This conversation is a frequent annoyance for me. I’m tired of asking folks if they have Apple or Signal available just to send a photo. MMS is unreliable and opaque to most folks it seems since pictures never seem to get through if they’re on android.
Same is true for android to android - it does a much higher quality non MMS. Unfortunately neither Google nor Apple will open up their damn protocol to the other.
There are no android clients that can do it besides google messages. Google also has their own version of RCS that only works messages to messages. Carriers also have a version of RCS but its not quite the same.
Apple could and should totally adopt the carrier version of RCS though. And it would be great if Google would let apps like Textra in too
iMessages aren't converted to SMS on Apple's servers side. It's a fallback on the phone's side. When you're on a WiFi but with no cell coverage, you can send an iMessage but can't send an SMS.
But, for such a satellite phone service, Apple totally could make a SMS to iMessage gateway, or even just a web interface where non-apple users could log in and see that someone had sent them an iMessage.
Obviously Apple will make the process as painful as possible to encourage buying iPhone.
This isn’t entirely true. If you have WiFi calling enabled, you can also send SMS over WiFi if the carrier supports it. I use this extensively when traveling internationally.
it's not really an android phone or an apple phone though - good satellite reception (as opposed to initial middling reception) is going to mean phones with radios meant for satellites and antenna that are designed to look up (and track) and not just sideways.
5 years from now you'll be choosing a particular android or apple phone because its good for satellite, just like you choose a particular one today because it's small, or fast, or has a good camera
If I’m in the middle of nowhere and need to send an urgent message I wouldn’t want to be worrying about whether the recipient had an Android phone.