How did your not-tech savvy grandparent deal with grandkids who use don't use apple products?

If an entire family feels compelled to use apple products because the family users apple products things start feeling more like a religion then a technical choice for a product.

The fact that the software choices of other people are forcing your hardware choices here is horrible.

So you expect people who don't really even care about technology in the first place to rapidly adapt to your changing preferences? I don't have facebook, and I know that I could be better in touch with my extended family and many of my friends if I had one, it's my choice to die on that hill. I don't want facebook to invade my privacy, I could make a hardware choice and have a device or devices dedicated solely to their swill, to cordon off my private life from their information vacuum, but I choose not to do so. How is switching off of one ecosystem (facebook ads monetization) any different than another (Apple hardware monetization).

I think the difference is that you can use other solutions on multiple of platforms.

Whatsapp/facebook is definitely a market leader in the chat world, but they can be disrupted. You can use theirs or other products on your iPhone, Android, PC, Mac, or Linux.

With the hardware vendor, iMessage isn't used because it's necessarily better but because it is a forced automatic sign up when you use their phone.

iMessage IS the sms application. And you cannot install alternative SMS apps. You are quite literally forced to use it if you want to communicate with people with other phones.

Apple does not care about iMessage as a platform. They only care that it is difficult to leave it.

It's why switching to another device causes problems for most. People who were communicating with you over iMessage will still send their messages there. If you have to very manually and very unintuitively de-enroll your number from iMessage.

For the non-technical this makes it appear that other devices do not work at all. They are trapped in the apple ecosystem even if they don't like it.

>With the hardware vendor, iMessage isn't used because it's necessarily better but because it is a forced automatic sign up when you use their phone.

Agree to disagree I guess. It is "forced automatic sign up" to use GooglePlayServices when you use android. Using microG is significantly more complicated than unenrolling from iMessage, and you can go to Settings>Messages>iMessage to switch it to just plain SMS, if thats really your prerogative(I've done this when traveling overseas).

To me iMessage is unequivocally better because I'm not the product the way I am on most(all?) trivial to use free services(spinning up a Matrix/IRC/etc server is not trivial). I pay for hardware that has an ability, in this case to use iMessage and Facetime, and in return I'm given some level of assurance that my actions on those platforms aren't going to be monetized through advertisement and leaking of PII. Being able to receive high quality photos from my family through an easy to use interface when I'm not at home without some surveillance corp knowing my location is a good deal to me. My Apple devices last a long time and require minimal upkeep.

>Apple does not care about iMessage as a platform. They only care that it is difficult to leave it. I agree, they could offer iMessage on Android for a monthly/yearly fee like they do Apple Music. I would heavily support this and I'm sure they would lose some market share. To play devils advocate, I'm not savvy to the calculus on developing such an app and API scheme to prevent users from using an alternate client, and they would have no control over, say, an android keyboard keylogging/screen reading their user's messages, I guess they could implement their own secure Apple keyboard for the App, I think password managers do this? But this is starting to seem like a pretty significant engineering burden, that would probably make the service unrealistically expensive. idk. Security is part of the implicit marketing of iMessage, it's pay to use not use to be used. That said, I have no doubt that the driving reason for not opening up iMessage is because it keeps people, especially in the US, locked in to iPhones. Trying to keep customers locked in is pretty standard business practice though. So you can hang your hat on me and others with a similar point of view being okay with abusive business practices if you like.

That said, I do think that

> you have to very manually and very unintuitively de-enroll your number from iMessage.

Is scummy. No bones about it, if you wipe your iPhone it should ask you right then and there if you want to unenroll your number from iMessage, and they should monitor delivery and email you if they suspect that you no longer have an iPhone asking if you want to unenroll from iMessage delivery(e.g. you broke your iPhone and replaced it with another product). Writing the email would be very difficult though, many naive users would probably be alarmed that Apple can tell if they receive messages. But it should be easy not hard, the current experience is terrible indeed.

And while I'm at it, you should be able to have a first class Apple experience without an iPhone. Specifically I should be able to pair my Apple Watch with an iPad or iPod.

It's not so different form everyone in a friend group buying an XBox so they can all play (game) together, honestly.

So if you have friends who play on PS and friends who play on XBox, is it reasonable to choose one set over the other? Should I buy the same game twice?

Just because unreasonable walls exist else where does not justify unreasonable walls everywhere.

I agree, and in my opinion it's Apple's greatest sin. (Linux/Android/Pinephone/Matrix user here with family in the Apple ecosystem)

Discord I agree, but it should be easy to install and use Whatsapp. There are probably already millions of grandmas using it since Whatsapp is the dominant messaging app outside the US (even by iOS users).

BTW Whatsapp also has audio and video calls.

I feel like arguing that Facebook is somehow a better plan than iMessage is a little weird.

I wasn't arguing which is better, just that it would be easy to switch to.

Also, what should 90% of the world population that can't afford an iPhone do?

Find something that Facebook doesn't own? I mean, there ARE other options, right?

That are as easy and ubiquitous so that a grandmother can easily install and use?

...here we are back at iMessage. Weird!

Whatsapp isn't really Facebook and it is ubiquitious. I live in Europe and have lived in Africa, I only know of one person that doesn't have it and they're tinfoil hat level paranoid (following a privacy scare earlier this year).

Whatsapp really is Facebook. Facebook owns them, lock stock and barrel, so I'm not sure what you think the distinction is.

I understand it's ubiquitous, but I don't personally use it, and can't imagine joining it. Nobody I know uses it, but I will absolutely allow as how that probably has to do with demographics -- my network of friends, family, and coworkers is overwhelmingly on iOS.

Why would you set up grandma with apps that invade her privacy. She's the most impressionable person and will use it if given. I got my family and grandparents switched to Signal as the furthest compromise between usability and privacy I'd be willing to go

Agreed, Signal has been great. My wife's family is using it. No complaints.

Just keep an iPad around for that.

I use Linux but that happily keep an iPad for certain things (mail, calendar, video meetings etc).

FaceTime will soon work with web links, tho I dunno if you can schedule that from the non-Apple side.

Wouldn't they just switch to sms and zoom?

Why use mac though? iPhone also works.