Apple Argues iMessage Isn't Popular Enough in the EU to Be Regulated

[cthompson94]

There really isn't a lot of competition with messaging platforms in the first place after a decade of network effects entrenching the market leaders. You can more or less ditch one for the other without really noticing a difference other than all your contacts not being there.

If I recall correctly the DMA doesn't require interoperability of all features, just end-to-end encrypted messaging and sharing of certain media files. I think, coincidentally, this is also what locks most people in, so in a sense this could increase competition on features that would truly set the services apart.

I do think that there's a lot of good technical reasons why interoperability might be a tricky thing that's not easy to do and we'll see how this plays out, but I don't think there's a strong argument to be made that it will make the services blander. Quite the opposite I'd assume, even if it's just a better interface.

Not a lot of competition? You have Snapchat, FB Messenger, Whats App, Imessage, RCS (mainly Google's protocol at the moment), Instagram, Signal, Telegram, Discord, Microsoft Teams, and the list goes on and on with messaging apps. To you comment about the just messaging a part of the rules and that is what I was getting at.. currently the difference in messaging apps are the UI, Message specific capabilities, and who you can talk to since currently the only way to talk to another person is using the same platform.

Yes interoperability will be difficult because not all messaging platforms are used necessarily for the same reason. With that aside going back to what I originally said.. for one.. what do you draw the line for messaging platforms? because things like discord could get really tricky between individual chats, group chats, voice calls, that may be happening simultaneously. With that in mind Snapchat is also another specific messaging platform just because of the way that it is used. Some messaging platforms are popular because of what they did that set them apart, of course others copied, but what this part boils down to is what is the point of me being able to send a snapchat to a friend that can open in say whats app, if I also want to see stories/reels/whatever and I still need the individual apps and how will conversation management happen when opening these various apps? Are we going to open an app and wait until all previous conversations from other apps to load?

 

[hacky]

View attachment 2255501

Thank you for the confirmation

 

[DeepIn2U]

That's true. WhatsApp all the way over here.

Many US readers don't understand how small share iPhone (and Apple products in general) has in the Europe compared to the US. Wast majority owns Android over here.

1. Marketing department touts iMessage to the WHOLE world with big words every year in various occasions.
2. Please don't regulate me because I'm not popular enough in your region.

You can't have it both ways.

Agreed with both your statements.

Apple should be concerned it's not as popular in the EU, it shows lack of interest in the device not just iMessage itself and should alert Apple to be remindedthe last time a single platform messaging offering started to loose favor in the EU.

Anyone remember BBM?

iMessage is the worst. It's lacking basic features and is full of silly nonsense.

Yeah it seems Apple is ONLY been concerned to upgrade emoji's for iMessage since tapbacks was offered.

What happened to their iMessage dup team that brought us emoji's.

 

[hacky]

Do you really trust Facebook for things to stay private? If so I also have a beachfront resort in the desert to sell ya .

Apple is known for its end-to-end encryption...that is why I feel safe actually using bank numbers, etc in it. Now if going from iMessage to SMS....well then I wouldn't trust anything private.

I do trust open source standard. For instance GPG or PGP is pretty secure.

 

[magicman32]

I don't care about any of this. I just wish Apple would do the right thing without coercion and support freaking RCS so everyone with or without iPhone friends could have a quality experience. It just doesn't make sense. You can have your exclusive colored bubble experience all yo want and still make it so the multimedia experience is in parity and doesn't look like arse.

 

[Ketsjap]

No matter how you look at it, interoperability between messaging platforms is good for consumers. It provides choice, and doesn’t lock users (and their wallets) in a walled garden like Apple likes to do.
I find it very strange that so many parrot the tired ‘this hurts innovation!’ line Silicon Valley lobbyists always dig up. As if!
By defending Apple on this matter, you are hurting your own interests.

 

[ijordano]

What im hearing more and more is "don't bother inventing something loads of people want to use, because eventually we'll force you to make it compatible with any company that wants to benefit from it"

 

[thewhitehart]

I wish the majority of people here in Japan used either iMessage or WhatsApp. We’re stuck with LINE, a bloated app with a crappy UI full of security holes that wants to do everything, all while tracking you.

