In April, Epic Games disclosed Apple’s internal discussions of iMessage from 2013 as part of an antitrust lawsuit against the company. One reason might be to ward off government scrutiny. That way, iPhone users wouldn’t suffer a degraded experience while texting with Android users. It’s easy to imagine iMessage following a similar playbook.Īpple could, for instance, launch a bare-bones version of iMessage for Android with features like 25-person group texts, full-quality images, reactions, and end-to-end encryption. The implicit message is while Android and Windows users won’t be left out of FaceTime calls, you’ll still need an Apple device for the best possible experience. It’s likely that other iOS 15-specific features, such as Voice Isolation for reducing background noise and Spatial Audio for placing speakers in a 3D space, won’t be available through the web app either. They also won’t be able to use SharePlay, a forthcoming iOS 15 feature for bringing content from other apps into the video chat. Instead, they’ll have to join a web link generated by an Apple device user. As CNBC reports, Windows and Android users won’t be able to initiate FaceTime calls. The web version will have lots of caveats, though. When it launches later this year, the FaceTime web app will allow iOS and Mac users to chat via FaceTime with Windows and Android users for the first time. What got me thinking about iMessage again was Apple’s announcement of FaceTime for the web. And at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) keynote this week, Apple-intentionally or not-quietly laid out a blueprint for how it could happen. Bringing the chat service to other platforms would both cement Apple’s position as a privacy leader and relieve some antitrust pressure on the company.

Apple executives have even acknowledged this in their own internal communications.Īnd yet, the case for iMessage on Android is stronger now than it’s ever been. For Apple, iMessage has been too strategically important for keeping people locked into the company’s ecosystem. We’ve made the business case, the marketing case, the moral case, and even the emotional case. Tech writers-myself included-have made all kinds of arguments for why Apple’s chat app shouldn’t be exclusive to iOS and Mac.

How to use imessage on android