I asked if people chose iPhone for the blue bubbles elsewhere a couple days ago, and while there was some good discourse on that post, the blue bubbles definitely also came up as a reason.
In my experience, when people find out my texts are green, they oftentimes would rather switch to a different platform altogether like Instagram or just not text at all.
Is this actually a deal-breaker in friendships out there?
If you think you’re better than me because you have an iPhone and I run an Android, I don’t want to talk to you anyway.
People are so fucking petty and elitist over the dumbest fucking things.
Let me guess, you are from the United States? Every time I heard about this is only from the US, never see anyone outside giving a single fuck about that.
Also, do you really wanna be friend with someone that choose friendship by the phone their friend uses? WtfIf you live anywhere outside of the US, the question is irrelevant, because everyone uses whatsapp etc.
Within the US, if you are over the age of 30, it probably doesn’t matter.
if you are under the age of 30 AND in the US, I mean, if someone does judge you for it, you at least have a great way to filter shitty people out of your life lol.
I’m over 30 (in the US) and have an iPhone, but before I got my current job I was almost never reachable by phone, either out of service range or phone was dead, so I give out my google number so that messages and calls go to my email and get forwarded to my phone. So I make green bubbles from my iPhone.
When people see me pull out my phone for the first time they get SO MAD. “WHY ARE YOUR BUBBLES GREEN?! YOU HAVE AN iPHONE!!” I don’t understand. I know I could reverse things so that my cell number forwards to my google number instead of the other way around, but it’s just not something I’ve ever gotten around to. Why you so mad bruh?
figaro
So what do you answer when they react like that? What is their explanation? What is the problem exactly?
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I’ve heard a 38 year old American man on a podcast moan about his families bubbles when they use android.
*man-child
And developing countries are dominated by Chinese Android OEMs, with Samsung unable to beat them on the mid-range segment.
If they don’t want to text you because you don’t have an iPhone they’re not friends you want to have.
Seen this sentiment that green bubbles = bad a few times online but never it’s never come up for me. I assume this is a teen - early adult specific issue where the idea is mostly to be part of the group
It’s been happening in high schools, to the point teens are bullied and pushed out of peer groups if they have Androids. It’s frankly disgusting that apple willingly creates this division to profit off teenagers bullying each other, and they don’t get called out for it enough.
But in the larger picture, it’s definitely going to be more common among the young, because iPhones themselves are ubiquitous among the younger. It’s something the tech space is slowly starting realize: Apple has almost total market dominance among the rising demographic, and this has led to increasing tech illiteracy due to the way Apple designs its software, and inability/refusal to learn anything else. That is a huge problem for the tech industry when the only thing they can do to find customers is dumb their software down to appeal to people that don’t know how to use anything other than iOS
Perhaps in the US but it’s not so pronounced elsewhere. I think I only know one person with an iPhone.
It’s still about 30% here in Germany. It is rising though. And I think this is because of “clever” marketing. The highschools here in Germany started forcing parents to buy Ipads for their children a couple of years ago. Children with low income parents get it from the city for free. Nominally it is, because it is “easier to maintain”, but I honestly really doubt this.
These schools are using iPads in place of computer labs. I’m old enough to have actually managed a computer lab, and I can tell you that a fleet of managed iPads is way easier to maintain than a computer lab.
Yeah easier to maintain lmao. You mean to spy on their students.
But you don’t understand! The USA is the entire world! Everybody else in the world is just like Americans or wants to be!🙄
I know five people with iPhones here. I interact with almost three orders of magnitude more people than five…
You interact with 5000 people?
About that, yes. Not in-depth and not each day, obviously, but I have quite a sizable crowd I deal with on a regular basis. Comes from having a lot of former students I keep in touch with.
If you think that the reason Apple makes the bubbles different colors is “to profit of teen bullying” then I think perhaps you might want to go back to reddit or Twitter.
What a ridiculous statement.
Everyone 30 and under at my office prefers Macs, to the point of bringing in their own machines to do 90% of their work and falling back to the Windows laptops issued by IT for the remainder.
…I feel like bringing personal machines to work in order to do work is causing chaos with IT and network security
BYOD has been a huge shift in corporate IT over the last 10-15 years; mostly because if people bring their own gear, you don’t have to lease it.
