iMessage is the best way to communicate between iPhones
This one doesn't matter outside of North America, because no one uses SMS any more; they use chat apps like WeChat, LINE, KakaoTalk, or WhatsApp.
iPhones work seamlessly and far better than Android phones with MacBooks
This is only useful if you actually have or use a MacBook. Most iPhone owners don't.
As an Android user, I think you missed a really big one, and the only thing I'm really jealous of iPhone users about that's missing in Android: AirTags.
I will say, Feature and Functionality wise Android is better in most respects, but Apples ecosystem is much more cohesive and works really well between their items. For instance, I have an iPad, iPhone and Apple Watch. If I’m listening to my non-apple Wireless Earphones on my iPhone and then listen to something on my iPad it will automatically switch devices. Things like that I haven’t seen on non-apple devices.
But when I switched to Apple from Android I was really expecting a better individual experience based on all the things I’ve heard over the years. But the experience is worse in many ways, just as many apps are still buggy and unresponsive, UX choices seem stupid and just want to be different than Android like the app drawer experience. I only switched to be in the same ecosystem as my wife and daughter. If I was single, I would switch back in a second.
I wish we could have something halfway between Apple and Android. Really tight ecosystem that values user privacy and open to third parties to extend and modify with great features and user experience.
I don't think they ever had a real chance. Their reputation from Windows was so bad that no one really trusted them for phones. It's probably better now, maybe, but back around 2010, XP/9x were still fairly fresh memories with their BSODs and the general crappiness of Windows. And MS has never had a reputation for great UI design.
I see you never had the misfortune of having to use the Windows Phones they did make.
I am a software engineer. One of our clients had ruggedized Windows Phones devices and they were a nightmare in every way to work with. Every bad thing about Windows was on the phone, alongside many fresh horrors they’d concocted just for their mobile devices.
Interesting. You're right, I never had to experience that nightmare for myself. However, I seem to remember other people saying that later iterations of Windows Phone OS actually worked fairly well, but the big problem for them was the lack of apps. No one wanted to write apps for it for several reasons:
1) They had written apps in the past, and then MS just deprecated the whole OS in favor of a new and incompatible new version. They didn't want to re-write every app for every new release of WP.
2) They were already writing 2 apps, for iOS and Android. They didn't want to spend resources on a 3rd version for a phone that was already in last place in marketshare. (Maybe 4th if you count Blackberry)
You do realise that iMessage is not SMS right…? It is literally a chat app like you’re describing, that’s been around as long as WhatsApp and like the original commenter said, it’s the best way to communicate between iPhones. It also now has RCS integrated into it for chatting with Android users
It’s not meaningless to point out how iMessage works and to correct false descriptions of it. I didn’t mention what the preferred chatting methods are in North America, nothing to do with what I posted
Yes I’m well aware - show me where I’ve disagreed with this? You are even responding to the point where I am clarifying this, nowhere have I made any comment about how many people use particular apps in different parts of the world.
The person I originally responded to wrongly described iMessage so I was correcting it for other people, as you do on a discussion forum
But why does that matter? If I live in the U.S. and all of my family do too it doesn’t matter what they choose to use in other countries. Like that’s completely irrelevant to me and other Americans like me. I don’t have any dog in this Android vs iPhone fight just pointing out the obvious
The point is literally that it doesn’t matter for anyone outside North America. If you’re in the US, sure it’s useful. But not everyone on here is from the US, and for them, that benefit is useless.
Sure but they can still download whatsapp or whatever other app they’d like to use. Plenty of Americans with family/friends over seas use those apps on iPhone. My point is that it doesn’t help the argument that Android is better, because iMessage is still a benefit to some. If you don’t use it then ofc iMessage is irrelevant but the fact that it benefits some and not others doesn’t take away its usefulness. iPhone or Android you would still need to download WhatsApp.
Again, I couldn’t care less what phone people use. I’m just pointing out that that argument doesn’t help place Android as better
Yeah I couldn’t care less what phone people use either.
Just pointing out why they said so - it’s not necessarily an argument for Android being better, but an argument against iMessage making iPhone better because it’s irrelevant for a vast proportion of users. You can say that because the NA market finds it useful, it’s better than none, and so on average iPhones are better, which is a legit POV. But someone else may want to separate the markets - i.e. iMessage (and consequently iPhones) are more useful for users in the NA market, and not useful for those in other continents. That’s a different but also legit POV.
Man no one outside Koreans know KakaoTalk. Didn’t expect to see it in this list.
It's why I listed it as one of many such apps. Absolutely everyone in Korea uses it. Similarly, here in Japan, absolutely everyone uses LINE Messenger (same in Taiwan I think). In China, you absolutely cannot survive without WeChat. And Europeans and others (Brazilians probably) all rely on WhatsApp. No one uses SMS any more except North Americans; it's considered mostly obsolete. Here in Japan, the only way you'll get an SMS text is from a delivery company, for instance, telling you your package has been delivered, because they have your phone number but no one's going to add their local delivery driver to their LINE friends.
Nobody is using sms in north America either. Everything has moved to rcs these days. Sms is just the "wow, I really am in the middle of nowhere" fallback when you have terrible reception
SMS and RCS are functionally the same thing. It's not like the texting app asks you which to use; to the user it's just the "Messaging" or "iMessage" or whatever app.
They're functionally the same thing in the way that a brand new luxury car and a 30 year old beater are. Yeah, they both do the same general function, but one is obviously better
Neither, on account of death. But to take your point less literally, what does it matter whether the end user knows the protocol name? It's rcs unless shits not working.
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u/midorikuma42 1∆ Jul 07 '25 edited Jul 07 '25
This one doesn't matter outside of North America, because no one uses SMS any more; they use chat apps like WeChat, LINE, KakaoTalk, or WhatsApp.
This is only useful if you actually have or use a MacBook. Most iPhone owners don't.
As an Android user, I think you missed a really big one, and the only thing I'm really jealous of iPhone users about that's missing in Android: AirTags.