iPhone users expect these features through iMessage, but don't realize that the features are missing from green message chats due to Apple's stubbornness to avoid implementing open standards, not due to anything in particular the Android device is doing wrong. I'm not saying RCS is the end-all be-all, but any kind of shared protocol that Apple had worked to develop in good faith would have resulted in a better experience for iPhone users. So it's really disappointing that the only the option they give their users is old school SMS.
It would have been nice if an open replacement standard for SMS/MMS had been introduced as network bandwidth improved over the last two decades, but it didn’t and instead we have a bunch of competing messaging services sending through our phone data plans. I’ve got Telegram, WhatsApp, Messages, and Google Chat to handle all the simple text/image/video messages I get from various people, and none of them standout as particularly better, I just have friends or colleagues on one of them.
That’s not on accident. Apple could, at this point, offer budget-friendly devices but they choose not to. Whenever they release a new device, it always comes in a few flavors —- all expensive.
What’s sad to me is not that most of the poor don’t own an iPhone, but the lengths I’ve seen some people go to buy one who can’t afford it, just in an effort to keep up.
It’s even worse at schools. I have a nephew who came home in tears because he was bullied for owning an Android, and begging his parents (who couldn’t afford it) to buy him an iPhone so he could fit in. When that happened, everything Apple instantly became unattractive to me; I never go into Apple stores anymore (no matter how cool the tech), and I stopped buying their products.
Of course, I think the sad part is there simply aren’t enough people like me to even move the needle enough to make Apple care, and that’s the real travesty.
