A senior executive was rooting to get iMessage, Apple's proprietary messaging platform, ported over to Google's Android as far back as 2013, but that project went nowhere.
Apple’s Eddy Cue Wanted to Bring iMessage to Android
This little-known fact was revealed by Eddy Cue, Apple's Senior Vice President of Internet Software and Services, in a taped deposition for the upcoming Epic Games vs. Apple trial.
In an email exchange between Cue and Craig Federighi, who at the time was managing macOS and iOS software development, Cue opined that Apple should task a full team with porting the complete iMessage experience over to the Android platform.
Here's an excerpt from Cue's email to Craig:
We really need to bring iMessage to Android. I have had a couple of people investigating this but we should go full speed and make this an official project. Do we want to lose one of the most important apps in a mobile environment to Google? They have search, mail, free video, and growing quickly in browsers. We have the best messaging app and we should make it the industry standard. I don’t know what ways we can monetize it but it doesn’t cost us a lot to run.
Federighi, however, resisted the idea of cross-compatibility with the iOS to let users of both platforms exchange messages. In his response to Cue's email, Federighi reveals that the company was aware that iMessage doubles as a strong incentive to keep iPhone customers locked into Apple's ecosystem.
Do you have any thoughts on how we would make switching to iMessage (from WhatsApp) compelling to masses of Android users who don’t have a bunch of iOS friends? iMessage is a nice app/service, but to get users to switch social networks we’d need more than a marginally better app. This is why Google is willing to pay $1 billion---for the network, not for the app.
Federighi is referring to the rumor that was circulating back then about Google potentially acquiring WhatsApp. That was, of course, before Facebook swooped in and acquired WhatsApp in February 2014 for an approximate total of $16 billion.
Federighi then shot down the whole idea with the following passage:
In the absence of a strategy to become the primary messaging service for [the] bulk of cell phone users, I am concerned [that] iMessage on Android would simply serve to remove an obstacle to iPhone families giving their kids Android phones.
"Do you believe that not having iMessage on Android has created an obstacle to families giving their kids Android phones?" the questioner asked Cue in the deposition.
"No, not at all," the executive said.
The legal documents were unearthed by The Verge.
Why You Cannot Use iMessage on Android
Other legal briefs filed as part of the upcoming Epic Games vs. Apple lawsuit have resulted in additional salacious tidbits.
As an example, Apple's former marketing head Phil Schiller said in an internal email that "moving iMessage to Android will hurt us more than help us." He was quite probably correct about that because instant messaging was the killer app on mobile almost 10 years ago, plus there was no clear leader in that space.
The wording indicates Apple knew that iMessage has such a strong pull that it keeps many customers away from its main competition.