How do you think Citrix is still in business?
They could be accessing virtual workspaces using a company VPN client. Or perhaps logging into a Citrix Receiver Workspace. Could probably access a VDI environment as well. 2FA with a work cell etc
Lots of ways for personal devices to be used in the work setting. Would I recommend it or do it myself? Nah. But it can be done.
To be fair, as a work machine, I far prefer macs. And there’s a reason why Windows has been implementing steadily more and more MacOS features into their OS over time.
For a personal machine I’d rather Windows.
100%
I’m a software developer. MacOS is my choice for corporate dev (cause Linux isn’t an option) because it’s Unix based and has a working command line. Windows causes so many problems around dependency installs and frameworks.
Windows is still on my home machines, but they’re edging closer to going linux too.
This is hilarious to me because I’m the exact opposite.
Windows for work (and gaming) MacOS or iPadOS for personal use for me.
If anybody wants to judge me based on the brand of electronics I use, my favorite band or the brand of clothes I wear, I have no interest in interacting with them lol. This whole consumerist worship-culture is just toxic.
The worst thing you can do as a consumer is be (blindly) loyal to a brand.
E.g. I like Columbia jackets, footwear, outdoor wear, etc. If however their quality goes down, or there is another comparable product that happens to be on sale (and assuming I like the look/style) I wouldn’t NOT get it because it isn’t a Colombia product.
I am an Android user but this comment should be taken very lightly. As this is not the cause the truth is that Apple is at fault here for still using SMS as the default messaging protocol. However, with that being said, SMS breaks messages on iPhone and the devices have been geared towards iPhone users in away that makes it seem like Android is the issue with image quality and texting. The marketing is excellent on Apple’s end towards the competition and it is working.
However, that doesn’t mean iPhone isn’t the problem. I have a sibling who got bullied for having an iPhone. Apple’s answer to these problems is just, “get an iPhone.” This is equivalent to, “can’t figure it out? Just Google it.” The problem with this mentality is it gives more power to monopolizing platforms. Apple is a growing giant and if they had their way you would just have an iPhone and if Apple has expressed anything in the past 8 years it’s that they aren’t exactly the innovators with mobile devices anymore. To me the problem is on an iPhone nothing would change.
A little irrelevant rant but my point is that the average iPhone consumer has been given a marketing ploy so it is a deal breaker because they think it is an issue and in all fairness it is one but only Google is trying to fix. Issue is that Google should have tried to fix it years ago. You can’t blame iPhone users for wanting to use other platforms to message you if your message is compressed heavily by Apple’s shitty and stupid fucking decision to keep using SMS to control the market. The care about user experience is overshadowed by the desire to use that as a means to make money off of a user that doesn’t understand messaging protocols. Fuck Apple.
Keep using SMS? What are Apple’s other alternatives, exactly? RCS is still a mess, the only way it has e2ee is if you use Google’s messaging app, and there’s no way you will see Apple adopting Google’s standard without having a say in it, and rightfully so - Google locks tons of proprietary features out of their APIs - EXIF data for Photos, Categories in Gmail, etc.
I think this is actually more of a comment on Google’s lack of direction with messaging - how many different messaging apps have they sunset by now? Half dozen or so? Messaging has always been a cluster on Android. WhatsApp is supposedly e2ee, but they have backdoor bugs being patched on a nearly basis - ask Jeff Bezos how his dick pics got hacked.
I mean you can install Google messaging apps on iOS (not that I would want to use them…). But try that the other way around. Apples option to not using SMS would simply be to provide iMessage for Android. Problem solved. They would very likely become the main messaging platform by doing so. Currently the majority of the market is likely split between WhatsApp, Telegram and WeChat.
But obviously they fear that this would hurt iPhone sales. At the same time this also leads to iMessage being irrelevant in the majority of markets where iPhone isn’t as dominating as in the US.
If they don’t want to text you because they care what your device is, they’re not friends you want to have.
(this goes both ways. Lots of apple hate in this thread but, wtf, just get on with life folks. if you give a shit what hardware I run, or think i care about your choices, we’re probably not going to be friends).
Are you from the US? In Germany we use WhatsApp Threema or Telegram for messaging, nobody cares about some bubble colour.
