Pressure grows on Apple to open up iMessage::Samsung has joined Google’s campaign to force Apple to make iMessage RCS-compatible—but European regulators are more likely to get that job done.
Pressure grows on Apple to open up iMessage::Samsung has joined Google’s campaign to force Apple to make iMessage RCS-compatible—but European regulators are more likely to get that job done.
One of the big selling points for Apple stuff is how it all works together. That’s lost when releasing generically on Android. There is an old quote from Alan Kay that goes, “People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware.” Apple lives by this idea.
An iPod was my first Apple product, pre-iTunes for Windows. The software I had to use sucked, so I took an irresponsible amount of money at the time, and bought iMac so I could use iTunes. OS X at the time had an app called iSync to sync your contacts to a cell phone, it worked with the Moto Razr. When I went to go buy one from Verizon and asked if iSync worked they proudly (for some reason) said no, because Verizon put their own software on all the phones they sold to help with support… so I went to Cingular (now AT&T), so I could sync my phone with my computer. The iPhone came out, so of course that would be the phone to get, because it would sync my music, contacts, calendar, etc to my phone as seamlessly as the iPod worked with iTunes. That sync has only improved over time and includes so much more. Then smart watches start to become a thing, Apple has already shown me they know how to make things work well together, so of course the Apple Watch is the smart watch to get. I can fire up Apple Fitness on my Apple TV, iPhone, or iPad, and my Apple Watch will automatically see it and start a workout, and show my heart rate on the screen with 0 setup.
The halo effect and the ecosystem are very real and it’s a reason to buy Apple stuff. In many cases there are new hardware features that enable the software to do what it’s doing. Apple has dabbled in software for other operating systems. iTunes for Windows, Safari for Windows, Quicktime for Windows, Apple Music for Android, Apple TV for all sorts of TVs. A lot of people get upset by the the seemingly needless extras it comes with, or just think they sucks. A lot of this is because many of Apple’s apps heavily leverage system services within macOS and iOS, so to run them another OS requires reimplementing all that stuff, so it feels very non-native, and overall weird, with more bugs, and a lack of some of the nice to haves around the ecosystem when things are all coming from Apple hardware as well as software.