Apple kept iMessage to itself when it could have appear to Android in 2013

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New results reveal that Apple could have introduced iMessage for Android yrs in the past but intentionally selected not to do so. Epic’s antitrust lawsuit in opposition to Apple has exposed (by using 9to5Mac) that the well-known messaging assistance was locked in deliberately by Apple even however it could have been cross-suitable with Android as early as 2013.

Court files submitted by Epic and Apple ahead of their upcoming trial make it obvious that Apple executives have been in opposition to porting iMessage to Android for competitive motives.

According to a deposition by Eddy Cue, Apple’s Senior VP of Internet Computer software and Companies, the organization “could have designed a edition on Android that labored with iOS” this sort of that there would “have been cross-compatibility with the iOS platform so that end users of equally platforms would have been capable to trade messages with one particular a further seamlessly.”

On the other hand, Craig Federighi, Apple’s Senior VP of Software program Engineering and the govt in demand of iOS, mentioned, “iMessage on Android would basically serve to take out an impediment to Apple iphone families supplying their young ones Android telephones.”

In 2016, when a previous Apple personnel commented that “the amount one most tough rationale to go away the Apple universe app is iMessage,”  Phil Schiller, accountable for primary the App Retailer, commented that “moving iMessage to Android will hurt us much more than assistance us.”

These statements reaffirm what most of us have regarded for a although — Apple likes to keep its ecosystem closed in order to hook users and keep them there. The observe is not unlawful, and these conclusions wouldn’t essentially hurt Apple. They are just another way for Epic to help its level that Apple makes use of system lock-in to retain its marketplace monopoly.

Meanwhile, iMessage is nevertheless not available on Android, and it does not glance like it’ll at any time depart Apple’s walled back garden. Android consumers, even so, can get advantage of RCS that features a comparable experience in the Google Messages Application.