If I had to make a new text group with lots of people I might turn to WhatsApp or Signal. Cross-platform public group links and moderator tools are good. iMessage lacks this. Given the importance of iMessage you’d think that Apple would want to add more important feature rather than the tiny enhancements they are making now. What is Apple’s strategy?
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iMessage in iOS 17 not keeping up with other messaging apps?
- Thread starter DaveTheRave
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iMessage is preferable only if you live in the US. All around the world people use WhatsApp, Viber, FB Messanger etc. The only way Apple can keep up with these apps outside of US is to make iMessage multi platform. As things stand nobody would be willing to use it. Even if this happened and hell froze over, iM still lacks in many areas compared to other apps. For me, iM is not competitive enough to stand tall in the market.
iMessage has existed for over a decade and has had no signs of going away or being scaled back in any way. iMessage isn’t even the most used messaging service in the US. Apple doesn’t need to make iMessage cross-platform because it already has a strong healthy community worth investing into and has for a decade despite being booted out of the Top 5 global platforms almost instantly.
That being said, DMA will require basic interoperability of messages, video calls, and VoIP calls, so unless Apple can change the EU’s mind, they’ll have to be more open anyways.
That being said, DMA will require basic interoperability of messages, video calls, and VoIP calls, so unless Apple can change the EU’s mind, they’ll have to be more open anyways.
I am living in Germany and I have been trying to „force“ people to use iMessage with me for years but I am about to give up on it as well, especially now that WhatsApp can be used on two phones at a time.
I prefer WhatsApp because …
I prefer WhatsApp because …
- it is easier to remove attachments (photos etc) all at once. iMessage still has no freaking „select / delete all“ button for attachments!
- You can have all your photos automatically be saved to the camera roll so I can just delete everything from WhatsApp and sort it from the Photo app. With iMessage I am often like „hmmm did I already save these?!?“ if I don’t do it immediately.
- Stop videos / photos from auto downloading
- Sharing an actual status to know what’s up
- Wallpapers!
This often comes up but its not that general. It will come down more to what the people you are communicating with. I'm in the UK and bar a couple of message groups on Whatsapp for my cricket club i use iMessage for everything. Thats because all my family and the majority of my friends are all on iPhone.
I dont believe this you're outside the US so you must use Whatsapp all the time.
Right but iMessage is a big reason why people get locked into Apple gear. Wouldn’t it make sense to bolster that even further? BTW anyone know the maximum # of people that can join an iMessage group vs WhatsApp (over 1,000)?
No idea… but if you’re at much more than a couple dozen people, I’d DEFINITELY not be using iMessage for it. Discord is a good option if you’re at 1,000 😵
I only use Whatsapp with people who want to use it, otherwise I avoid it like the plague and use either iMessage or Signal. Whatsapp is owned by Facebook. Do you really trust Facebook? I don't.
Not really, however I believe the Signal protocol used by WhatsApp is legit. The metadata usage is another issue, or course.
iMessage is only good for normal messaging with close people that you have their phone number. In short, it's just the basic SMS app for me with extra if the other people have iMessage. For everybody else, here in Canada the majority of people use Messenger.
It's not that iMessage isn't keeping up, it's that iMessage bridges the gap between proprietary messaging app and SMS. When doing group chats with people that aren't on iPhones, necessarily iMessage has to send the messages to those folks over plain ol' SMS, which is super limiting (no end to end encryption, no ACKs on delivery, etc).
Keeping the primary messaging app on the phone able to communicate not just with people using that same messaging app, but also able to communicate with non-iOS users via SMS is actually a pretty good play.