Who here has made the switch?

[redneckitengineer]

Wow...she must have been quite a babe. Should have switched back after the relationship ended. At least you have seen the light. Under no circumstances start dating anyone now until the switch is complete and don't weaken afterwards even if a super model tries to lure you to her place to listen to her HomePod

10 out of 10 natural redhead, my Achilles heel. I'd do it again, hah. I have UE Boom devices, because of Siri's inability to understand half of what I say, I'd never consider a HomePod ?

 

[Stevie jobz 2.0]

I mess around with a Samsung Galaxy S9+ every now and then. It's nice hardware, but I find that I prefer iOS. It is true that iMessage plays a big part of that.

I don't get it, WhatsApp works seemlessly as a cross platform service, as I missing something...

 

[Expos of 1969]

I don't get it, WhatsApp works seemlessly as a cross platform service, as I missing something...

iMessage seems really important to many in North America. In Europe (and some other areas of the world) WhatsApp is huge. Yes, it is owned by Facebook, a company I do not care for but one has to pick and choose and make some compromises. WhatsApp works very well and I would never go back to iMessage. Fortunately I am not part of a social circle that judges people on whether they are a blue or green bubble.

 

[Shanghaichica]

I've slowly been switching away from Apple products. The R&D is stale, the walled garden is getting annoying, and they're falling way behind in features. I'm down to 3 Apple Products left.

- I sold my Apple Watch, and went back to normal ones. I enjoyed my mechanical automatics, and the look of skeletal frames. I appreciate not having to plug it in daily, or really push myself to close the rings. My wahoo Roam records all my exercise with HR strap. If Apple changed from square to other designs, and opened up custom faces, I could consider going back. I also really want a VO2 Max sensor like you'll see in Garmin watches.

- I sold my iPhone 11 Pro Max, and went back to my iPhone SE 1. I missed a phone that fit in the hand, works via fingerprint which is a bonus in these mask wearing days and sunglass and bike helmet wearing. Yes the battery is really worse, and the camera is marginal, but it gets the job done. I don't have to stretch the fingers to work the keyboard, and using SwiftKey, I can text without looking at phone again. If only it was water-resistant and had Qi.

- I've had a long history of Macbooks, and I'm done. I recently switched over to a Lenovo X1 Extreme Gen 2 with i9, 64Gb RAM, 2x 1TB SSD, and WiFi 6 AX. With a 4k touchscreen OLED that gets 100% Adobe RGB, the screen is gorgeous. I have ports again: HDMI, Ethernet, USBC, USB3.1A, Kensington, SD Card, headphone, SmartCard. No more dongle dumpster fire. My Wacom 2048point pen is fantastic for drawing with multiple buttons for custom settings. I can replace my RAM, SSD, WiFi, clean the fans, change the battery, all with a phillips screwdriver. I've bought and enabled CompuTrace in the BIOS, allowing deeper theft protection that Apple doesn't have. Yes, battery life is WAY down, but I'm rarely far from a charger for that long.

- AirPods Pro, the recent firmware updates are increasing reducing their function for me. The noise cancel was great, but I find it more annoying with the touch and hold vs the tap tap of the originals. They've now started a cracking noise which is documented all over this site. With many other competitors catching up, not seeing the benefits anymore.

- Apple TV, I don't think I'll change this one. It's still hands down the best device for streaming content. My TV has all the services I use built in, but trying to use DPAD on remote is impossible vs voice entry. Roku is slow. I'll probably never depart from this.

- iCloud. I've stopped paying for space. My O365 account comes with 1TB and I sync the photos and files seamlessly to my OneDrive. My iCloud just holds my iPhone backup now.

I've been thinking for a while of dumping the iPhone and Airpods and going back to Android. I was an Android person for many years until a girl I dated demanded I switch to IOS for Facetime or she'd leave, so I switched. I still have an Apple Card I'd have to cancel, and some apps that I'd have to figure out, but otherwise not much holding me back. I miss the creativity of manufacturers, the open environment, rooting for features, custom ROMS.

Will the girl leave if you switch back to android?

I think now that you only really aged AirPods and an older iPhone it would be easy to switch to android. There’s not really anything tying you into the ecosystem.
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iMessage seems really important to many in North America. In Europe (and some other areas of the world) WhatsApp is huge. Yes, it is owned by Facebook, a company I do not care for but one has to pick and choose and make some compromises. WhatsApp works very well and I would never go back to iMessage. Fortunately I am not part of a social circle that judges people on whether they are a blue or green bubble.

