Social pressure to use a particular phone and messaging app does not a monopoly make.

I'm sure you've seen this before, but only the US uses text messages any more.

The rest of the world is on cross platform apps and couldn't care less what their friends type from.

This lawsuit pertains to the US only...

Also, most of the US doesn't use text messages either, they use platform dependent iMessage. Hence the lock in.

They do on average, or they just think they're sending SMS messages that have somehow improved? :)

>couldn't care less what their friends type from.

Not really. They have ties to specific platforms, just that the platform is not tied to hardware. So it's either installing the app, or losing the connections, same as with the iPhone.

I don't know, I have like ... 4-5 "platforms" on my phone. Not counting iMessage.

It somehow was a lot easier than migrating my data to an Android phone, for example.

Easier, maybe, but the users are still married to the platforms, now with the added annoyance that there is no cross-talk between the apps at all. Network effect is a huge thing, and the only difference between iMessage and Whatsapp for example is that Whatsapp doesn't have the hardware to lock the users into.

So getting back to the original point, OP bemoans that in order to communicate with some people, one has to have an iPhone. With other apps, you just need to have the specific app. Maybe not as bad, we could say, but the phenomenon is the same: in order to contact some people, you have to install their specific app. No other way in.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect

Of course, but neither Apple nor Google built Whatsapp into their OS.

Can't even blame Facebook, I've had whatsapp before they bought it. I even paid the 0.99 they were charging iOS users before 2016 *.

* year pulled out of Gemini so may be inaccurate.

That's true. Apple is the leader in the vertical integration, and the resulting lock-in, in consumer smart tech.

If your friends won't talk to you because you have an Android phone, you don't actually have any friends.

Friends will still talk to you. But they won't include you in group messages because apple purposely sabotages group messages with anyone outside the garden.

Unsurprisingly, a lot social planning and banter happens in those group messages.