iMessage on Android would cause user drain and more harm than good. So say Apple executives in the lawsuit against Epic Games.
Apple does not want to bring iMessage to Android. It may seem like a no-brainer at this point, but now company executives have confirmed it as a result of the interrogations taking place during the trial with Epic Games.
iMessage is the messaging app par excellence in iOS and the Apple ecosystem. It is true that in some countries, where WhatsApp has a huge usage share, it is not as widely used, but in the United States (where iPhone penetration is also much higher) it is the default communication service for tens of millions of users.
Why doesn’t iMessage come to Android and create a cross-platform messaging app? That’s the question that has always been around and the ongoing Riot Games-Apple case has brought to light statements confirming Apple’s block on bringing iMessage to other systems, such as Android.
iMessage on Android would cause a drain of users for iMessage
Epic Games continues to provide evidence to try to prove that Apple uses its platform and the App Store to create a monopoly, and among the latest statements, Eddy Cue (Senior Vice President, Internet Software and Services at Apple) acknowledges that in 2013 Apple was already able to develop a version of iMessage for Android and thus have a compatibility of the application between systems, but they did not do it.
Craig Federighi and Phil Schiller also claimed that the reason for blocking the exit of iMessage from Apple’s ecosystem was to avoid user leakage from iOS to Android. Another former company employee claims that for many users, iMessage is one of the strongest reasons not to leave iOS.
At this point, this should not be surprising or revealing. It’s obvious that iMessage is Apple’s proprietary software, it’s not illegal for it to be so, and it’s probably of little interest to the regulators following the case.