Agreed all my contacts use WhatsApp. Even the ones with iPhones. I don’t get what all the fuss is about iMessage. I started using what’s app in 2010 even when I had an iPhone and I’ve used it ever since.

 

[redneckitengineer]

Will the girl leave if you switch back to android?

I think now that you only really aged AirPods and an older iPhone it would be easy to switch to android. There’s not really anything tying you into the ecosystem.

Relationship was years ago, switched from Galaxy S7 edge to iPhone 7. I had the 2G, 3G, 3GS, then switched to Android til the 7.

That's my thoughts, as I slowly back away product by product it's going to make the transition easier. The Apple TV will probably remain my sole Apple product eventually. Switching out of iCloud email back to something else will be fun, thinking of going all in on ProtonMail for security. I've let all my app subscriptions expire, only a few months left.

 

[Expos of 1969]

Relationship was years ago, switched from Galaxy S7 edge to iPhone 7. I had the 2G, 3G, 3GS, then switched to Android til the 7.

That's my thoughts, as I slowly back away product by product it's going to make the transition easier. The Apple TV will probably remain my sole Apple product eventually. Switching out of iCloud email back to something else will be fun, thinking of going all in on ProtonMail for security. I've let all my app subscriptions expire, only a few months left.

I have been using ProtonMail with a custom domain for about 18 months. I have the paid Premium account. It is really only truly secure if the person or organization you are sending an email to also uses ProtonMail. And that is not too likely. I tried it as I liked what the founders were trying to do and wanted to support them. It is certainly better than my iCloud.com account on my laptop.

I have dropped Apple Music after a number of years and stayed with Spotify (subscribed to them both at the same time for over a year). My iCloud 50GB account ends in a few days and I will let that go. My photos have been in the paid original quality Google Photos as backup for a while and as I no longer have an iPhone no need to keep using Apple Photos. Have been on a Samsung Galaxy S10e phone for 9 months and really like it. I use a Samsung Galaxy Tab A tablet for basic consumption. Still using my sturdy and excellent 2013 MacBook Pro laptop and will use it until it dies. That was produced in a time when Apple cared about quality and gave value for its high prices. Times sadly change.

 

[TopherMan12]

Agreed all my contacts use WhatsApp. Even the ones with iPhones. I don’t get what all the fuss is about iMessage. I started using what’s app in 2010 even when I had an iPhone and I’ve used it ever since.

I don't get the iMessage obsession either. Only thing I see that is useful is the bubbles showing when someone is responding. it isn't that big of a deal.

 

[tbayrgs]

I don't get the iMessage obsession either. Only thing I see that is useful is the bubbles showing when someone is responding. it isn't that big of a deal.

This is almost exclusively a US focused issue. WhatsApp doesn’t have anywhere close to the market penetration in the US that it does most other places around the world. I don’t know anyone that uses it as their primary messaging solution.

Prior to the iPhone, carrier SMS/MMS was the primary messaging option. The iPhone meant that behavior didn’t have to change—iPhone users just kept using the same messaging app they were using before iMessage was rolled out for SMS but now with huge improvements in performance. Considering the iPhone has much higher market share here, its messaging solution became the dominant option. Most Android users just kept using SMS/MMS. The difference between Apple Messages and regular SMS/MMS is huge.

That’s why the Apple Messages lock in is such a big factor—in the US.

Imagine switching platforms required ditching WhatsApp. That’s the equivalent here in the US when you switch from an iPhone when most of your contacts also use an iPhone.

 

[mmomega]

Apple, Microsoft, and Linux have their places in my world. Android most likely never will. It doesn't lend anything to me I want or fill a need at the moment.
Could change but I doubt it.

Adding on to what someone else mentioned, if a person in my life demanded I change anything that I do or they'll leave. Then they can leave. I'm pretty good with where I am lately.

 

[TopherMan12]

This is almost exclusively a US focused issue. WhatsApp doesn’t have anywhere close to the market penetration in the US that it does most other places around the world. I don’t know anyone that uses it as their primary messaging solution.

Prior to the iPhone, carrier SMS/MMS was the primary messaging option. The iPhone meant that behavior didn’t have to change—iPhone users just kept using the same messaging app they were using before iMessage was rolled out for SMS but now with huge improvements in performance. Considering the iPhone has much higher market share here, its messaging solution became the dominant option. Most Android users just kept using SMS/MMS. The difference between Apple Messages and regular SMS/MMS is huge.

