Epic filing reveals that in a 2016 email Phil Schiller said “moving iMessage to Android will hurt us more than help us”, which Epic argues is proof of lock-in
what a story! You should call me. https://www.theverge.com/... Florian Mueller / @fosspatents : Since #EpicGames started its fight for app developer freedom last summer, these two days have been the first PR nightmare for #Apple: Epic's court filing reveals A LOT that Cupertino should be ashamed of. Top-notch media picked up some of the facts. #OpentheAppStore https://t.co/Rwdf3VIEBV Dare Obasanjo / @carnage4life : @reckless @marcoarment The idea that Apple execs don't realize and have never discussed that “blue bubbles” are a form of lock-in that benefits them would assume they are extremely incompetent. Which doesn't compute given they're Apple execs. This is corporate strategy 101. Marco Arment / @marcoarment : I don't see why everyone's talking about this. Of course iMessage provides huge iOS lock-in. Of course Apple knows it. Tech companies are under no obligation to be “open”. They're open when it suits them and closed when it doesn't, and that usually doesn't warrant intervention. https://twitter.com/... Patrick McGee / @patrickmcgee_ : Former head of App Review says some apps were “remov[ed]” “immediately” because Mr. Schiller and Mr. Cue were “adamant” about (their) removal, despite Mr. Shoemaker's “protest[s]” that there was no clear justification for doing so under the app review guidelines. Nilay Patel / @reckless : It is fascinating how a generation of bad policy has allowed huge corporations to make people believe that anti-competitive behavior is actually competition Mat Honan / @mat : Amazon Seems To Have Crushed The Union Drive In Alabama https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ... via @ceodonovanDieter Bohn / @backlon : Anyway iMessage for Android is one of those forever pipe dreams but I guess the case could be make that iMessage could be a gateway service in the way the iPod was a gateway device? Yeah a stretch. Here's the only argument that's ever made sense to me: https://t.co/A0f5phTOhi Dieter Bohn / @backlon : I'm less surprised by the fact that Apple executives are just openly worried that people would switch to Android if it has iMessage than I am at how much of these conversations are happening over email. https://www.theverge.com/... @chrismessina : Totally rational when you're selling internet-connected jewellery made of sand you don't polish off the bling. ✨💎📱💎 ✨ “[Moving] iMessage to Android will hurt us more than help us” — Phil Schiller https://www.droid-life.com/... Michael Gartenberg / @gartenberg : Hard to say iMessge on iOS only is problematic. SMS was carrier specific & helped drive adoption. SMS was free in network, costly out of network. If you wanted to chat with your friends, VZW was the way to go. AIM didn't work with MSN Messenger. I could go on. Michael Gartenberg / @gartenberg : Schiller responded, “moving iMessage to Android will hurt us more than help us, this email illustrates why.” Phil once told me never to put stuff like this in email because it might turn up on a deposition. Also, Green Bubbles Rule! https://t.co/CHtjSSYKxE Charles Arthur / @charlesarthur : Looking forward to some revelations in this court filing about bears' toilet habits too. https://twitter.com/... David Pierce / @pierce : Today in “things that are so obviously true, I mean have you seen the shade of green they chose” https://twitter.com/... Tom Warren / @tomwarren : it's funny to see Apple admit iMessage lock-in is a thing, but it's mainly a big deal in the US. Nobody cares about iMessage in Europe https://twitter.com/... J Herskowitz / @jherskowitz : “iMessage on Android would simply serve to remove [an] obstacle to iPhone families giving their kids Android phones,” was Federighi's concern according to the Epic filing. https://www.theverge.com/... Droid Life / @droid_life : The reason Apple didn't make iMessage for Android is exactly what you thought. https://www.droid-life.com/...
Droid LifeKellen
Context & Ripple Effects
Epic’s 2020 suit sought injunctive relief over what it called an App Store monopoly, while Apple answered by arguing that Epic had sought a special deal in Apple’s filing against Epic. The Schiller email gives Epic a separate internal record it can use to connect App Store control with iMessage-driven switching costs.
The related court documents also show Schiller weighing an App Store fee reduction against preserving $1 billion in annual profit in a separate internal fee discussion. Together, the filings put Apple’s platform incentives—not only individual App Store rules—at the center of the dispute.
First-order effects
Epic can cite Schiller’s 2016 assessment as evidence that Apple recognized iMessage’s role in retaining iOS users, strengthening its lock-in argument in court.
Apple must distinguish an internal discussion of iMessage distribution from Epic’s claims about App Store competition and access.
Second-order effects
The dispute broadens the competitive focus from App Store terms to the value of Apple’s connected services, increasing the importance of interoperability arguments around iOS and Android.
Epic’s evidence strategy raises the stakes for other platform operators whose internal product decisions may be used to characterize ecosystem switching costs.
Third-order effects
If courts treat cross-product retention effects as relevant to platform conduct, antitrust challenges will increasingly test ecosystem-level gatekeeping rather than a single store’s fees or review rules.
The case points toward interoperability as a pressure point on incumbent moats: services that make switching harder can become central evidence in disputes over platform power.
