Tag: chat

The Mess In Messaging

Communication is hard. Simple, but not easy. In this digital age, you can talk with anyone, anywhere, anytime. Instantly text, or chat, or message a friend across the country? No problem. All you must do is choose the right app. What could go wrong?

Texting via SMS is antiquated and should be obsolete, yet it continues to thrive in the US. Yeah, so texting – rudimentary, outdated, super-popular!

With the internet in your pocket, you can now act more modern, using the data-rich web to communicate. If you’re on Apple’s iPhone, it’s simple. Use iMessage. No probs, right? Well, except for those pesky green bubbles with their inferior communication skills. More on that later.

iMessage is not the only chat app available. Many others abound. So if I want to, say, avoid broken group texts between iMessage and Android Messages, I’ve got to use a third-party web-based chat app that skips SMS texting altogether.

Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp are popular choices to name just two. For argument’s sake, let’s say those are the only two. It should be simple to pick one – but it’s not. The fact is, you must use the same chat app(s) that the people you communicate with do. It’s all fragmented. Many people, many chat apps.

To make it easy, you could just pick a chat app based on only the one or two people you message the most. But easy, it is not. In my case, my wife and my Dad are my best texters. My wife and I use iMessage on our iPhones – blue text bubbles! My Dad uses an Android phone, so his texts to me are green. No big deal, really. Sometimes my Dad and I use Facebook Messenger. But what will happen when I switch my phone to an Android? I’ll become a green bubble to my wife – but again so what?

Since my family is all on Facebook, then what if we all just used Facebook Messenger together? Then it would not matter what phone anyone uses. Well, that won’t work for me because my wife – to this day – refuses to install Facebook Messenger on her phone. She is adamantly opposed to the move Facebook made years ago when it pulled Messenger from the main Facebook app and “forced” everyone to install a separate app. She aint havin’ it! Okay. I can work with that.

So scratch Facebook Messenger. Instead, what if my family switches to WhatsApp? That could be great, but it’s unlikely to ever happen. Why? Simply because people don’t like change, even if it’s for the better. Change is…wait for it…hard. No matter what messenger client I may like, getting everyone on board is the challenge.

I would like to look into Google’s solutions…but oh my, that’s a convoluted mess on its own! To its credit, Google has tried – and is still trying – to clean up the mess in their messaging services. They’re now pushing RCS, the new and improved replacement of SMS/MMS texting. But who knows how that will go. At least they’re attempting to adopt iMessage-like features into Google Messages. Might as well cheer them on.

On one hand, it’s a bummer that choosing and using one do-it-all message app isn’t a reality. But on the other hand, I guess it’s cool that there are options. You can talk to anyone, anywhere, anytime. Just make sure you have the right app(s).

What do you think? Comment below, or write to me here! Thanks for reading!

What’s The Big Deal With Green Texts?

Lock-In

The iPhone is very popular, so a whole slew of people chat with the iMessage app. I often hear that it’s one of the biggest reasons for “platform lock-in.” That’s to say, many folks don’t or won’t stop using an iPhone because they’re chained to iMessage. But I don’t get it.

Blue Vs Green

In the tech sector, iMessage lock-in is often described as blue bubbles versus green bubbles. Why? If a person using iMessage receives text in a blue text bubble, then the sender is also using iMessage. But if it’s green, that means the sender is using an app that is not iMessage, which most often means they’re using Android instead of iPhone.

So what’s the big deal about that?

As blue is to sky, green is to grass; they’re both pleasant colors. So it can’t be the color itself but what the color means. Still, I don’t see a real problem. So what if someone sends text from an Android phone? There are only two reasons I can think of. The first is petty. The second is important.

The petty reason has something to do with status. There seems to be an air of superiority among some people who prefer iMessage and iPhone over Android and whatever pathetic chat app is used. It’s as if not only the hardware and software are inferior, but so is the person who happens to use it. I think this attitude is found in more immature people.

The important reason I can see for making a good distinction between iMessage and other chat apps is about security and privacy. iMessage texts, by default, are encrypted on the inbound and outbound side. This means whoever (the NSA) intercepts and collects your texts should not be able to decrypt and read your messages. For more on how this works, read this article.

iMessage is encrypted; that’s a nice feature. But despite how good and reliable iMessage is, it’s not perfect. Personally, I dislike how full of stuff it is. It has too many options and features and sub-menus and screens to access more stuff. The balance has been tipped from simplicity to complexity, which detracts from delight in it.

Now there is more reason why iMessage lock-in is a thing. A recent Fast Company article details some technical and related social reasons that are more important than petty. Basically, a non-iPhone text message that is sent to iMessage reduces its rich experience and, to some degree, limits functionality. Still, while there’s some merit to these reasons, I think they’re just inconvenient and a dent in luxury. In other words, no big deal.

And for more on the default Messages app on Android, check out Google’s info page here. I don’t think it is encrypted at all. Some chat features are limited compared to iMessage, but those are just bells and whistles to me. They’re nice to have, not need to have. Just give me letters and emoji and I’m good. Okay, I like the occasional GIF too, but it’s not a deal breaker if missing.

Emoji Please

So there are some reasons and my thoughts about so-called iMessage lock-in. If you send me a text and it comes in green, that’s perfectly fine with me.

Actually, what I really would like is to have what was once found on Android Messages. It used to let you change the color of the message bubbles based on the color of the contact. I loved it! My wife was all purple, my dad was red, and I was orange; it all looked very cool!

It would be more important, though, if Android Messages was encrypted like iMessage. Google, telecoms, and the NSA are collecting our texts and metadata, destroying any semblance of ambient privacy. Not good.

But hey, as long as we all get those GIFs, right? Color…encryption…just give us our emoji. 🙂

Are you locked-in because of iMessage? Do you prefer Android Messages or Signal? Comment below, or write to me here! Thanks for reading!