[pkamb]

I think Apple already has claimed the "friends and family network" via iMessage. Did Facebook go to a groups/influencer algorithm by choice or is it the result of IRL friend posters all moving to private chats once everyone got iPhones?

[eknkc]

Everytime iMessage is mentioned, I do a double take because it is almost non existent here in Turkey. And from what I hear, seems like most Europeans do not use it too.

WhatsApp has like 99.9% market share here and I assume it is a lot bigger than anything else in the EU too.

I wonder why is that though. Everyone around me has an iPhone basically and I haven’t received a blue bubble in years. The messages app is not even on my home screen.

[pkamb]

As I understand it, many Americans (and all iPhones?) had unlimited-SMS phone plans circa 2009. So the pay-per-message economic conditions that caused many Europeans, etc., to switch to WhatsApp back in the day didn't do anything in the USA.

Then when the same iPhone app seamlessly started sending iMessages (blue bubbles) to other iPhones rather than SMS (green bubbles), people just kept using that.

[brap]

Same, I’m not even European, but literally everyone uses WhatsApp for everything where I live, iPhones or not.

The only thing I get in my Messages app is verification codes and spam.

I don’t think I got a single SMS/iMessage from a human in the last 5 years.

[arkh]

> Everyone around me has an iPhone

You may be in a bubble.

Huawei and other Chinese phones are not banned in the EU. So you can get your hands on 100€ to 200€ smartphones which are more than enough for most people. Hence a lot less iPhones (but a ton more spywares).

[stevage]

Can also report WhatsApp has 100% of the backpackers meeting each other market.

[Zak]

That's only true if everyone in the group has an Apple phone, which has decreasing probability with every additional member. Excluding people from a conversation because they don't have the right brand of phone would be pretty antisocial.

[crmd]

Unfortunately it happens all the time in my friends circle, and it's for technical not anti-social reasons. Group texts that include Android users are so buggy that they tend to die out, whereas iMessage-only groups tend to be long lasting. For this reason we use WhatsApp for the core group chat, but there's still a ton of side-conversations and meme-ing in iMessage groups.

[pkamb]

In the USA, someone insisting on using an Android when everyone else in their social circle has an iPhone (and they do!) is what's seen as anti-social. No one wants to use the degraded green bubble SMS experience so they simply exclude the Android user and continue using blue bubble iMessage.

[canucker2016]

Unless you're a teen in the USA.

Non-iPhone users are the minority in this demographic (<= 13%), see my demographic comment elsewhere for this subject.

[john2x]

I'm still waiting for iMessage to work with Android phones.

[thesuitonym]

iMessage has been compatible with RCS for months now.

[skissane]

> I think Apple already has claimed the "friends and family network" via iMessage.

All the family/friends group chats I am in are WhatsApp.

I use iMessage every day for 1-to-1 messaging but I don’t really view it as distinct from SMS.

For international communication, even 1-on-1 tends to be WhatsApp.

[stevage]

Nobody I know uses iMessage.

[ghaff]

In the US, using iMessage involves flipping a switch in some Messages setting--and everyone I know in the US just texts, except for texting with international folks.

[create-username]

Nobody uses iMessage in Spain. People swear by Zuck's spyware

[addicted]

iMessage is dead/dying. WhatsApp is killing it.

At this point even my American groups have become largely WhatsApp because Android exists.