What's this about bubbles? I never heard anything about it before until last week, and it didn't make sense.
Android user.
this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2023
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People with iPhones use iMessage for texting which turns their bubbles blue (green for any other type of phone) and with iMessage there are a whole slew of features that people enjoy like chat bubbles to show active typing, read receipts, sending over Wi-Fi, etc. Often there's one member of a group chat with an Android who can't take advantage of those features and it limits the group chat features since they use SMS/MMS/RCS protocol instead. Here's an article about it:
https://www.androidauthority.com/green-bubble-phenomenon-1021350/
Who uses SMS in this day and age? Have these people not heard of sending messages using the internet?
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It's an American thing. If you live anywhere else probably use WhatsApp so you don't have that problem.
To be truthful the FCC should have forced apple to move off iMessages. Especially due to them registering numbers which they shouldn't have control over. Friend got a new number recently when they changed providers, the new number of course didn't work for any messages that came from iPhones because it was previously used by an Apple user.
So essentially someone buys a service from Company A. Puts it in their hardware from Company B, yet company C is dictating their ability to recieve messages. The user did this ~June 15th, didnt figure out iPhones weren't able to send her messages to June 20th. So her birthday was June 18th, the same day as fathers day. Most plans almost fell through because her dads iPhone just lies and says the iMessage is read immediately.
There really should just be a class action lawsuit against Apple that requires them to stop hijacking services from users that are not their customers.
Sidenote: Apple's first solution they provide for this is to move your sim card to one of their products to deregister from their services. That is so fucking disgusting to me. Thankfully the site now has a "No longer have your old device option" to de-register from the servoce you never signed up for... on a product you never owned.
...end rant, sry
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The more you buy into the ecosystem, the better it all gets. I use a Mac for work and at home, so an iPhone is a natural choice.
Bubbles are literally no part of the reason why I use one, I genuinely could not give less of a shit about that. The real reason is pretty simple: my old phone died and I needed a new one pretty quickly. At the time it was basically a decision between a Pixel 4a and an iPhone SE 2020, which seemed like the best options at that price point. The Pixel had a better battery, camera, and used android, with the possibility of flashing a custom rom (which all else equal I'd prefer), while the iPhone's main advantages were the much faster chip and longer support period. I probably would have gone the Pixel, but as it turned out it wasn't in stock at the time, so I got the iPhone.
Because in my opinion, it’s the best product in its class. It doesn’t need to be more complicated than that.
The iPhone was the first smartphone. I got my 3G before android phones were a thing. Once you are used to an ecosystem, it just is easier to stay there. I struggle when someone hands me an android.
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An Android version of an iPhone 13 Mini doesn’t exist. At least it didn’t when I bought the iPhone.
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The ecosystem. (For better or worse.)
I prefer Android but the ability to do things such as use my AirPods on multiple Macs, iPhones, and iPads is very convenient. Ditto for things like Apple TV and HomeKit (though I use Home Assistant to control my HomeKit devices).
Other things:
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Hardware has a longer useful life (Android phone manufacturers "commit" to n years of updates, but the timing of releases is slow and usually limited to 3 years, at most.) There are still iPhone 6 devices in the wild running the latest version of iOS.
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Standardized hardware and consistently updated software results in more and better apps.
In short: iPhone is an appliance but an Android smartphone is/can be a pocket computer with greater flexibility.
YMMV
EDIT: Also, my wife and kids use iPhone. When I used an Android phone, I had them all install signal so we communicate securely. With iPhone, that's built in.
That's built in to android now with Rcs which uses the exact same encryption as signal.
And funny enough, apple decided not to support it so now apple users are the ones who force it to revert to MMS.
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I don't know why people say this is a feature of iphonesm All I hear is people complaining that texting g doest work very well on iphone.im an android guy, and have never had a problem texting nobody.
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I used Android for over a decade. Then recently my work bought me an iPhone. My biggest struggle was finding a replacement for Reddit Is Fun, until I found Apollo. I mourned for its loss until I found Lemmy and Wewef. In the end a phone is a phone but Lemmy is life!