That’s why the Apple Messages lock in is such a big factor—in the US.

Imagine switching platforms required ditching WhatsApp. That’s the equivalent here in the US when you switch from an iPhone when most of your contacts also use an iPhone.

I'm in the US and I don't see this 'huge' difference. What am I missing here?

 

[tbayrgs]

I'm in the US and I don't see this 'huge' difference. What am I missing here?

Do you use an iPhone? Do a majority of your regular contacts also use iPhones? If not, you won’t see many of the benefits.

Of course everyone is going to have different experiences based on their own use cases—I can only offer my personal experiences. The benefits I see using Apple Messages (vs. standard SMS/MMS messaging most common here in US):

• No degraded quality of photos and videos when sharing via messages to other Apple device users vs. MMS because there are no carrier limits
• I can share other files types...I routinely send MS Office docs, PDFs, wallet passes (sports tickets, movie passes, etc) and other files types right through Messages. Today, I sent an audio recording of a voicemail message that I had receive at my phone number to my wife. I send quick audio messages (not dictations but actual audio file) all of the time.
• Send cash via Apple Pay cash directly to anyone else with an iPhone right through Messages. Pay our kids piano teacher, my son’s basketball
• Start a traditional phone call, FaceTime Audio or Video call right from a message thread
• Detail summary page that shows someone’s current shared location (if that contact is sharing location with you) as well as all media, links, passes, locations, and attachments.
• I don’t regularly use them, but Animoji/Memoji, stickers, etc and message effects. Again, I don’t use them much but see plenty of people that do, including my family.
• Group messaging threads work far better
• The ability to use Messages across all of my Apple devices. I realize this is contigent upon living more heavily in the Apple ecosystem but for those of us that do, it can be invaluable. Having access to my message threads in an instant at all times on my iPhone, iPad or Mac is something I rely on all of the time.

I realize all of this functionality isn’t necessarily unique but having it all in one place and with seamless simplicity is why heavy users of Apple Messages will profess that it would be difficult to leave it behind. Again of course, YMMV.

Just my $0.02 perspective.

 

[Alex W.]

MBP with bootcamp the rare time i need to game or anything, otherwise desktop Ryzen windows 10 system.

ive had android tablets, ipads the base model is drastically superior.

I switched from iphones to Pixels for the cameras, and their awesome devices photos wise (icloud sucks) but the iphone 11 wide angle is a DSLR replacement that i will be going back to apple at some point.

 

[Shanghaichica]

Do you use an iPhone? Do a majority of your regular contacts also use iPhones? If not, you won’t see many of the benefits.

Of course everyone is going to have different experiences based on their own use cases—I can only offer my personal experiences. The benefits I see using Apple Messages:

• No degraded quality of photos and videos when sharing via messages to other Apple device users vs. MMS because there are no carrier limits
• I can share other files types...I routinely send MS Office docs, PDFs, wallet passes (sports tickets, movie passes, etc) and other files types right through Messages. Today, I sent an audio recording of a voicemail message that I had receive at my phone number to my wife. I send quick audio messages (not dictations but actual audio file) all of the time.
• Send cash via Apple Pay cash directly to anyone else with an iPhone right through Messages. Pay our kids piano teacher, my son’s basketball
• Start a traditional phone call, FaceTime Audio or Video call right from a message thread
• Detail summary page that shows someone’s current shared location (if that contact is sharing location with you) as well as all media, links, passes, locations, and attachments.
• I don’t regularly use them, but Animoji/Memoji, stickers, etc and message effects. Again, I don’t use them much but see plenty of people that do, including my family.
• Group messaging threads work far better
• The ability to use Messages across all of my Apple devices. I realize this is contigent upon living more heavily in the Apple ecosystem but for those of us that do, it can be invaluable. Having access to my message threads in an instant at all times on my iPhone, iPad or Mac is something I rely on all of the time.

I realize all of this functionality isn’t necessarily unique but having it all in one place and with seamless simplicity is why heavy users of Apple Messages will profess that it would be difficult to leave it behind. Again of course, YMMV.

Just my $0.02 perspective.

Many of these are good use cases. Unfortunately for me most of my contacts don’t use iMessage and Apple Pay Cash still isn’t available in the U.K.

