Apple iMessage Rumored To Arrive For Android Devices Next Week At WWDC

Apple's annual developer conference, WWDC, is just a few days away (it runs from June 13-17) and as such rumors and speculation are swirling in regards to what the Cupertino outfit might announce or reveal. One of the more interesting rumors out there is that Apple is bringing iMessage support to Android.

That tidbit comes from a "source familiar with the company's thinking," who told MacDailyNews that the encrypted messaging protocol will indeed find its way onto Apple's rival mobile platform. Bringing iMessage to Android would be a big deal—it would allow users of the two most popular mobile OSes in world to chat securely with one another using end-to-end encryption, and without having to turn to services like WhatsApp.

iMessage

Android and iOS account for 98.9 percent of all smartphones, according to the most recent data by market research firm Gartner. That's virtually every smartphone on the planet, save for the three people out there wielding a Windows Phone (Hi, Marco Chiappetta!) and the lone holdout of an old BlackBerry before it too brought Android into the fold.

Should this rumor turn out to be true, it would mean that messaging between almost every smartphone on the planet would have an added layer of security. Beyond that, it would also alleviate headaches when switching from an iPhone to an Android device. Apple's iMessage protocol has been known to essentially hijack text messages when you leave the collective—I experienced this myself during a stint with the HTC One. There was even a class action lawsuit about it (albeit it failed).

According to the unnamed source chirping about these plans, bringing iMessage to Android is imminent, even if Apple doesn't announce it at WWDC