As part ofequal battle between manufacturer Fortnite Epic and Apple, some new information came to light confirming the most annoying thing Apple iMessage app: that Apple could make a cross-platform version of iMessage for Android phones, but it won’t be because it would be bad for business.
This information comes from the testimony that appears in Epic’s letter against Apple, which was recently posted on Reddit. In the document, there are several statements by well-known Apple executives describing the reasons why Apple never made a cross-platform version of iMessage for Android devices.
In a quote from 2013, Eddy Cue – who is now Apple’s senior vice president of software and internet services – said that Apple “could have made a version [of iMessage] on Android that worked with iOS “, offering the possibility that” users of both platforms could have exchanged messages between them without problems “.
Unfortunately, it seems that several Apple executors have been worried that this would make it too easy for iPhone owners to leave the Apple ecosystem, with Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, Craig Federighi, after saying, “iMessage on Android would simply serve to remove [an] an obstacle in the way of iPhone families giving their children Android phones ”- a sentiment from Epic’s short says that it was also shared by Phil Schiller, which at the time was overseeing the Apple App Store.
It seems that these feelings have been known in Apple for some time. The writing describes a 2016 comment from a former Apple employee who said “the hardest # 1 [reason] to leave the application of the Apple universe is iMessage … iMessage rises to a serious deadlock “, Schiller stating the comment saying:” moving iMessage to Android will do us more harm than good, this email illustrates why. “
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The most depressing thing about these claims is that it removes any doubt that Apple could create an Android version of iMessage if they wanted to, but it’s not because Apple is more concerned about making it easier for its customers to leave the ecosystem, which has led to to an unnecessarily fragmented messaging ecosystem and the feeling that Apple is using fabricated exclusivity to hold iMessage users hostage for a long time.
Unfortunately, while these testimonials seem quite damaging to Apple, it’s unclear whether these revelations will force Apple to reconsider porting iMessage to Android in the future. But at least now we know for sure why it never happened again.