But if Apple changes its mind, Microsoft apparently wouldn’t hesitate to roll out the red carpet. While that email referred to Android and not Windows, it wouldn’t necessarily be an enormous leap to assume the same line of thinking would apply to Microsoft’s platform, which competes with Macs.īarring a dramatic change in strategy – perhaps in response to government antitrust threats – you shouldn’t hold your breath for iMessage to come to Windows or Android anytime soon. iMessage amounts to serious lock-in,” Schiller replied: “Moving iMessage to Android will hurt us more than help us, this email illustrates why.” In response to an Apple employee who commented that “the #1 most difficult to leave the Apple universe app is iMessage. In a 2016 email thread revealed in the Apple-versus-Epic Games trial, Apple executive Phil Schiller confirmed the strategy. Switch platforms, and you become a dreaded green bubble on your Apple-owning friends’ devices. Apart from complicated hacks that require using a Mac as a server, there’s no simple way to use iMessage on Windows or Android. It even has its own App Store.īut iMessage is only available on iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Mac. The popular iMessage provides beautiful blue chat bubbles, stickers, and an increasingly deep array of chat features that help lock its customers into its walled garden. While that might make for good branding for the upcoming Windows 11, which begins rolling out later in 2021, Nadella has to know the odds of Apple accepting his invitation are low. “Windows works well with any software from anyone, whether it’s Google or Apple or Adobe or anyone.” “Overall, we want to make sure our software runs great on Apple devices,” continued Nadella.

You could even view Microsoft’s shifting of the Start Menu to the center of the taskbar as a metaphor for its desire for Windows to serve as a neutral middle path between Google’s and Apple’s competing ecosystems. Learn how to prepare, build, and submit apps for the App Store for iMessage. Windows 11 will run Android apps installed through the Amazon App Store. An iMessage emulator is easy to configure and run just like game emulators. The comment was part of a broader push by Microsoft to rebrand Windows as the most open of all digital platforms. “Anything that Apple wants to do with Windows – whether it’s iTunes or iMessage or what have you – we would welcome that,” said the Microsoft chief executive. In a video interview with the Wall Street Journal, CEO Satya Nadella listed iMessage as one example of an Apple feature Microsoft would gladly invite onto the Windows platform.

But if the iPhone maker ever shifted its strategy, Microsoft’s CEO says his company would “welcome” it onto Windows 11. The iMessage chat platform is one of Apple’s best ways to make you think twice about buying another company’s devices.

Mac emulator for imessage