Apple is an existential threat to the PC

I'm fully aware of this. I said you're exaggerating the US situation being "imessage/facetime-monopoly" - it isn't when the shares are 60/40 between ios and android.

 

I ment more in the line off, those that do use apple products swear by imessage/facetime which means ios and android users cant communicate using wifi/data roaming and must often revert to sms/mms etc. While in EU/asia iphone users much more likely have something like whatsapp, fb messenger etc which means android to ios communication doesnt have to happen over sms/mms carrier networks-

 

Why are apps/services like WhatsApp and Signal so unpopular in the US? Ignoring the WhatsApp privacy nightmare that now is, but that's a relatively new situation. WhatsApp has been the messenger for years.

 

No idea, maybe its just unpopular for iphone/ios users over there since they have imessage.

 

It is very weird. Here in the UK, nobody with iPhones uses iMessage. They may use Facetime. But basically the standard is Whatsapp. Maybe because iMessage wouldn't work with Android users, and there are a lot of them? But that still doesn't explain why iMessage is so popular in the US, but not Whatsapp.

 

Maybe it's because SMS generally comes free with most mobile contracts in the US? That makes iMessage essentially free even if you send messages to non-iPhone users.
Here in Taiwan, most people use a variety of messaging apps, although Line is probably the most popular, because SMS costs about US$0.1 per message.

 

No they are not.
Besides a Mac is a PC (Personal Computer), but trying to get Crapple to admit that after their "I am a PC vs I am a Mac" crap would be impossible...PR for the fail:

 

Here in the UK, my phone contract for years has included free SMS. Unsurprisingly, carriers charged for it when it was in demand because it was the only option for communicating but since the rise of iMessage then WhatsApps and other solutions, carriers have generally included free SMS in most non-super-budget contract options.

 

I pity the countries where most contracts don't include free everything for peanuts. I'm paying 17,90€ / month for 200 Mbps 4G with unlimited data, unlimited texts and unlimited calls within Finland (and other nordic countries + baltic countries) + 20 GB of free data (per month) in other EU/ETA-countries
Edit: oh, and no, it's not bound to any phone either or any such nonsense, our service providers sell those completely separately with up to 36 month payment plans with no added costs (in fact it's often couple cents cheaper to get the plan than pay it all at once) ((and those phones aren't bound to any particular service provider either, they're completely unlocked))

 

I dont think imessage/facetime are whats so intresting, its the long os and security updates that make apple intresting for me. That and many 3rd party apps are more polished/extra features on ios store.

Otherwise i like android more, i dont like the boxed in environment.

 

I think Europe is generally pretty decent because there is competition. I keep hearing that parts of the US have literally no option, if you live here you pay Company X or you go without. I also recall visiting the US about ten years ago and it was the norm not only to pay to send text messages but many contracts had you paying to receive them. Can you imagine if the mail services operation that way.

 

If the mail service would be actually reliable I would be screaming shutupandtakemymoney.jpg

 

Lol here in sweden we call postnord for postmord due to they always loosing or damaging packages

 

Sadly they operate here in some extent too. Not sure which is worse, PostNord or our own Posti

 

They operate in Denmark too...same M.O.
They are a standing joke here...sad but true.

 

If you have to resort to archeology to make a case for your current world position, you are in a bad spot.
The time frame you reference is one where Apple was making bank selling 6502 based Apple II:s and IBM had launched their Personal Computer (as opposed to mainframe terminals) driven by MS-DOS. There were a bunch of hardware and OS alternatives, as well as ideas about what a personal computer was supposed to be! It was an exciting and incredibly rapidly evolving time compared to todays market. I was there.

After some time, public consensus coalesced around a "PC" being IBM PC compatible hardware running a Microsoft operating system.
Those PC vs. Mac ads were all about the OS, as the underlying hardware at the time was the same.

The personal computer of today is the smart phone.

 

I only do light webstuff and messages from a mobile, if I need to do real work, I either dock the company laptop (multiple displays) or I sit infront of my desktop PC (multiple displays).

If I tried doing my job from a smartphone I would get very frustrated (wrong tool for the job) and be looking for a new job very soon (productivity drop).
SoMe is not doing work in my book

And for quite some years Crapple did (properly still do, I have no clue as they have zero products for me and I pay the no interest) sell exactly the same hardware as "PC's"...just RDF kicking in again and warping "reality" /shrugs

 

But "real work" was never really the justification for a personal computer. That’s an extension of running a terminal connected to the company mainframe back in the 1960s (that we are conceptually moving back towards, ironically enough.)
Rather, a personal computer (if you move outside the x86/MS definition) could arguably be for doing personal stuff. And then it’s clear that these days, mobile devices largely fill that function. My very elderly parents ditched their last computer once they discovered iPads, and my daughters regard laptops as overly heavy tablets, with a keyboard inexplicably and annoyingly permanently attached.

They do all their messaging, photography (and sharing), videos (and sharing), banking, booking, gaming, watching films, listening to music and sharing playlists, searching, shopping, et cetera, on mobile devices. They have no interest in either a Windows or MacOS computer, hell even our administration at work is dropping their O365 subscription and moving to OS agnostic solutions for all their tasks.

Personal computers as we knew them say twenty years ago, are largely legacy devices.

Well they did package them nicely. And they did run MacOS, which provided some benefits and drawbacks that suited some.
And of course these days they are moving to their own hardware again, but conceptually these are the same as their old x86 machines, only with hardware that is better suited to the task. Which is nice, but does nothing to move them out of that legacy+work niche.

 

Ok, my pc specs are exynos cpu and mali gpu, lets play some ue5 engines.

 

The US is so large (the UK for instance is smaller than some US states) that in some areas it isn't profitable to offer some services. Thus in exchange for a company providing service in those area's they're offered limited non-compete exemptions for those areas which includes areas where it's profitable to offer services. In exchange, they must offer service in the unprofitable locations within those areas.

This was started when the government wanted universal availability of first electricity and then later telephone service and was then extended to cable and eventually broadband services. Since broadband services operated over existing cable and telephone infrastructure, they were allowed to compete with each other for broadband customers. However, as landlines started losing customers to wireless phone services, DSL became increasingly non-competitive as they couldn't invest as much into their DSL infrastructure as cable TV could into their cable infrastructure. This then leads to a virtual monopoly in some areas for broadband.

Anyway, it's complex due to how large the US is and the desire to encourage private companies to provide service in areas that are unprofitable.

You'll note that in large metropolitan centers in the US where this isn't an issue, that many different companies are allowed to compete for consumer dollars WRT to internet and other services.

Regards,
SB