Other how popular is iMessage in your home country?

[ian87w]

Resurrecting this thread - I just realized that one of the big reasons I don’t use iMessage even with people who I know use an iPhone is the fact that the app is absolutely cluttered with SMSs - OTPs, transaction notifications, spam etc - I currently see in excess of 500 unread “messages” because I just glance at them and never open them. WhatsApp is definitely more restricted to “real” communications and thus what I turn to.

Good point. SMS is basically useless in my country as well as there are too many spams, even from the carriers themselves. This is one thing I wish Apple tackles, spam filter. Google Messages has a spam filter and although it’s not perfect, it helps a bit.

But yeah, things like this is one of the reasons people move to services like WhatsApp, although it’s getting a bit out of hand as well as now many businesses in my country send their OTOs through WhatsApp.

 

[Zaft]

I get spam and scams on WhatsApp all the time…

 

[bransoj]

Apple Messages has the option to Filter Unknown Senders. Turn this on you then get three options to view messages which are All Messages, just Known Senders so basically contacts in your address book i think and then unknown senders.

If you just want to see stuff from people you know then turn this on and use the Known senders view or you can go into the Unknown Senders option and just delete everything to tidy things up.

Any messages app is going to need a bit of management to keep it tidy, if you dont and it gets out of control then it only gets harder to do. I find Whatsapp a bit more of a pain to keep tidy than iMessages to be honest and it has its fair share of crap landing in there as well. To be honest i'm not one for keeping all my messages, aside from a few family and close friend threads most messages get deleted when i'm done with them.

 

[loungefly2022]

This whole thread is eye opening to me.

Here in the US, at least in my southern corner of it, nobody uses 3rd party messenger services like Whatsapp. Everyone just uses normal texting that sends as iMessage if it's between (or among) Apple products. If it's not, it's just a text.

Occasionally people will use FB Messenger (typically if it's somebody you haven't spoken to in a while or often), but I don't know anybody who doesn't just text normally.

As an aside, I'm in a few group chats and in a couple of them there's at least 1 Android person so all messages are green. It frustrates the snob in me.

 

[Jimmy James]

It amazes me when we got to France to visit family no one uses iMessage. Everyone uses WhatsApp. I never once encountered someone in France using iMessage.

I deleted WhatsApp because it’s a FB / Meta product. If I’m going to use a third party app it’s Signal.

 

[Jimmy James]

 

[rui no onna]

This whole thread is eye opening to me.

Here in the US, at least in my southern corner of it, nobody uses 3rd party messenger services like Whatsapp. Everyone just uses normal texting that sends as iMessage if it's between (or among) Apple products. If it's not, it's just a text.

Occasionally people will use FB Messenger (typically if it's somebody you haven't spoken to in a while or often), but I don't know anybody who doesn't just text normally.

As an aside, I'm in a few group chats and in a couple of them there's at least 1 Android person so all messages are green. It frustrates the snob in me.

Yeah, my family only uses Messenger for either friends we've lost touch with and recently reconnected on Facebook, or when contacting friends and family overseas.

Otherwise, we just use the default Messages app (blue bubble for iMessage, green for others).

We used to be on a grandfathered family plan with 700 mins/1000 texts per month. Those green bubbles were problematic then since iirc overage was 20c per message (really adds up during group chats). After we switched to unlimited, I stopped caring about the green bubbles.

 

[BigDO]

Apple Messages has the option to Filter Unknown Senders. Turn this on you then get three options to view messages which are All Messages, just Known Senders so basically contacts in your address book i think and then unknown senders.

If you just want to see stuff from people you know then turn this on and use the Known senders view or you can go into the Unknown Senders option and just delete everything to tidy things up.

Any messages app is going to need a bit of management to keep it tidy, if you dont and it gets out of control then it only gets harder to do. I find Whatsapp a bit more of a pain to keep tidy than iMessages to be honest and it has its fair share of crap landing in there as well. To be honest i'm not one for keeping all my messages, aside from a few family and close friend threads most messages get deleted when i'm done with them.

Thanks - I didn’t know about that. It does make it a lot more manageable!