Apple doesn't get to dictate what constitutes a good user experience. Especially for me - that is my prerogative and mine alone.
So yes, I will be extremely happy with it. This opens doors to all kinds of software that can compete with one another, and if I don't like it, I can simply uninstall it myself.
Just one more bit of anecdotal evidence to support your view.
Our app was rejected after review until we updated an external support doc to which the app linked. The doc contained system requirements for both iOS and Android devices, and we were specifically rejected for even having mentioned the competing operating system.
> The doc contained system requirements for both iOS and Android devices, and we were specifically rejected for even having mentioned the competing operating system.
same, for us we just open all links in safari now, so if mentions of android show up its not "in the app"... an arguably worsened user experience for no good reason except to keep apple happy
You're confusing first party apps with third party apps. Also you're forgetting that this is a forum which is heavily biased to developers. I use Android because my phone isn't a fashion piece. Some of my users sadly use iOS. They want the software on the devices they purchased and own, but Apple is preventing us from delivering this to them unless we do exactly as Apple commands.
My phone is not a fashion piece. AFAICT the blue bubbles will show up with an old 4S just as well as with a 14 Pro Max.
I have an iPhone - which I got after many years with Android - because iMessage is an essential app for me. I live in the US, so my business partners do not have [choice of alternative messaging app] installed and they are not going to install it just for me. I'm a doctor working in a hospital that has two complete dead spots for cell reception, and whose IT department blocks WiFi calling. So I can't make phone calls on either service, and only on iOS can I get messages that are really, really important over the hospital WiFi.
I could talk until I was blue in the face about how other methods are better. Or how Apple is being a gigantic bunch of assholes by not using something other than vanilla SMS if you're not an iMessage user. But it's sitting at about 30:1, and you can either go along and be aware of important things going on, or you can be left out.
When business decisions are being made over those conversations, I'd be a fool to ignore it. I don't much like the iOS way, having gotten used to Android and LineageOS, but after my experience with the Nexus 6P that suffered the infamous "battery goes to shit overnight one day" problem that Google wouldn't fix, as well as being dropped from updates after two years, five years of security updates from model introduction sounded pretty nice.
But on Android, you can replace the default messaging app, and that app can have access to SMS as a fallback, so it's really easy to convince people to switch. "Hey, uh, plain messaging is annoying some of us, please install this app, we can all use it, but it will work even with people who don't have it over the regular text service."
It's still getting rolled out a lot of places. Google sees it as the successor to SMS and it's built into native messaging apps. I recently saw cross-carrier support get enabled locally and that made it universal enough that so far anyone I message that's running Android is already connected via RCS.
Apple intentionally doesn't support RCS in order to keep imessages from interoperating with android.
a system that can deliver messages through SMS or wifi is better, especially one that was a protocol, not a product, and would allow multiple platforms to access
You’re being downvoted (clearly by multiple people) for having a valid opposing opinion in a subjective debate. Hate to see that kind of behavior on HN. Upvoted you to balance it out.
No one is forcing you to install anything you don't want to. The only thing I want is having the ability to install anything I want to. If you don't want to install those things the solution is simple: Don't. You don't need Apple to make that decision for you.
While I wish I lived in a world of perfect competition, I also realize that I don't. System-wide rules against bad behavior are a lot more efficient.
> You don't need Apple to make that decision for you.
I also don't need an app making the decision of whether I need an account. Apple preserves that choice for users. And they're not making any decisions for the user about installing. Effectively zero apps will leave the store over this rule, so the user retains full choice over installing.
> System-wide rules against bad behavior are a lot more efficient.
I don't want Apple making many system-wide rules on behavior, even on Apple's own systems (which they share with their users.)
That being said, they're very right about this. Making the distinction between, on one side, apps that are useless without accounts (like banking apps) or apps that are made to help with already existing accounts, and on the other side apps that are just forcing accounts to capture and control the users, is a smart and thoughtful move.
