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Apple’s developer conference kicks off next week in San Francisco, and while we won’t be there, there is some interesting news today about what may come from that event: Yes, Apple is predicted to bring iMessage to Android.

iMessage, if you didn’t know, is Apple’s fairly omnipresent messaging platform which — at the moment — allows iOS users to communicate via text and multimedia messages as easily as sending SMS. There’s no user names, no signing up for an additional service. In fact, it works on the same premise which Google’s Allo has much more recently adopted — it should be largely seamless and invisible to the end-user.

Making iMessage available to Android would be kind of a big thing. iMessage offers a number of benefits, not the least of which is neutralising SMS and MMS costs (though for most of us in Australia, these aren’t separately charged). End-to-end encryption is another feature, though this is less a point of difference these days, as other cross-platform messaging solutions like WhatsApp, Telegram and others support this too.

It’s not something we think all Android users will want or even use, but for those who regularly communicate with iOS users, it might be quite a good thing. It might be a case of a bit too little a bit too late, but undoubtedly if Apple does make this move, there will be some happy Android users out there.

MacDailyNews reported this based on a single source, and we’re only using their information, so this is squarely in the rumour pile for the time being.

Source: MacDailyNews.
Thanks: iMore.com.
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Strand

This would be pretty good. iMessage was what hurt most when I left the iPhone, and it would be nice to use it again with my iPhone-owning friends and family

Kirk

This is great news! I just switched back to Android after years of trying but always going back for this very reason. This time the Galaxy A9 is too nice to give up so this would be perfect timing!

Phillip Molly Malone

Won’t worry me either way! Allo and Duo all the way for me!

Mike Stevens

I suspect this would go over very well with the majority of Android users. Keeping in mind that most aren’t hardcore google fans, so anything that would improve their communication with all their iOS friends (which probably still make up a huge number) is likely to be very popular. That said, I imagine a lot of people are simply using WhatsApp and FB Messenger these days, which is probably a huge part of why Apple’s (supposedly) considering this. Still, without a desktop app for Windows, this wouldn’t be very appealing to me. A lot of my friends and workmates use… Read more »

Chris

Well said, Mike. The lack of a Windows way into this world is a little frustrating, but I think you’re right on the rest of it. Most cross-platform communication is either happening by SMS, or people have moved to other easier methods. For example, my partner and I use Telegram, and in fact so do the entire Ausdroid crew, precisely because it works so well regardless of platform. iMessage is unlikely to bump off either use case.