I can’t see a business reason why Apple would degrade image sending purposefully- it would drive its own users to get third party apps.

Depends on what the majority of people are using.

In markets where iPhone users are not in the majority, that’s exactly what’s happening: iPhone users are switching to third party apps.

If iPhones users are in the majority, though, then people will just default to iMessage, and non-Apple phones get associated with poor messaging quality. Which creates social pressure for non-iPhone users to buy an iPhone.

So it makes perfect business sense for Apple to degrade the messaging quality when a non-Apple phone joins the conversation.

Must eradicate it.

For the safety and security of our users!

Google Chat is essentially Google’s take on Slack: group collaboration with chat and app/platform integrations.

Well, it’s an option.

You can decide to leave it set to countdown + calling without further interaction.

And if you do, they won’t upload your stuff to the cloud anymore.

Wait - is that praise or criticism?

If it’s not processed on device, there shouldn’t be any reason why this feature has to be limited to the Pixel 7 and 8, right?

That’s my use case as well.

Just find a carrier you like for the country you’re traveling to, download the eSIM, and you’re ready to go.

All while keeping the physical SIM card of my regular, domestic carrier in the SIM card slot.

This simple issue was a major hassle before eSIM cards existed, and now it’s the easiest, most convenient thing in the world.

Once I saw that Google wasn’t going to honor steam library on stadia

That is such a weird complaint.

Google doesn’t own Steam. Google has nothing to do with Steam. Why would Google give you free games just because you purchased those same games on a competing platform?

Are you also complaining that Sony isn’t honoring your Steam library on the PlayStation? Are you complaining that Microsoft isn’t honoring the Steam library on the XBox?

Heck, are you complaining that Steam isn’t honoring the Nintendo Switch library on the Steam Deck?

I mean: what gives?

It’s really on American regulators to hold American companies accountable if they abuse their dominant position in the American market to the detriment of American consumers.

Fairphone, through a herculean development effort, has been the only Android OEM to keep going even after Qualcomm drops support.

That seems to say that while Qualcomm will drop support, Fairphone will not. Which means that it’s very likely that the Fairphone will receive updates - including new Android OS versions - even after EOL by Qualcomm.

And given Fairphone’s history, there’s every reason to believe in their commitment.

“Market dominance” simply means that a single company has the means to shape the entire market - not that it must have 90+ percent market share.

You’re essentially arguing that it’s easier for a user to find a third party app in the App Store, install it, create an account in the app, and start messaging than it is to start messaging with the pre-installed first party app.

I don’t find that persuasive.

Apples to oranges.

The reason is that messaging services like WhatsApp became popular in Europe because carriers charged exorbitant fees for SMS messaging at a time when no single phone manufacturer absolutely dominated the market. Apps like WhatsApp made it possible to communicate with people, no matter which specific phone or brand or platform they were using.

If the iPhone (with iMessage pre-installed) had been the dominant smartphone and ecosystem at the time, chances are that what’s happening in the US would have happened in Europe in exactly the same way.

It’s exactly the same argument as with Windows and Internet Explorer: if Windows had been one podunk operating system out of many, nobody would have cared. The whole issue was that Microsoft used the market dominance of Windows to quasi-lock users into Internet Explorer.

Are WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord, Signal, and such blocked in the US?

Of course they’re not blocked.

People just default to the app that comes pre-installed with their phone and sits right there on the first screen, because it’s marginally easier than picking a third party app in the App Store, installing it, and creating an account.

It’s the exact same argument that Microsoft made when they bundled Internet Explorer with their OS.