AppleInsider Staff
Apple recently poured cold water on rumors claiming iMessage would see introduction on Google's Android platform, potentially at this week's Worldwide Developers Conference, saying the messaging service is worth more as an exclusive first-party feature.
Citing an unnamed senior Apple executive, Re/code's Walt Mossberg reports the company has no intention of expanding iMessage or the Messages app beyond its own ecosystem, at least not anytime soon.
Apple said an expansion of services is not necessary because its user base of one billion active devices is large enough to support ongoing studies into artificial intelligence, a relatively new area of focus for the company.
During Monday's WWDC keynote, SVP of Software Engineering Craig Federighi revealed work on a method of gathering data from users without infringing on their privacy. Called differential privacy, the method uses hashing, subsampling and noise injection to gain insight into mass trends, but keep individual user data anonymized. Federighi said the information gleaned from the process might be applied to QuickType recommendations, for example.
The unnamed executive also said keeping iMessage an Apple exclusive helps boost sales of supporting devices, which in turn promotes platform stickiness. As Mossberg noted, Apple has seen great success in marketing proprietary hardware and software integrations competitors are unable to match. With the exception of revenue generating services like iTunes and Apple Music, releasing a product like Messages for Android could undermine those efforts.
Perhaps wishful thinking on the part of have-nots, Apple has for years been rumored to launch iMessage services on non-Apple operating systems. Speculation of an impending release for Android resurfaced earlier this month ahead of WWDC.
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58 Comments
It's a pain in the butt. I think Apple are thinking wrong here. iMessage not being cross-platform significantly lessens my iPhone enjoyment and experience.
If people want the full iPhone and Messages experience, they should get an iPhone. Having 100s of millions more Messages users placing a strain on Apple's servers for no financial gain doesn't make sense, IMO.
There's no financial incentive. The features of iMessage require Xcode and selling stickers is probably not lucrative enough to strengthen the competition's offerings.
this logic worked in the last few years when most people were still using sms services to send messages, something that works cross-platform making it possible to use the program frequently with any contact.
But that is changing. More and more people are using alternatives to sms, which means that Apple’s program is no longer a viable solution for many contacts and it will only get worse if Apple doesn’t go cross-platform. It becomes inconsequent if people stop using it frequently, there will be no stickiness, quite the opposite, it will become frustrating.
How is it possible that Apple doesn’t see that?