Is it simply they haven't gotten around to developing it yet? Or is it because all of the phone carriers would simply remove that app when they bastardize the vanilla android OS to their carrier specific version so they could continue to charge SMS/MMS fees?
Why doesn't Android offer something similar to iMessage?
- Thread starter CLKeenan
- Start date
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iMessage is essentially no different than any chat software. It's just specific to the iOS architecture. Carriers would have no say in what operates on your phone as they have to allow all traffic through their data service or face severe privacy advocate fallout.
Yes, I know there are 3rd party apps, but you'll never get the adoption level that you would get having it integrated into the OS itself. I don't know any of my friends who use a 3rd party SMS app.
SMS is not the same as a chat service. SMS to many people's perception is just as sensitive as a phone call because it was around prior to smart phones, and has been at the basic phone/carrier level for far too long.
Aside from all these "quality control"/"carrier usage sniffing" app services hiding at the admin level of Android in the background, people think SMS is seen by only them because SMS doesn't count towards your smart phone's data usage. It's its own plan.
All that aside, I honestly don't see Android having a dedicated iMessage-esque feature standard to all devices. That's just not in the vision of Android and Google as a whole. Only Apple would push off a feature that kills all the other innovations by its own user Developer base to-date because they want to offer a central standard feature (and Apple has done it many times over iOS's lifespan)
Most phone plans I see these days have unlimited SMS anyway. There's a yearly one here for $365, unlimited calls and SMS with 5gb of data.
WhatsApp is useful because it is cross platform, I have a Windows Phone, some friends have Android, some have an iPhone. Using a 3rd party app is essential to handle all that.
The best part is the group conversations though, I have 5 or 6 friends in a whatsapp group and we can all just message into the group conversation. More about convenience than saving money not using SMS (which is unlimited anyway).
WhatsApp is useful because it is cross platform, I have a Windows Phone, some friends have Android, some have an iPhone. Using a 3rd party app is essential to handle all that.
The best part is the group conversations though, I have 5 or 6 friends in a whatsapp group and we can all just message into the group conversation. More about convenience than saving money not using SMS (which is unlimited anyway).
makes sense. what layer does BBM fall into then? is that on the carrier level or is that "application layer" as stated?
i would really love for carriers to standardize (non apple iOS) a chat feature particularly android. Gtalk is pretty close. Skype sucks and havn't tried anything else.
What makes iMessage such a success is that most people don't even know they're using it. It's so similar to regular texting that most people don't notice. It makes group messages a lot easier to do that standard text group messages too. If only the iMessage platform, or some other one became standardized throughout all OSes instead of SMS. SMS is outdated and lacks many features that current Message apps have.
I really don't think anyone uses iMessage or whatsapp or kik or liveprofile so they don't need a ams plan. They use it cause it has more features than sms.
I really don't think anyone uses iMessage or whatsapp or kik or liveprofile so they don't need a ams plan. They use it cause it has more features than sms.
android has gchat. why would anyone want to offer something similar to imessage which is inherently garbage?