The argument is one that some Apple critics have been making for years, as outlined in a essay in January by Cory Doctorow, the science fiction writer, technology critic and co-author of Chokepoint capitalism. “The moment an Android user is added to a chat or group chat, the entire conversation turns into SMS, an insecure, trivially hacked privacy nightmare that debuted 38 years ago – the year that Wayne’s world had its first cinematic run,” writes Doctorow. “Apple’s response to this is grimly hilarious. The company’s position is that if you want real security in your communications, you should buy your friends’ iPhones.”
In a statement to WIRED, Apple said it designs its products to “work together seamlessly, protect people’s privacy and security, and create a magical experience for our users,” adding that the DOJ lawsuit “is a threat shapes who we are and the principles that differentiate Apple products” in the marketplace. The company also says it didn’t release an Android version of iMessage because it couldn’t guarantee that third parties would implement it in a way that met the company’s standards.
“If successful, (the lawsuit) would hinder our ability to create the kind of technology people expect from Apple – at the intersection of hardware, software and services,” the statement continued. “It would also set a dangerous precedent, giving the government the power to take a heavy hand in designing people’s technology. We believe this lawsuit is flawed on the facts and the law, and we will vigorously defend against it.”
Apple has not only refused to build iMessage clients for Android or other non-Apple devices, but has actively fought against those who did. Last year, a service called Beeper was launched with the promise of bringing iMessage to Android users. Apple responded by modifying its iMessage service to break Beeper’s functionality, and the startup shut it down in December.
In that case, Apple argued that Beeper had compromised user security; in fact, it compromised iMessage’s end-to-end encryption decoding and then re-encoding messages on a Beeper server, although Beeper had promised to change that in future updates. Beeper co-founder Eric Migicovsky argued that Apple’s heavy-handed move to reduce text messaging from Apple to Android to traditional text messaging was hardly a more secure alternative.
“It’s kind of crazy that here we are in 2024 and there’s still no easy, encrypted, high-quality way for something as simple as a text message between an iPhone and an Android,” Migicovsky told WIRED in January. “I think Apple responded in a very awkward, weird way: arguing that Beeper Mini threatened the security and privacy of iMessage users, when in reality the truth is quite the opposite.”
Even as Apple faces accusations of hoarding iMessage’s security features to the detriment of smartphone owners around the world, the company has only continued to improve these features: in February, it upgraded iMessage to use new cryptographic algorithms designed to be immune to breaking quantum codes, and last October it added Contact Key Verification, a feature designed to prevent man-in-the-middle attacks that spoof intended contacts to intercept messages. Perhaps more importantly, it says it will adopt the RCS standard to enable improvements in messaging with Android users, although the company hasn’t said whether these improvements would include end-to-end encryption.