 

[BaldiMac]

No matter how you look at it, interoperability between messaging platforms is good for consumers. It provides choice, and doesn’t lock users (and their wallets) in a walled garden like Apple likes to do.
I find it very strange that so many parrot the tired ‘this hurts innovation!’ line Silicon Valley lobbyists always dig up. As if!
By defending Apple on this matter, you are hurting your own interests.

That’s silly. Reasonable people can disagree.

I see more negatives than positives and it has nothing to do with Apple. As I said earlier, it will increase spam and confusion and decrease privacy and security. While providing minor benefits to some people who would prefer fewer apps.

 

[amartinez1660]

Doesn’t matter, the EU will lower whatever number of users is necessary to include Apple, Google et al to the list of companies to charge with fines and whatnot… no way they will let them scotch free like that.

“Oh right, gatekeeping is anything more than zero users from now on. There, done. You got 2 weeks to comply, else you will be fined 25 Millions € every week that the integration thingie isn’t done”… and then they pop champagne.

 

[TEG]

The entire reason there are multiple different applications for communication is that we DO NOT WANT interoperability. The EU literally has no idea how technology works, or why it is used the way it is.

Also, iMessage is part of texting. Most people use it without knowing it. Other apps someone has to choose to use it.

 

[n-evo]

I too would like to see RCS on iOS but the problem around it is that the RCS standard is not really being utilized like a standard. Right now, Apple would essentially need to route all of their iMessage traffic through Google servers which makes zero sense.

I didn’t know that and I agree that would be less than desirable. I thought RCS was supposed to be supported by service providers like SMS.

 

[svish]

WhatsApp is definitely more popular than iMessage. But don’t know whether the argument will help Apple

 

[bogg]

And how exactly are they currently competitive? Nokia doesn't even exist, what is called Nokia now are just remnants after Microsoft purchased them. Ericsson hasn't done anything on its own in almost 20 years.

Sorry but that comment alone makes any and all arguments you might have in the future null and void as you obviously only see the consumer parts as important..

Pretty much the majority of calls or GSM/3G/4G/5G data transmission you’ve made in the past or make in the future is routed through either Nokia or Ericsson made base stations. It was only the phone handset part of Nokia Microsoft bought and the name they just licensed for 5 years, the remaining Nokia company owns Alcatel/Lucent, Siemens and Bell labs (all of which I assume you’ve heard about), and Ericsson and Nokia are both Giants when it comes to cell phone base stations And other parts of the telecom industry. With well over 50% of the market shared between them (Ericsson alone owns 43% of the market, Nokia probably even more so 80% of the market isn’t out of reach for the two of them).

A company present in 43% of all installed cell phone base stations around the world is in no way “not doing anything on their own”. Again it was only the phone part that was sold to Sony.


Just because you only see the consumer market (that is the actual hand sets) doesn’t mean they aren’t huge in the market where they act. When it comes to the cellular base station market they are as ubiquitous as Cisco is/was in the network infrastructure market…

Both Nokia and Ericsson are telecom giants in their own right, researching and and providing the equipment your provider needs to roll out new technologies such as 5G..

Iirc Nokia is the single largest patents holder of essential 5G patents, without which 5G wouldn’t even exist.

And no, that Nokia has nothing to do with Microsoft.

 

[Krizoitz]

That's true. WhatsApp all the way over here.

Many US readers don't understand how small share iPhone (and Apple products in general) has in the Europe compared to the US. Wast majority owns Android over here.

Except no.

Overall for Europe Android has a roughly 2:1 margin. That’s definitely a majority but it’s not a VAST majority.

 

[TimFL1]

This thing is a gigantic tech illiterate failure anyways. It forces gatekeepers (WhatsApp, Telegram etc) to open up their platforms, but it does not specify how that should happen. We‘ll end up with dozens of proprietary endpoints cause the EU was too dense to mandate a common technology or protocol.