I never used the Animoji’s until recently. Since the lockdown started my 4 year old has been doing FaceTime all the time with my mum and he loves using the animoji’s.

Having access to my messages on my iPads and Mac and being able to use my HomePod and AirPods to send messages. I can use my HomePod to send WhatsApp messages too though.

 

[russell_314]

I'm in the US and I don't see this 'huge' difference. What am I missing here?

The difference is not everyone has it installed. All my contacts have either an android phone capable of texts or an iPhone capable of iMessage. I can communicate with everyone using the messages app. When I communicate with contacts that have iPhones I get the added benefit of iMessages.

 

[Shanghaichica]

The difference is not everyone has it installed. All my contacts have either an android phone capable of texts or an iPhone capable of iMessage. I can communicate with everyone using the messages app. When I communicate with contacts that have iPhones I get the added benefit of iMessages.

It I sent a picture message to an android contact using iMessage. I get charged 55p per picture. If I send the picture via what’sapp it’s free.

 

[russell_314]

It I sent a picture message to an android contact using iMessage. I get charger 55p per picture. If I send the picture via what’sapp it’s free.

This must be something specific to your country. In the USA most plans have everything unlimited except data. With data when you hit the limit it slows down

 

[Shanghaichica]

This must be something specific to your country. In the USA most plans have everything unlimited except data. With data when you hit the limit it slows down

I have unlimited minutes, texts and data. But if I send a picture via iMessage it counts as an MMS and I get charged.

 

[ozaz]

Grew up with Windows and first modern smartphone was Android (I define modern as when 1st gen iPhone was released).

Since then had a 3 or 4 year period using Mac OS but I've been back on Windows since about 2014. Windows just a better fit for me because I need Windows for my work and never really liked using VMWare/Parallels or bootcamp to run Windows on a Mac. I found it inefficient juggling two OS's.

Have been back and forth on iOS and Android (particularly when it comes to phones). But around 3 years ago settled on iOS. I decided I wanted to use the same OS on phone and tablet and Android has never been a compelling choice for a tablet. So iPad drove my decision on that.

 

[Vegastouch]

Six months ago I switched from iPhone to my first Android (Samsung Galaxy S10e). I miss nothing from the iPhone. Thankfully most of us here in Europe are not caught up in the ridiculous iMessage self-made trap that many users in the US seem to be (and quite a few state that iMessage is the only thing keeping them in Apple's grip).

Have little interest in using Windows so staying with my well made 2013 MacBook Pro. Have ditched Apple Music for Spotify after using AM for a number of years. With no iPhone I will be dumping iCloud next.

True and i dont get that. Its just a message app really. I dont understand how some cant adapt? Ive NEVER heard anyone ive texted that has a iPhone complain to me about sending them something and wish i had a iPhone lol. My Wife has a iPad and does just fine with her Android phone intregration....and she is NO techie by a long shot.

That said, i dont have any Apple products i use anymore. I still have a first Gen iPod Touch but never use it.
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I've slowly been switching away from Apple products. The R&D is stale, the walled garden is getting annoying, and they're falling way behind in features. I'm down to 3 Apple Products left.

- I sold my Apple Watch, and went back to normal ones. I enjoyed my mechanical automatics, and the look of skeletal frames. I appreciate not having to plug it in daily, or really push myself to close the rings. My wahoo Roam records all my exercise with HR strap. If Apple changed from square to other designs, and opened up custom faces, I could consider going back. I also really want a VO2 Max sensor like you'll see in Garmin watches.

- I sold my iPhone 11 Pro Max, and went back to my iPhone SE 1. I missed a phone that fit in the hand, works via fingerprint which is a bonus in these mask wearing days and sunglass and bike helmet wearing. Yes the battery is really worse, and the camera is marginal, but it gets the job done. I don't have to stretch the fingers to work the keyboard, and using SwiftKey, I can text without looking at phone again. If only it was water-resistant and had Qi.

- I've had a long history of Macbooks, and I'm done. I recently switched over to a Lenovo X1 Extreme Gen 2 with i9, 64Gb RAM, 2x 1TB SSD, and WiFi 6 AX. With a 4k touchscreen OLED that gets 100% Adobe RGB, the screen is gorgeous. I have ports again: HDMI, Ethernet, USBC, USB3.1A, Kensington, SD Card, headphone, SmartCard. No more dongle dumpster fire. My Wacom 2048point pen is fantastic for drawing with multiple buttons for custom settings. I can replace my RAM, SSD, WiFi, clean the fans, change the battery, all with a phillips screwdriver. I've bought and enabled CompuTrace in the BIOS, allowing deeper theft protection that Apple doesn't have. Yes, battery life is WAY down, but I'm rarely far from a charger for that long.

