According to figures and reports based on thorough analysis, there are a greater number of people moving from Android to iPhone than we have moving from iPhone to Android. This can be attributed to Apple’s ecosystem which is rather a closed one. The closed ecosystem is one thing that makes it very difficult for Apple users to want to switch to Android and easy for Android users to be able to switch to iPhones. Apart from this, there is an Apple feature that has made it particularly difficult for iPhone users to switch to Android devices. This feature is Apple’s iMessage feature.
Apple had allegedly planned on releasing iMessages for Android in 2013 but according to new revelation, the company never launched the Android version of its iMessage app intentionally and has zero plans of ever doing so.
According to high-ranking executives and some employees at Apple, “moving iMessage to Android will hurt us more than help us, this email illustrates why…” In a legal struggle between Epic Games and Apple, Epic Games in court argued that Apple restricted the iMessage app to its devices and has intentionally made it difficult for iPhone users to switch to Android devices. In an email sent by a former employee at Apple, iMessage is the major reason why users do not switch to Android. The clause from the email said specifically that “the no. 1 most difficult reason to leave the Apple universe is iMessage… iMessage amounts to serious lock-in”.
“Apple has recognized the power that iMessage has to attract and keep users within its ecosystem”, as per the court filings by Epic Games. The Senior Vice President of Internet Software and Services at Apple, Eddy Cue, after a court filing that said that Apple had decided not to develop an Android version of iMessage, testified that Apple “could have made a version on Android that worked with iOS such that there would have been cross-compatibility with the iOS platform so that users of both platforms would have been able to exchange messages with one another seamlessly”.
According to Apple’s Senior Vice President of Software and Engineering; Craig Federighi, “iMessage on Android would simply serve to remove an obstacle to iPhone families giving their kids Android phones”.
Ibhadojemu Lucky Emmanuel is a graduate of Education and Economics from the University of Benin. He has a passion for tech and business and has been writing professionally for over a period of five years. He's written across various topics and segments and knew tech-business was it when he first stumbled on it. He has a great passion for music and arts, and wants to visit as many countries as he can someday.
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