Combine that with the fact that it ONLY forces gatekeepers to open up, NOT TO interoperate. Opening up is supposed to enable smaller platforms (Signal afaik does not count as a gatekeeper) to interoperate with the big gatekeepers. Nowhere is it specified that WhatsApp has to also interoperate with fellow gatekeepers.

This is not the bright interop future you guys envision. This probably wont change anything until the EU realizes they goofed once again and did a cookie banners v2.0.

 

[bollman]

English is not a country...The UK is,....if that is what you mean it makes sense. If you mean people who speak English....um across the pond there are English-speaking people who hate What's App!

Wow, just wow.
Have you ever considered what "UK" stands for? United Kingdom. Do you know what kingdoms are united? Scotland, Wales and... tadaa England! (and Northern Ireland) The Kingdom of England was founded 927AD!
They even have 4 national teams in the World Cup!

 

[unrigestered]

random answer

 

[mrochester]

So you also do not want interoperability between brands for phoning either?

The reason there is interoperability between phones for calling and SMS is because that is controlled by the mobile networks, not the phone manufacturers or app makers.

I think that’ll be the only way to true interoperability, an enhanced messaging standard that is controlled by the mobile networks and not by any downstream players.

 

[Marco Klobas]

WhatsApp's decision to tie your identify to your phone number coupled with the relative simplicity of the app gave it a winner.

You're right, WhatsApp did two related things: as you mentioned, it tied your identity to your phone number, but equally important, and unlike most other services that came before it, it didn't require you to maintain your contact list or manually add people.

Before today’s almost universal free unlimited data, I remember a time when some European mobile carriers had offers that didn’t take WhatsApp traffic into account, for your usually meagre data limit. This is also before the EU mandated that all roaming should be treated as local use.

I get it and admit that it offered some convenient features for the end user.

 

[hacky]

Except no.

Overall for Europe Android has a roughly 2:1 margin. That’s definitely a majority but it’s not a VAST majority.

Except no.

It's right about 25% so it's 3:1. Source https://www.statista.com/statistics/1232268/apple-smartphone-market-share-in-europe/

 

[bob24]

This thing is a gigantic tech illiterate failure anyways. It forces gatekeepers (WhatsApp, Telegram etc) to open up their platforms, but it does not specify how that should happen. We‘ll end up with dozens of proprietary endpoints cause the EU was too dense to mandate a common technology or protocol.

Combine that with the fact that it ONLY forces gatekeepers to open up, NOT TO interoperate. Opening up is supposed to enable smaller platforms (Signal afaik does not count as a gatekeeper) to interoperate with the big gatekeepers. Nowhere is it specified that WhatsApp has to also interoperate with fellow gatekeepers.

This is not the bright interop future you guys envision. This probably wont change anything until the EU realizes they goofed once again and did a cookie banners v2.0.

As long as backend platforms have gateways to interact with them and someone releases a nice App with good UX and which can interoperate with every major messaging platform, who cares whether those platforms make their official Apps interoperable?

Gateways not all following the same standards isn’t ideal, but developing code to interact with all of them will be worth it if you can then offer EU users the ultimate messaging App which can connect to any other network (if nicely designed, such App would quickly become very popular and replace official client Apps for each network if they insist in not implementing interoperability, so there is money to be made).

 

[ozaz]

Except no.

It's right about 25% so it's 3:1. Source https://www.statista.com/statistics/1232268/apple-smartphone-market-share-in-europe/

Statista is using shipment data.

The statscounter data referred to earlier is usage data (in which second hand market and length of ownership are also factors). In the context of a discussion about iMessage, usage data is probably more relevant.

Also, in relation to your original comment (comment #2 in thread), I think you're right that lower usage share of iPhone in Europe than in US is a factor explaining lower relevance of iMessage on Europe. But it's not the whole story. There are some countries in Europe where iPhone usage share is close to or sometimes even exceeds US (e.g. UK and Scandinavian countries). But I think iMessage is still far less relevant in these countries than it is in the US.

 

[TimFL1]

As long as backend platforms have gateways to interact with them and someone releases a nice App with good UX and which can interoperate with every major messaging platform, who cares whether those platforms make their official Apps interoperable?