My best friend has an iPhone. I’m a Samsung girl. Any time her phone doesn’t let her do something I poke fun at the iPhone, but in reality they are just different versions of the same thing. The only real reason I have to complain is the price tag. I’m not paying double for an item that does the same thing as the cheaper version. That’s just stupid financially. It’s not a better product because it costs more. I can live without whatever it offers that android doesn’t.
so the whole world uses mostly whatsapp or some other messaging app. nobody not in the US gives a damn about the color of the bubble or even knows whats the device on the other side. we all use whatsapp its much better in any way possible (except that it belongs to facebook, that is bad… anyway we were there before it belonged to facebook, so…)
It is odd that someone would choose a friendship because of a phone.
Honestly, it’s kind of a nice filter to have an Android then, if that’s the case.
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Only the most superficial of people would use this reason as a method for diminishing or isolating someone.
I would question my relationship with them if this is their outlook.
In US it’s stupid trench warfare of blue vs green message. As an Android user I have had to explain MULTIPLE TIMES that this is not about Android’s lack of capabilities but rather the unwillingness of Apple to use RSC. Almost always my explanation falls on deaf ears.
I don’t know what you mean by blue or green bubbles (I use Android, Chomp for SMS, Discord to IM, WhatsApp for the stragglers) but I’ve never met anybody so shallow that they’d give up a friendship over what brand of phone you use. That’s the kinda thing a very childish 13 year old might do.
I think you might need to re-evaluate who you think your friends are, if they’d rather cut off contact with you than receive a slightly different looking text message. That’s incredibly, INCREDIBLY weird.
Iphone to iphone sms messages actually use some special apple thing (iMessage) and show up blue. Actual sms like to Android show up green
Wow, now that’s a deal breaker. I guess I’ll have to buy the iPhone I don’t even care about now.
Yes the only reason I know it’s because I’ve had to explain it to confused iphone users at work who get all precious when a message is a green. I normally run Android but my work phone is an iPhone (because it’s helpful to know them when you have to support them) and I just disable iMessage.
Yes, but it’s a feature, not a bug.
It’s a super low investment and quick way to identify people you should avoid.
It’s bewildering to me how this continues to be an issue only in the US, the rest of the world figured out this problem around 2010, and I’m not kidding. It’s like you guys are still arguing about Beta vs VHS in 2023
It’s so exclusive to the US that I didn’t even understand what OP was saying before reading the comment section for clues.
Blue bubbles, green bubbles? Wtf is that and how is it related to Android/iOS.
For reference, I live in South East Asia and use Android, but I have never heard my friends using iOS complain about some kinda bubble colour.
I live in the US and I had no idea what the OP was talking about. I am in the same boat as you with the blue vs green bubbles thing (but now I know thanks to the comments) and am also an android user. I was today years old when I found out I apparently send green bubbles to iPhones.
Why are you guys texting? Don’t you have WhatsApp or Telegram?
I haven’t sent an SMS since 2012. What is going on in the US?
I think US carriers moved primarily to “unlimited text” before smart phones were the standard. It’s just momentum and many people to l don’t have any reason to switch.
Oh, I see. Yeha, sending SMS here was expensive when WhatsApp showed up.
Well, there are many who use whatsapp here. But it’s definitely not universal.
Don’t you guys get like an incredible amount of spam via SMS? It became kinda like email but worse.
I can’t block the short numbers companies use to send SMS because they are usually using a third party SMS service. So, different companies can send messages that arrive with the same number. If I block an SMS ad, I might be also blocking an important SMS alert from my bank warning some security issue.
really spam texts i don’t remember getting many of those. i do get auto text for things like deliveries and check deposits but not spam
Can you ELI5? I’m reading the comments and still not comprehending what’s going on here.
I think the SMS app on iPhone marks messages sent from an iPhone as blue, and the rest are marked as green.
OP is saying that their iPhone-using friends judge people by the colour of messages. Which is idiotic and completely unheard of over here in my country.
European here. I only know about this from a video I saw some time ago. Android user, obviously
It’s also somewhat a thing in Canada but we’re just US-Lite
It’s actually the opposite for me. I don’t mind a fancy iphone, but that OS is so locked down I have to run the “same” apps on android to use them effectively for my work.
