The discussion about the release of the iMessage messaging service on Android has been raised many times and we have heard various comments from Apple managers about it. In this article, we will take a look at the emails that Apple’s then managers sent to each other regarding this issue in 2013, and then we will read the words of Craig Federighi in 2022 in this regard.
Based on the new tweet thread Internal Tech EmailsEddie Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of services in 2013 after the release The rumor of WhatsApp being bought by Google “We really need to bring iMessage to Android,” he told Cupertino leaders about iMessage. I have made several people responsible for following up on this news, but we need to make this project official as soon as possible. Google quickly owns this purchase [تمام] The messages will be.
Philip Schiller, one of the leaders of the App Store, wrote in response to this email: “And considering that we don’t make money from iMessage, what’s the point?” Q replied: “Do we want to hand over one of the most important apps in the mobile environment to Google? They have free search, email and video calling and are fast growing in the browser segment. We have the best messaging app and we need to make it the standard for the industry. “I don’t know how we can make money from this, but it doesn’t cost much to run.”
The value of a messenger is to its network of users
Craig Federighi, who is now Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, wrote in response: “Do you have any ideas on how we can encourage the large number of Android users who don’t have many friends in the iOS ecosystem to migrate (from WhatsApp) to iMessage?” do? iMessage is a good app/service, but to convince users to switch to the social network, we need more than a better app. (That’s why Google wants to pay $1 billion, for WhatsApp users networknot its app.)
He also wrote: “In the absence of a strategy that can make our messaging service the first service for mobile phone users, my concern is that the launch of iMessage on Android will simply remove the barrier for families with iPhones to buy Android phones for their children. “
In response to Federigi’s question, who asked what idea he had to encourage users to use iMessage, Eddie Q answered:[باید] To develop a better app let’s continue Today our app is secure and private. Their app is not like that. In addition, it must have capabilities [مثل] “We’re adding better group messaging, status, geolocation, payments, and more to iMessage to maintain that edge.”
Q also wrote in response to Federigi’s concern about removing the barrier to buy Android phones for children: “If we think this way, we shouldn’t be working on Android at all. Android [یک سیستم عامل] It’s big and it’s not going to go away. I think we should encourage Android customers to use and depend on Apple products. This is the best way to make users think about buying our products in the future.”
Will iMessage on Android be like Safari on Windows?
Following this conversation, Phil Schiller said: “This idea looks like a browser launch strategy to me Safari on Windows Looks like it didn’t work. “I think the logic behind iTunes on Android is reasonable, but not iMessage.”
Eddy Q’s response to Schiller was: “The reason Safari failed on Windows is the same reason we’re failing Safari on the Mac. We are in the field of safari Innovation And we did not progress. If you want to compete in one field on all platforms, you have to be the best. We had an amazing start with Safari, but then the innovation stopped. Now we’re back on Safari, but look at Chrome. “They have at least one update every month, whereas we basically release a new version every year.”
“At the end of the day, you’re using a messaging app that allows you to reach everyone, not just iOS users,” Q wrote at the end of his email. “So we lose messaging on our own platform, and Google gets another key asset on the Internet.”
In the last email available from the April 2013 conversation, Phil Schiller wrote:
“iMessage was built as an iOS feature to be valuable to iPhone users. This service has no income and its capital is provided by the profit margin of our own products. The idea that we now need to get into the messaging business (no matter how small) and fund a cross-platform messaging app from our product revenue to be able to defend against the Google/WhatsApp product. 180 degrees It differs from our initial strategy. I don’t understand what the ultimate goal of this would be.
Safari on Windows failed because, firstly, we didn’t focus on being a good developer for a Windows browser, and so we didn’t innovate enough there; Second, we didn’t spend any money marketing our browser to Windows users. Google had invested heavily in the engineering of its browser in Windows and its marketing.
Federighi: We couldn’t make a difference in Android
Less than a decade later, The Wall Street Journal’s Joanna Stern spoke with Craig Federighi about the emails at the WSJ Tech Live 2022 event, which reads as follows:
Joanna Stern: “You felt that maybe we shouldn’t launch this product because other people might buy Android phones.”
Craig Federighi: “My feeling, I think if you read the whole email it would be clear. Our conversation with Eddie was this: if we want to enter a market and build an application for it, we must be present in that market in a way that makes a difference. We must have many customers and provide a good experience. These are very costly and my fear was that we were not in a good position to do that.
So if we just launched an app that couldn’t attract mass users on other platforms, it would stop us from innovating in all the areas where we wanted to innovate in messaging for our customers, and we wouldn’t be able to achieve anything at all in any other way. to have So we felt like going to the place where we can make a difference. The place where we are supposed to invest and make a difference, and this was not like something that could actually serve our world.”
Some of the above conversations were previously published during the Apple and Epic Games lawsuit. You can check them out in this article.