Gateways not all following the same standards isn’t ideal, but developing code to interact with all of them will be with it if you can then offer EU users the ultimate messaging App which can connect to any other network (if nicely designed, such App would quickly become very popular and replace official client Apps for each network if they insist in not implementing interoperability, so there is money to be made).

Because it‘s not as clear cut. Interoperability will be a jumbled mess when WhatsApp, Telegram, Apple, Line etc all release proprietary systems that share nothing in common.

Your fancy universal UI app will die a horrible death because it has to implement dozens of different ways to send messages and attachments. Imagine the pain that will be group chats when every member is on a different platform, which potentially wont even work because Telegram and WhatsApp don‘t interoperate with each other (so the members that are on these 2 platforms respectively don‘t see their messages, because there is no relaying of content between WhatsApp and Telegram).

You‘ll end up with an app where you can communicate with friends but every thread is its own world. So your group chat A can only be users from your app or WhatsApp, chat B can only be with people from Telegram and so on. It‘s green bubble gang all over again, because you‘ll always be downgraded to what the other platform supports (and only that platform). It‘s something we already have with apps like Beeper (? or whatever it‘s called) where you link your other chat apps.

This whole initiative is destined to die without a common technology being mandated, so interoperability comes essentially free cause they all share the same spec. It‘s tech illiterates mandating someone without thinking about the consequences.

It‘s why stuff like RCS or MLS gaining weight is big, they are shared standards everyone can rely on.

 

[bob24]

Because it‘s not as clear cut. Interoperability will be a jumbled mess when WhatsApp, Telegram, Apple, Line etc all release proprietary systems that share nothing in common.

Your fancy universal UI app will die a horrible death because it has to implement dozens of different ways to send messages and attachments. Imagine the pain that will be group chats when every member is on a different platform, which potentially wont even work because Telegram and WhatsApp don‘t interoperate with each other (so the members that are on these 2 platforms respectively don‘t see their messages, because there is no relaying of content between WhatsApp and Telegram).

You‘ll end up with an app where you can communicate with friends but every thread is its own world. So your group chat A can only be users from your app or WhatsApp, chat B can only be with people from Telegram and so on. It‘s green bubble gang all over again, because you‘ll always be downgraded to what the other platform supports (and only that platform). It‘s something we already have with apps like Beeper (? or whatever it‘s called) where you link your other chat apps.

This whole initiative is destined to die without a common technology being mandated, so interoperability comes essentially free cause they all share the same spec. It‘s tech illiterates mandating someone without thinking about the consequences.

It‘s why stuff like RCS or MLS gaining weight is big, they are shared standards everyone can rely on.

100% agree that a common standard would be better, but it also is very unlikely to emerge unless it is imposed by regulations because every messaging platform is basically a tool to retain users in a proprietary ecosystem and profit from that user base one way or another, so there is no incentive for key players to go that route (actually things have been headed the opposite direction over time: old-timers will remember that back in the mid 2000s many major messaging platforms did implement XMPP and were interoperable, but all of them gradually retired the feature).

I also agree that proprietary gateways will make interoperability more difficult, but where we disagree is your assessment that it will be impossible/impractical to implement. Yes it will be a lot more work, but for someone who puts in that work, it will be very valuable as they will basically hold a universal key to all messaging platforms which is something most users want. One way it could evolve is for a few players to do all the hard development and maintenance work to access the various gateways, and bring to the market a middleware which has a simple API to abstract all that complexity for whomever wants to communicate with all gateways in a unified manner.

On your point that things like group chats would not work, I'd say two things:
1) Unless I missed something we don't know that for sure, as EU authorities could mandate that group chat functionality across platforms is supported by the gateways (I will admit that I don't know the details of how the regulation is currently worded, but in any case this could potentially be added/interpreted in that way at any time)
2) Even if they were not supported, I would happily take a single App with an neat UI and no Ads, which aggregates my 1:1 conversation across all platforms and my platform-specific group chats in a single place with a unified user interface, as opposed to installing each single proprietary App.