I was thinking that this is mainly a US thing and then saw that the article talks about the US. Android is still more common in the rest of the world.

The article contradicts the unspecified headline in the first sentence: “It’s no secret that Android is the most-used operating system in the world, a title it first earned after surpassing Windows in 2017.”

This is 100% a US thing

It’s absolutely blue bubble exceptionalism and both Apple and Google are to blame. Google couldn’t focus on a single messaging strategy and has created and destroyed half a dozen workable cross-platform messaging solutions. Meanwhile, Apple did and pushed iPhone users into its walled garden while Europeans turned to Whatsapp which has the virtue of being multi-platform but it’s owned by Meta which has its own set of problems.

RCS might’ve worked out if Google had just cut the carriers out from the beginning. It’s not even that great of a protocol but it’s probably the only one likely to supplant SMS as the lowest common denominator if Google gets its way with regulators and forces Apple to play along. It doesn’t benefit Apple to bother until they’re forced to.

I don’t know, I used to use Nokia as teenager… Things tend to change quite radically over years

Blackberry used to be all the rage with teenagers too.