The trend: Platform antitrust fights are expanding from discrete app-store policies to the ecosystem features that make customers costly to move.
iMessage is an iPhone lock-in for the USA (80-90% of US teenagers on iPhone). But only 15% of so of iPhone users are in the USA, and even in iPhone-heavy markets like the UK iMessage isn't that big. China is WeChat and has more iPhones than the USA. So how US-specific is this? ht…
if you're wondering what the rest of the world uses instead of iMessage: • Europe: WhatsApp / FB Messenger • China: WeChat • South Africa: WhatsApp • India: WhatsApp • Australia: FB Messenger • Ukraine: Viber • Iran: Telegram
to be clear, Apple didn't WILLINGLY say this publicly, it said it in private over years of time and all of that has been made public through the court depositions in the Epic lawsuit
I was just thinking, if Apple makes iMessage annoying enough to use on Android, that could drive more people to iMessage. Get everyone to download it, make it a bitch and a half to use for all but the most technical, then make people want to get an iPhone to use it.
@marcoarment Then there's this: Apple spoke to carriers re: enhanced texting and removing some user costs. Because of difficulty extending standards, interoperability w/carriers, and carriers' desire to protect significant revenue stream, it didn't pan out. - Forstall https://app…
Wow. Apple chose not to build an Android version of iMessage even though it could - simply because it would cause them to bleed customers and lose lots of money. Big tech companies are out of control. iMessage is a basic human right. iMessage is infrastructure. https://twitter.co…
I'm thinking that whoever in the Apple legal team decided to put the adequacy of app store moderation squarely at issue in the Epic Games (Fortnite) litigation... maybe didn't realize quite what a can of worms they were opening. https://twitter.com/...
I agree with Marco. If someone wants to bring iMessage to Android, they can legally reverse engineer it, like with AirPlay. You can even legally ship reverse engineered AirPlay on Mac (e.g., Airfoil). The problem with the crap store is that Apple forbids fully legal development. …
“A senior Apple engineer compared the defences of its App Store against malicious actors to “bringing a plastic butter knife to a gunfight”, according to legal documents released on Thursday.” People are not paying attention during orientation about email https://9to5mac.com/...
@marcoarment Well no one is making Apple do anything here - the case is just proceeding. But broadly the case for messenger interoperability in the modern context goes back at least to the Bush admin making AIM open up as a merger condition
@reckless You know I won't hold back on criticizing Apple when it's deserved! But I don't see why they need to make iMessage for Android any more than Facebook needs to “open” up Messenger access to competing social networks.
“Notably, these include its video chat service FaceTime, which Steve Jobs announced would be an open industry standard back at WWDC 2010” You took Jobs at his word? 😂 😂 😂 https://www.theverge.com/...
All you Google folks who I know have tried (futilely) to get Apple to change the green dots, now's your chance — what a story! You should call me. https://www.theverge.com/...
Since #EpicGames started its fight for app developer freedom last summer, these two days have been the first PR nightmare for #Apple: Epic's court filing reveals A LOT that Cupertino should be ashamed of. Top-notch media picked up some of the facts. #OpentheAppStore https://t.co/…
@reckless @marcoarment The idea that Apple execs don't realize and have never discussed that “blue bubbles” are a form of lock-in that benefits them would assume they are extremely incompetent. Which doesn't compute given they're Apple execs. This is corporate strategy 101.
I don't see why everyone's talking about this. Of course iMessage provides huge iOS lock-in. Of course Apple knows it. Tech companies are under no obligation to be “open”. They're open when it suits them and closed when it doesn't, and that usually doesn't warrant intervention. h…
Former head of App Review says some apps were “remov[ed]” “immediately” because Mr. Schiller and Mr. Cue were “adamant” about (their) removal, despite Mr. Shoemaker's “protest[s]” that there was no clear justification for doing so under the app review guidelines.
It is fascinating how a generation of bad policy has allowed huge corporations to make people believe that anti-competitive behavior is actually competition
Anyway iMessage for Android is one of those forever pipe dreams but I guess the case could be make that iMessage could be a gateway service in the way the iPod was a gateway device? Yeah a stretch. Here's the only argument that's ever made sense to me: https://t.co/A0f5phTOhi
I'm less surprised by the fact that Apple executives are just openly worried that people would switch to Android if it has iMessage than I am at how much of these conversations are happening over email. https://www.theverge.com/...
Totally rational when you're selling internet-connected jewellery made of sand you don't polish off the bling. ✨💎📱💎 ✨ “[Moving] iMessage to Android will hurt us more than help us” — Phil Schiller https://www.droid-life.com/...
Hard to say iMessge on iOS only is problematic. SMS was carrier specific & helped drive adoption. SMS was free in network, costly out of network. If you wanted to chat with your friends, VZW was the way to go. AIM didn't work with MSN Messenger. I could go on.
Schiller responded, “moving iMessage to Android will hurt us more than help us, this email illustrates why.” Phil once told me never to put stuff like this in email because it might turn up on a deposition. Also, Green Bubbles Rule! https://t.co/CHtjSSYKxE
it's funny to see Apple admit iMessage lock-in is a thing, but it's mainly a big deal in the US. Nobody cares about iMessage in Europe https://twitter.com/...
“iMessage on Android would simply serve to remove [an] obstacle to iPhone families giving their kids Android phones,” was Federighi's concern according to the Epic filing. https://www.theverge.com/...