I asked if people chose iPhone for the blue bubbles elsewhere a couple days ago, and while there was some good discourse on that post, the blue bubbles definitely also came up as a reason.

In my experience, when people find out my texts are green, they oftentimes would rather switch to a different platform altogether like Instagram or just not text at all.

Is this actually a deal-breaker in friendships out there?

  • Encryption@feddit.ch
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    30
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    Wait, so people decide on a phone based of OS because of blue or green chat message colors? This is the first time I’m hearing this, is this something more of a USA thing or does this apply to other ocuntries as well?

    Buying a phone based on chat bubble color seems something that occurs in a toxic society, where you are judged based on phone model. And why do they then change to an other platform to write you?

    I never had a discussion about Andriod or IPhone based on this parameter, it was more about UI, services and design of the phone. To be fair we all use third party messengers like Signal or Threema.

    • interocitor@lemmy.fmhy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      15
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      It’s a US thing. It took european carriers a very long time to offer unlimited texts (especially across borders) which in turn helped apps like Whatsapp, Signal, Telegram. iPhones display messages/SMS from non-iPhones in green bubbles. Pictures sent from non-iPhones are displayed in lower resolutions because Apple doesn’t support some standard or smth.

        • BURN@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          Googles standard is RCS, just like Apples is iMessage. Apple is never going to implement a competitors standard. And despite being open, not even all of android has adopted this standard. Only a couple apps have.

      • Sc00ter@lemmy.fmhy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        The first time my wife saw a picture taken by my phone, on my phone, she was blown away. She thought all android cameras suck because that’s what Apple wants them to believe. Her mind was blown that I actually had a way better phone camera than her.

        It quickly became, “let me borrow your phone for this picture, then you can upload it for me.” Yet she still refused to leave apple

      • fkn@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        Iphone intentionally lowers the resolution of non apple messages.

        • ech0@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          Actually that not true. It just the image/video is sent over MMS which is a standard from 2002 and is limited to 2Mbs in size and 99% of photos taken now adays I such larger then that so MMS compresses it before its sent.

          • fkn@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            6
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            Apple has had 5 years to implement the higher resolution image standard. They are intentionally not.

      • Black_Gulaman@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        In our country sms were free in the first few years of early 2000s, then the telcos learned. And now its paid per message.

        Though nobody uses sms anymore, since FB is free and so is messenger, even if you don’t have data available.

        Zuck struck gold here.

    • xenonisbad@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      1 year ago

      It’s not the first time I’m hearing about it. In The Bachelor episode of Game Changer, wrong color of the bubble was used as main argument of why having an Android phone is considered red flag. I think most of the contestant marked having Android as a red flag. After that it was kinda hard for me to treat them seriously, like they are open enough to compete in a show to go on vacation with guy they are meeting for the first time, but they have a problem with that guy messages being displayed in different color.

      To make it even more funny, when someone proposed they could use other communicators if they really don’t like green bubbles, the response was that they don’t live in Europe.

    • ediculous@lemmy.fmhy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      arrow-down
      5
      ·
      1 year ago

      It’s not about the color of the bubbles, it’s about SMS vs. iMessage. SMS/MMS is outdated, slow, and limited; nobody should be using it anymore. iMessage is fast and feature-rich; arguably the best chat platform that exists, but it only works from one Apple device to another. Apple uses its position (50 percent of the U.S. smartphone market) to alienate anyone not using their hardware by rolling back to SMS when communicating with a non-iOS/MacOS device. This happens behind the scenes, all directly from the same Messages application. So from the iPhone user’s perspective, they’re either getting a fantastic experience (blue bubbles) or the absolute worst one (green bubbles) and it’s all dependent on what the other person is using.

      It’s by design. Apple wants the default experience between an iPhone and an Android to be uncomfortable. And getting 125 million American iPhone users to use a different chat application is impossible since they have a truly premium experience with iMessage to iMessage communication.

      Here’s a great explanation of it.