Accusing net neutrality supporters of breaking their promise

Jan 22, 2015 14:19 GMT  ·  By

iMessage should be prohibited from running solely on Apple devices, said the boss of BlackBerry. Because, you know, it’s normal for big corporations to do public services, and why not, even help a brother out?

BlackBerry boss John Chen said in a post on net neutrality that, “Unlike BlackBerry, which allows iPhone users to download and use our BBM service, Apple does not allow BlackBerry or Android users to download Apple's iMessage messaging service.”

He adds that Netflix is in the same boat with Apple, despite advocating for carrier neutrality, and that it “has discriminated against BlackBerry customers by refusing to make its streaming movie service available to them. Many other application providers similarly offer service only to iPhone and Android users,” he wrote.

In other words, Chen feels underprivileged and discriminated. Though I’m pretty sure they’re not sending their engineers over to Apple to help build a BlackBerry client for iMessage. Nor are they lending a helping hand with Netflix’s streaming efforts, I’m sure of that as well.

So while the net neutrality thing is certainly a topic worth dissecting, I can’t help but notice that Chen went with the worst possible examples he could have ever picked in the entire tech industry.

Apple is not in the business of doing public services. Whether Chen likes it or not, iMessage was created with iDevices and Macs in mind. Apple is having enough trouble maintaining the service as it is, with constant outages, missing messages and attachments, etc. They really don’t need an all-new set of problems with the BlackBerry OS.