There's a lot more than just free apps to consider in this scenario.
Paid apps will have to be re-purchased, your Airpods won't work as well, your Apple Watch won't work at all with Android, you won't be able to message your contacts who use iMessage without SMS, etc.
iPhone owners tend to buy into the Apple ecosystem which ends up being a whole bunch of vendor lock in, and it becomes unreasonable to switch platforms. The ability to switch to Android certainly doesn't give Apple a free pass here.
Why would you expect proprietary tech to work with anything, though.
That’s what I don’t get - people buy locked down stuff and then complain that it’s locked down. There are plenty of alternatives that aren’t locked down.
The defeatist mentality from my perspective is arguing that we shouldn't try to make locked down stuff less locked down.
And in many cases, you don't have a choice to use Signal or etc.
What if all your contacts are using iMessage? Sure, most of them will have SMS, but that's not guaranteed. There will always be edge cases of users who are locked in due to situations outside of their control. Shouldn't we be trying to make things less locked down for them?
The people I want to communicate with don't have Signal or any other messaging app. They have iMessage, which only allows you to communicate effectively with other apple devices.
Paid apps will have to be re-purchased, your Airpods won't work as well, your Apple Watch won't work at all with Android, you won't be able to message your contacts who use iMessage without SMS, etc.
iPhone owners tend to buy into the Apple ecosystem which ends up being a whole bunch of vendor lock in, and it becomes unreasonable to switch platforms. The ability to switch to Android certainly doesn't give Apple a free pass here.