What Apple Can Learn from BlackBerry

It's the first period in ninth grade, and I'm taking my favorite route to math class. Naturally, this route became a routine because my love interest usually stood at this corner of the hallway with books pressed against her chest while chatting to some friends. Usually, I walk towards them on my way to math class, but this time, another suitor has caught her interest. With every glimpse of her bright smile, my heart broke a little more. I think I lost her. At the end of the school day, on the way home, and I began looking for a way to signal to my friends (really, just my crush) how I felt. I pulled out my BlackBerry Curve from my back pocket and opened the BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) app to post the only song that truly reflects my pain: Drake's 'Sooner Than Later.'

Blackberry Messenger was an independent messaging app within the BlackBerry operating system that had an unexplainable grip on my youth. Like Myspace's top 8 friends feature, BBM tapped into a deep sense of human connection that the current slew of social platforms has failed to recapture. There was a level of global connectivity that Blackberry Messenger provided that is missing in the current slew of messaging platforms. Nowadays, the iPhone is the device of our generation. From group chats to FaceTime, if you are the odd one out of your social circle without an iPhone, I would suggest getting comfortable with cats because you might not get invited to brunch. I even bought my father in Ghana an iPhone specifically to stop switching messaging applications and leverage iOS features like FaceTime.

No company has an interdependent consumer technology ecosystem like Apple. With the growing emphasis on moving beyond consumer products, Apple's service-based offerings have become a revenue growth opportunity. According to Apple's 2020 annual report, services are the second fasted growing product category by net sales at 16% in 2020 and 16% in 2019.

In a recent interview, Will Cathcart, Head of WhatsApp, expressed his frustration with Apple wielding its power over the ecosystem:

"You don't see a label for iMessage when you download it because you don't download it, it's on your phone to begin with. And so, we were critical of that. I use an Android. When people put me in an iMessage group with a bunch of their friends, it kind of breaks, it's kind of a weird experience. You can't even like the messages anymore, it just says, "Like as text." It's an odd experience. If you want to do a group video call, it doesn't work."

Will Cathcart's complaint about the poor iMessage user experience for with Android users is valid. My perspective is that Apple hasn't made it bad enough. Let's face it; an iPhone is a social status symbol. We've all seen the demeaning jokes that Apple fans make to poke fun at Android users. The jokes range from how poor the quality of media Android users share on social platforms to how Android users ruin the user experience in group chats. Facebook, the owner of Whatsapp, has practiced a similarly hostile user experience with Instagram. Six months ago, I deleted my Instagram account as part of a broader Facebook social media cleanse. I found that Instagram has become practically useless if you're no longer part of the ecosystem. Whenever I find myself curiously lurking my celebrity crush's page, Instagram throws up a diabolical login modal that blocks out the user page until I log in. I assume that the product executives at Instagram are banking on my urges to feel included and act on those impulses to rejoin the platform to see Rihanna's beautiful public profile images.

Currently, with the lack of innovative features cropping up on almost all social media platforms (ahem,stories/fleets/status, anyone?), I believe there is an opportunity for Apple to drive deeper user connection with BBM-like features, including QR codes/Pins, status messages, and visual streaming integration, media captions, further integrated core apps like reminders and calendars into group chats.

Apple has made a deliberate push to market privacy on iOS. Apple has several critical competitive advantages compared to Facebook, Google, and ByteDance (TikTok). Fundamentally, Apple is a product company first. With over 60% of its revenue from the sale of consumer products, Apple does not rely on advertising dollars in the social space the way its competitors do. This business model and the airtight Apple ecosystem have allowed Apple to build trust with its consumers. Customers are more willing to trust Apple with their personal data because they believe that data won't be used to their detriment. With the damage globally that the technology companies have inflicted.

Over the past few years, we've seen that social media has made us more divided than we've ever been. The current barriers to entry on social platforms are so low that anonymous trolls have cheapened the experience. Private community-based platforms are the future, as evidenced by the rise of Facebook Groups and Discord. Social audio is also the next big thing. My Gen Z siblings seem to be less interested in exchanging messages and more interested in sending me voice notes. Discord is in talks with Microsoft for acquisition with more than $10B; Clubhouse has a $1B+ valuation, and many social media platforms are adding social audio features.

What would iMessage be worth right now if Apple looked at as an independent, competing messaging application? Apple already has a captive audience, and it would behoove them to treat iMessage as a competing social platform like its competitors. The folks at Apple should take a long and hard look at iMessage to decide whether it is just a cog in the ecosystem or whether iMessage can become its software juggernaut that competes directly with the likes of Discord, and Facebook.

Disclaimer Any opinions, observations, or views I express on this platform are my own and do not reflect those of my employer or other organizations with which I may or may not be affiliated.