). By July, the gatekeepers were notified. By September, the initial conclusion of gatekeepers was made. Now, all objections have been taken into account.
That’s four months to appoint gatekeepers, and four months to complete the investigation and consider objections. In terms of regulations, that’s basically a snap decision, considering these regulations need to take into account the market share and applicable restrictions in 27 different countries.
If Apple’s messenger market share doubles for some reason next month, and they do cross the threshold, they’ll have to have iMessage open to third parties before Christmas. It’s really not that big a deal.
It’s not about the explosive growth (or not) of iMessage. It’s a matter of fact about the legal foothold that Apple now holds. That won’t be dislodged anytime soon. Whether or not Apple can get any market growth moving forward, now the EU will have to re-file any efforts to this ruling to them in the future should they try. That is a big deal. And nothing anyone in trying in the EU will move forward anything near the weight this attempt did. 