- AirPods Pro, the recent firmware updates are increasing reducing their function for me. The noise cancel was great, but I find it more annoying with the touch and hold vs the tap tap of the originals. They've now started a cracking noise which is documented all over this site. With many other competitors catching up, not seeing the benefits anymore.

- Apple TV, I don't think I'll change this one. It's still hands down the best device for streaming content. My TV has all the services I use built in, but trying to use DPAD on remote is impossible vs voice entry. Roku is slow. I'll probably never depart from this.

- iCloud. I've stopped paying for space. My O365 account comes with 1TB and I sync the photos and files seamlessly to my OneDrive. My iCloud just holds my iPhone backup now.

I've been thinking for a while of dumping the iPhone and Airpods and going back to Android. I was an Android person for many years until a girl I dated demanded I switch to IOS for Facetime or she'd leave, so I switched. I still have an Apple Card I'd have to cancel, and some apps that I'd have to figure out, but otherwise not much holding me back. I miss the creativity of manufacturers, the open environment, rooting for features, custom ROMS.

Yeah, no sign of a control freak going on there
C-Ya would of been my response. Its not having to switch, it's the underlying issues that come with the person. Seen too much of that and isnt worth it.

 

[russell_314]

I have unlimited minutes, texts and data. But if I send a picture via iMessage it counts as an MMS and I get charged.

Well if it’s sending as MMS then it’s not going through iMessage at least I don’t think so. Maybe you’re sending it to someone with an android phone. Here in the USA picture messages aren’t even considered to be added to your bill. They mostly get you with data caps. I know postpaid plans to use to charge you if you go over your data if it’s limited but I think they’re like the prepaid ones now where they just slow it down. Most people have what they call an "unlimited" data plan but in reality that means somewhere between 15 and 50 GB. Once you go over that they just slow it down.

 

[Shanghaichica]

Well if it’s sending as MMS then it’s not going through iMessage at least I don’t think so. Maybe you’re sending it to someone with an android phone. Here in the USA picture messages aren’t even considered to be added to your bill. They mostly get you with data caps. I know postpaid plans to use to charge you if you go over your data if it’s limited but I think they’re like the prepaid ones now where they just slow it down. Most people have what they call an "unlimited" data plan but in reality that means somewhere between 15 and 50 GB. Once you go over that they just slow it down.

If I send a picture through imesage to an iPhone user it uses data and I don't get charged. If I send the picture to an android user using imesage then it goes as an MMS and I get charged.

 

[Stevie jobz 2.0]

Do you use an iPhone? Do a majority of your regular contacts also use iPhones? If not, you won’t see many of the benefits.

Of course everyone is going to have different experiences based on their own use cases—I can only offer my personal experiences. The benefits I see using Apple Messages:

• No degraded quality of photos and videos when sharing via messages to other Apple device users vs. MMS because there are no carrier limits
• I can share other files types...I routinely send MS Office docs, PDFs, wallet passes (sports tickets, movie passes, etc) and other files types right through Messages. Today, I sent an audio recording of a voicemail message that I had receive at my phone number to my wife. I send quick audio messages (not dictations but actual audio file) all of the time.
• Send cash via Apple Pay cash directly to anyone else with an iPhone right through Messages. Pay our kids piano teacher, my son’s basketball
• Start a traditional phone call, FaceTime Audio or Video call right from a message thread
• Detail summary page that shows someone’s current shared location (if that contact is sharing location with you) as well as all media, links, passes, locations, and attachments.
• I don’t regularly use them, but Animoji/Memoji, stickers, etc and message effects. Again, I don’t use them much but see plenty of people that do, including my family.
• Group messaging threads work far better
• The ability to use Messages across all of my Apple devices. I realize this is contigent upon living more heavily in the Apple ecosystem but for those of us that do, it can be invaluable. Having access to my message threads in an instant at all times on my iPhone, iPad or Mac is something I rely on all of the time.

I realize all of this functionality isn’t necessarily unique but having it all in one place and with seamless simplicity is why heavy users of Apple Messages will profess that it would be difficult to leave it behind. Again of course, YMMV.

Just my $0.02 perspective.

