iMessage for Android would have stifled innovation, says Craig Federighi

bloggerblog said:

haikus said:
I know that many people love iMessage. And I know we do prefer using this more privacy-conscious platform than, say, WhatsApp or Telegram. But iMessage isn’t really the pinnacle of innovation, with features like unsend or edit messages only being available now. So… mmm… I don’t buy into the “it would have stifled innovation” argument. 

That’s not what he was talking about, and obviously those features you pointed out are not innovations. Apple can add features like full resolution photo and video sharing as well as things like Memojis and other delightful experiences without having to figure out how that’ll translate or are they even possible in an ecosystem where they have zero control over, aka Android and all its variants. We also don’t know what’s in iMessage’s future roadmap. 

Exactly. When I compare the inordinate amount of time I spend fighting bizarre issues with Android Studio (the fact that they have a "Repair IDE" option in the menus says a lot) and debugging quirks on different versions of Android, to the ease of developing for Apple platforms, I lament that I could have spent that time adding new features and making apps better instead of just porting the same features over. Time and resources are the most valuable commodity to tech companies.

If Google wants iMessage so badly, let them spent their time working on it and maintaining it on the half-baked technology stack called Android. That's what Federighi was essentially saying in nicer words. Part of the reason why they still haven't gotten RCS right.