iMessage on Android Is Not Going To Happen

Last week, just before the start of the Worldwide Developer Conference 2016, one of the rumors that circulated was that Apple would make the big step and bring iMessage on Android. The sources mentioned that if the announcement wouldn’t happen in this event, it would certainly happen later this year.

Apple, famous for its closed platform, made no announcement about bringing iMessage on Android or another platform of course. With Apple Music being the only example, we are not used to Apple bringing the applications to another OS.

Walt Mossberg, a reporter from The Verge, spoke with a "senior Apple executive: in WWDC 2016, and explains why the company did not make such a step. One of the reasons is that Apple believes that having exclusive features, as that of iMessage, help its products’ sales.

In his report, Mossberg states:

When I asked a senior Apple executive why iMessage wasn’t being expanded to other platforms, he gave two answers. First, he said, Apple considers its own user base of 1 billion active devices to provide a large enough data set for any possible AI learning the company is working on. And, second, having a superior messaging platform that only worked on Apple devices would help sales of those devices — the company’s classic (and successful) rationale for years.

This concept is similar to what BlackBerry used to have for the BBM, but was later extended to other platforms.