> If you switch devices from iPhone to Android or vice-versa, messages get lost.
I moved from an Android phone to an iPhone, back to an Android, and then back to an iPhone again. I never had my messages in limbo, and its easy to fix (at least, on the Apple side) if it occurs: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204270
Note that link also comes up as a search engine provided result by google just by googling "disable imessages". That's stupid simple.
First of all, I'll wager a supermajority of iPhone users do not understand any distinction between iMessage and SMS. Apple designs away the distinction. Secondly, when an ex-iPhone user ports away their number and is able to send SMS's without issue and receive SMS's from most of the world except for iMessage senders, how are they supposed to 1) discover they have lost messages before they lose something critical, and 2) discern that the cause of their inexplicably lost messages, is that they need to "disable iMessage", when they are not even an Apple user anymore?
I'm not an Apple hater, I use Apple products, but this is a huge fuckup and the OTT fragmentation is a real issue vis-a-vis SMS.
And SMS is not IM so your premise from the start is a nonsequitor. It's telephony, it's wildly and widely overpriced and non-open.
I think you're right about the lack of widespread distinction between SMS and an iMessage. It's sad.
Even sadder are the news articles (like ones you find in the technology section on the BBC website) where they refer to instant messaging as wonderful and then "if you're a bit old fashioned" and still use email...... At least emails can be easily retrieved and archived.
Perhaps people don't care about the transport medium (phone network or Internet) but it is an important distinction. It's even more important for Google users because Hangouts is very flaky for me, unlike SMS.
It's not about the best solution, and everyone needs to stop pretending it is. This sort of thing comes down to which solution has the most corporate backing. The only exceptions are when an open solution happens to hold on for long enough (on the order of years) for a major player to realize that its good and maybe they should give it a chance (example: OpenStack's support by PayPal right now, or when Linux finally started going someplace in the early 2000's with Canonical and RedHat). Give me an example of 'the best solution' winning despite major corporate backing of the proprietary competitor?
I don't think it's even as simple as corporate backing, though that certainly plays a part. It's significantly the arbitrary whims of the population; Whatsapp was not corporate backed, and still captured huge marketshare.
> If you switch devices from iPhone to Android or vice-versa, messages get lost.
I moved from an Android phone to an iPhone, back to an Android, and then back to an iPhone again. I never had my messages in limbo, and its easy to fix (at least, on the Apple side) if it occurs: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204270
Note that link also comes up as a search engine provided result by google just by googling "disable imessages". That's stupid simple.