[pjz]

Besides the obvious attention play, he might be going for an acquisition play... "Why bother writing our own iMessage for Android when we can just buy this little company that's already done it?" There's obvious issues with that plan, but that doesn't keep delusional founders from being delusional.

[paulryanrogers]

Apple chose not to support Android on purpose. They know iMessage exclusivity drives hardware sales. The emails have come out proving as much.

It's the same reason they dragged their feet supporting RCS, until regulatory pressure started mounting.

[vagrantJin]

I must be an idiot. Never even heard of iMessage before this debacle - I wouldnt even know I was using it.

On a more serious note regarding the Hardware sales- Apple inc does not make that much profit based on "what" they sell, its "who" they are selling to.

[cyanydeez]

exclusivity is all Apple runs on after it's tech succeeds

[AlexandrB]

> They know iMessage exclusivity drives hardware sales. The emails have come out proving as much.

I find this incredibly hard to believe. And just because the Apple marketing department believes something is true, doesn't make it so.

Maybe I run in a weird crowd, but I've never met anyone who cares whether "text messages" are delivered over SMS or iMessage. In general most messaging I do happens over Signal, WhatsApp, Discord, or (in a few unfortunate cases) Instagram messenger.