Can I just stop you there fella, you were doing so well till you said group chats work far better. First of all better as a term is subjective. Secondly, in what way are they far better? Every group chat I've ever been in, be it work, skool, kids sports teams have used whattapp, and the experience has been seemless. I have no idea how a perfectly formulated group messaging app that does everyone you need, can indeed, be not just better, but far better? I await to be educated..

 

[tbayrgs]

Can I just stop you there fella, you were doing so well till you said group chats work far better. First of all better as a term is subjective. Secondly, in what way are they far better? Every group chat I've ever been in, be it work, skool, kids sports teams have used whattapp, and the experience has been seemless. I have no idea how a perfectly formulated group messaging app that does everyone you need, can indeed, be not just better, but far better? I await to be educated..

Sorry, I wasn’t clear. I wasn’t comparing vs. WhatsApp but rather vs. standard SMS group chats that are most common here in the US (I’ve gone back to my last post to make that clarification). In SMS, they just tend to fall apart. I’ll have someone in the group reply from an Android phone so it uses SMS and more often than not, their reply will be outside the group thread and in its own brand new thread. Also, you lose any of the aforementioned Apple Messages benefits.

Again, to be clear, I’m not comparing Apple Messages to WhatsApp as that just not as commonly used as a messaging solution here in the US. I’m off Facebook but when I was still using it, I’d say Facebook Messenger had a far higher engagement rate in the US than WhatsApp. Most people in the US just default to SMS/MMS if they’re not using an iPhone.

 

[squashedpillow]

I use a combination of devices, so have a little experience with lots of operating systems.

I use an iPhone 11 Pro Max, having predominantly used iPhones. At various points I've had Android phones for work or dev use. In the earlier days, I didn't like the (quite noticeable) latency on scrolling, etc., but my more recent issues have been around how messy everything gets. iPhones do everything I want them to, and all I need a portable device to do at the moment. The extra customisation & flexibility with Android comes at the cost of overall UX and battery life, in my experience.

Computer-wise, it's a bit of a different story. I don't have a "daily driver", per se, with a combination of similarly specified computers running a combination of Windows and Linux. I tried using MacOS on my server, but found Ubuntu Server the most flexible for my needs, with more flexible hardware and availability of open source software the biggest benefits. I rarely play video games, but Steam is a lot more reliable on Windows - the move to 64 bit only in MacOS makes sense, but removed support for a lot of older titles (and the Steam client itself, without a manual download). Steam Play makes Linux equal in that space. I still use a late 2013 MacBook Pro Retina, which hasn't missed a beat since new. 900 charge cycles and counting! I tend to use that as a convenient computer I can use, with a great battery, more than adequate display, and no noticeable lag.

Even were I not tied into the Apple ecosystem with an Apple Watch, iPhone and AirPods Pro, I would still stick with iOS.

 

[SteveJUAE]

Sorry, I wasn’t clear. I wasn’t comparing vs. WhatsApp but rather vs. standard SMS group chats that are most common here in the US (I’ve gone back to my last post to make that clarification). In SMS, they just tend to fall apart. I’ll have someone in the group reply from an Android phone so it uses SMS and more often than not, their reply will be outside the group thread and in its own brand new thread. Also, you lose any of the aforementioned Apple Messages benefits.

Again, to be clear, I’m not comparing Apple Messages to WhatsApp as that just not as commonly used as a messaging solution here in the US. I’m off Facebook but when I was still using it, I’d say Facebook Messenger had a far higher engagement rate in the US than WhatsApp. Most people in the US just default to SMS/MMS if they’re not using an iPhone.

Ahh that explains the confusion in your previous posting

I think the trouble was you were comparing sms/mms but conveniently slipping in the I part available in Imessage

While true that the US and to some degree AUS have different patterns to rest of the world mainly because the sms/mms is bundled in with carrier costs so texting is still widely used, where more likely declining faster in most other places

This does not preclude the fact that many in the US use other I messaging services and based on what little numbers we do have. It still shows FB messenger is still more popular than Imessages closely followed by Whatsapp and even snapchap depending on age group etc

Sure Iphone messenger app allows for dominant sms messaging users in US to easily slip over to I messaging when needed and that convenience along with other factors of eg less interaction outside of country makes it harder for many to understand the many benefits of other I messaging apps

While IPhone penetrations is quite high (+40%) in US it still not a given IMessages are dormant by far, just very popular among the restriction of having to be an Iphone/Apple product owner