Couldn't care less about blue bubbles cause I mostly use Telegram. I'm currently running two phones, on iOS & one Android.
My iPhone syncs nicely with my iPad which i appreciate. I also find the photos app better, especially how you can sort by date (metadata) or date-uploaded. Also the 6.1inch iPhone gets better battery than any of the similar-sized Androids I've tried.
I literally just switched to the iPhone 14 after a lifetime of android phones. Honestly I’ve just gotten older and don’t use my phone like I used to. I don’t need to have android for anything specific anymore and the iPhone AirPods Apple Watch combo really just can’t be beat. You can do the combo with android but honestly nothing is as seamless as the Apple options.
My biggest concern is the longevity of the phone. My android phones all hold their charge well and rarely have issues. My Apple work phone has had its battery crap out after only a year and a half. But still I needed an upgrade and it just made sense.
why do you use iPhone?
In my case, because I had a bad experience with Android phones in their early years. Each model I used had one or the other issues, either battery life, camera issues, screen issues or something else. Around the Samsung S3 days I finally moved to iPhone and "everything just worked".
I am sure things are better now in the Android world hardware-wise (and software-wise Android has always been able to do more), but over the years I have become firmly entrenched in the Apple ecosystem with the Apple Watch, Airpods, Macbooks, Apple TV etc so it doesn't make sense for me to switch again because there isn't a compelling reason for me to do so.
I'm not an Apple person, but this makes perfect sense to me. I think it was Steve Jobs himself who talked about the iPod "halo effect", which was the idea that if they could sell you an iPod because it was cool (and it was), and they made the iPod experience on PC worse than on the Mac (which it was initially), then people were more likely to buy a Mac as their next machine. If they didn't, they got FOMO, because they already bought the iPod and obviously want the best experience out of it. (That's an oversimplification and not sure it was Jobs, but the gist is there).
Now the Apple ecosystem is designed so that every Apple product is pretty tightly integrated with every other one. Unless you have some deeper reason to get away from it (privacy concerns, cost, lack of features, customizability, etc), there isn't a reason at all to leave.
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One thing for me is honestly how great the operating system is. A lot of people just look at phones as the basic call text, download apps, etc. but I’ve been trying to use my phone to answer questions that I would normally Google or two to look at stock prices or two Google definitions for words, or even using the native translator app inside.
My first smartphone was an iPhone 3GS. Android wasn’t really an competitive option yet. Since then, I’ve stayed on iOS because I already had purchased apps I’d loose if I switched. (Remember when you bought mobile games, instead of endlessly paying for them with in-game currency?) Vendor lock-in is real.
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There are plenty of reasons.
A robust ecosystem Privacy protection features and measures that are given first rate support - at least as far as you can say about a closed source platform Simplicity
I have years of experience with iPhones and flagship Galaxy phones since the 5.
I’m settled on the iPhone for now because those blue bubbles make keeping in contact with family easy. Sure you could use WhatsApp but if it’s not already being used, most people won’t want to download another app just to communicate. They’d rather use the built in texting app.
It also syncs well with my watch that I use for fitness tracking, and my Mac Studio that I use for professional work.
with it's proprietary software, no one knows whether or not ios is good for privacy or not. it certainly sends data back to apple automatically, without user consent.
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I have 15 years worth of apps
I’m a mobile dev. iOS is just a lot more powerful, both software wise as hardware wise. There is so much shit you just can’t do on Android.
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Reliability, battery life, OS optimization, long term support.
These things may be normal for today’s android handsets, but back when I switched from the Samsung Galaxy S6 to the iPhone, they definitely weren’t the norm. I went through about 6 different android phones, got into custom roms and bootloaders, did all that fancy stuff. I got real comfortable with it and I got used to the idea that my phone app might just lock up randomly for no reason. Or my GPS app would freeze when I’m miles and miles away from civilization. I got tired of troubleshooting and stuff and I just wanted something reliable.