Where is iMessage for Android?

Ostensibly, the primary reason Apple Music exists for Android is so that family plans will be more attractive to cross-platform families.

And why not? Apple Music is a paid service so, even if Apple isn’t selling all the atoms, they can still get paid for streaming all the packets and bits.

Same with Apple Music for Amazon Alexa. And, perhaps, in the near future with Apple’s original video program and Texture-based Apple News subscription services on a plethora of other devices.

Those will likely also be paid services, though. So, getting as big a potential market as possible for them also makes the kind of sense that does.

After all, we’ve proven again and again that content is something we’re willing to pay for. Even if now we want to lease rather than buy.

But that raises some interesting questions when it comes to iMessage for Android. Apple has probably had it running in some lab somewhere for years already, secret double lives and all that. But what’s the value proposition in letting it out? Would it also just work as a paid service?

Many companies give away messaging for quote-unquote free as a candy coating for the data harvesting that fuels their brokerage businesses.

Apple won’t do that.

But, iMessage for Android could potentially add hundreds of millions of new users to Apple’s servers. In scaling terms, that’s like adding another iMessage to iMessage, and absent hardware sales or data brokering behind it, something will have to fund it.

Subscriptions could be the answer, but we’re still assuming a lot.

Most importantly, could Apple make as good and as integrated an experience on Android as it has on iOS? Android allows for a deep level of access, but Google, which has unlimited access and resources hasn’t been able to make a viable messaging apps despite what feels like an attempt a year for nearly a decade.

Even assuming they can, and it may be too big an assumption to make, how much could Apple charge for it — or, to flip it around, how much would Android users be willing to pay? Would $20 a year be too little? Would $5 a month be too much?

What if Apple sells it as private, encrypted, even… exclusive?

With video games, we’ve basically been shown people won’t pay $5 up front but will pay all their monies, all of it, for ego and instant gratification. To have bigger, better farms than their friends, and to get their race cars back on the tracks faster.

Would a blue bubble be worth paying for? Or an even more exclusive color, like purple for anyone who subscribes, even Apple device owners?

Article source: https://www.technobuffalo.com/imessage-for-android