Apple’s iMessage may come preloaded on every iPhone it sells, but this week’s news has confirmed that unless you live in the US, that’s now fairly irrelevant.
If iMessage is your main go-to messenger, then I know two things about you. First, you have an iPhone—because Apple won’t let iMessage play nicely with anyone who doesn’t. And second, you’re probably in North America—because the rest of us mostly use WhatsApp. iMessage is seen as SMS texting, which people just don’t do anymore.
This isn’t news—that iMessage has become a Gen-Z phenomenon in the US is well documented; that’s where the blue-bubble/green-bubble war has been fought, the social distinction just doesn’t resonate across the rest of the world. But now, two unrelated news events have suddenly reinforced the reality of iMessage’s map.
First, we had US FCC Commissioner, Brendan Carr, message out a renewed call for the FCC to investigate Apple over the Beeper Mini fiasco which blew up last year, when Apple blocked the upstart from letting Android users hijack its blue bubbles.
“Apple’s wider set of exclusionary practices,” Carr warned, “warrant scrutiny by antitrust and competition agencies, but the FCC should also examine this particular incident through the lens of our Part 14 rules on accessibility, usability, and compatibility.” Rule 14—possibly an unexpected twist in this rollercoaster tale, protects access to advanced communications for people with disabilities.
I have approached Apple for any comments on Carr’s statement.
Second, just a day later, we saw the opposite. The European Union confirming—unsurprisingly—that iMessage is not a “gateway” technology in Europe, as defined by its Digital Markets Act. Unsurprising, because iMessage just isn’t that widely used in Europe. iMessage will not need to open up to competitors—the walled garden stays.
Apple has reluctantly u-turned on bringing RCS to iPhones later this year—albeit this will run in parallel to iMessage, so the green bubbles get better but no less green.
The contrast between those two news events within 24-hours could not be more stark. US regulators are agitated at Apple blocking software that lets Android users play inside iMessage’s walled garden. Meanwhile, Europe turns down the opportunity to use new legislation to mandate exactly that, as it is doing to others.
“Why did they go to so much effort to pass legislation that applies to just a handful of companies, then let the biggest one dodge it?” Beeper’s Eric Migicovsky complained.
But remember, while iMessage user numbers are often quoted at a billion-plus, this is the stock messenger on every iPhone. All SMS trivia ends up in the app—one-time passcodes, spam and occasional texts from elderly relatives not yet on WhatsApp.
Contrast this with WhatsApp’s own news a week beforehand, with the Meta owned platform confirming it would open itself to other messaging platforms—per DMA rules, and explaining how this would work.
So, why is all this. Put simply, the network effect. In the US, iPhones dominate—especially amongst the young. And so it doesn’t matter if iMessage doesn’t play well with Android phones. And, let’s face it, blue bubbles Vs green bubbles is kind of cool.
But absent that high level of iPhone penetration, iMessage cannot thrive amongst groups of friends or families or coworkers. Apple’s iMessage approach, the dropdown to green bubbles if even one member of a group is using an Android device, doesn’t make sense in any market where iPhones don’t dominate. It’s too big a compromise.
It’s that same network effect everywhere else that has built WhatsApp into the world’s most popular messenger; with nearly 3 billion users sending 100 billion daily messages worldwide, it dwarfs everything, SMS messaging included. It’s seamless cross-platform, and so the usual mix of iPhone and Android works. This is especially true in markets in Europe, Asia, Africa and South America, where cheap Chinese phones have built such a strong foothold. This is not the same in North America.
Which brings us to the real twist in all this. WhatsApp is on a mission to accelerate its growth in the US, the last major market standout from its worldwide domination, not including China, of course, which has unsurprisingly prohibited WhatsApp.
WhatsApp seems to have recognized that messaging hubs could be the next big thing—Apple even referenced the wide choice of platforms and ease of switching in its statement after the DMA decision “We thank the Commission for agreeing with us that iMessage should not be designated under the DMA. iMessage is a great service that Apple users love because it provides an easy way to communicate with friends and family while offering industry-leading privacy and security protections. Consumers today have access to a wide variety of messaging apps, and often use many at once, which reflects how easy it is to switch between them.”
So, for hyper-scale WhatsApp, this is an opportunity to provide a one-stop shop. Just as with end-to-end encryption, it’s stepping up as the first mover.
As ever, though, when bureaucrats seek to influence technology, laws of unintended consequences kick in. While providing an opportunity for users on small platforms to message contacts on larger ones, it’s hard to see this as anything other than an opportunity for those larger opportunity to poach users.
But the final twist in all this is that WhatsApp’s response to Europe’s DMA has to be viewed against the backdrop of an obsession with US growth. It’s on Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s personal agenda, and the enemy in his sights is iMessage.
So, while Apple continues to build out its iPhone dominance with younger users signing up for a lifetime of iCloud services, storage and entertainment, Meta is looking at messaging integration as an opportunity to unseat its rival in the US. And it will be helped by the fact that—notwithstanding Apple’s dominance—the most popular message platform in the US is Facebook Messenger, not iMessage. Cue the potential for a pincer movement swelling Meta’s messaging at Apple’s expense.
“Meta wants this to work, sees momentum, and is pushing hard to capitalize,” Alex Kantrowitz has said on this US push in his tech newsletter, “And so perhaps this ends with WhatsApp assuming the leadership role in the US that it currently occupies globally. The possibility is less farfetched than it was in even the recent past.”
But in a world where iMessage’s future is now so dependent on those American iPhone users, this would mark a very serious setback for Apple.
