So what?
We're a big country and a sizable portion of people here use iOS. So it's useful here and those of us who use it may well be interested in some updates in functionality. Nobody here has ever suggested we move a convo to Whatsapp. They either have an iPhone (like, 90% of the time in my experience and among people I've encountered) and we use iMessage, or they have an Android and when I text them it's an SMS. Either way, I use one app, Messages, to message everyone. Group messages end up in iMessage, or they revert to SMS if someone in the group has an Android phone. Life goes on. Like 99% of the messages I'm sending are literally just little strings of text so it doesn't matter a ton to me either way.
The only time I've had to deal with Facebook Whatscrap is when I've travelled and had to download it to communicate with locals. Then I've come home and deleted it immediately.
I agree with you, but I've actually HAD to move to WhatsApp for literally ONE specific and important group conversation (2 of us have iPhones, and one has Android) because if I kept seeing the "Message Failed To Send" warning in iMessage I was going to throw my phone into a lake.
I already have WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and a slew of other social media apps on my phone, but no one app covers my entire circle of friends, acquaintances, family, co-workers and clients... but you know what? Every single one of the people in those groups has a mobile phone with SMS messaging.
It's not that I hate change or fear the other apps (which are usually better and more secure than SMS). I just want something universal that doesn't need to be coordinated with all the parties involved. I'm also not keen on messages coming at me from 6 different directions, especially if I already have ONE app that came with the phone that (in theory) should be able to reliably send plain old SMS messages to any mobile phone number.
If this wasn't the US, maybe WhatsApp would be ubiquitous. But as it stands, I'm not interested in begging everyone I know to uproot what they've been doing for years on their personal devices. And if Apple did make an Android iMessage app, it'd be a fool's errand trying to get all my Android-using friends to download an Apple app to their Samsung phones etc. just for my convenience.
TL;DR I'm agnostic on iMessage upgrades or ports to other OS, and I'm happy for our worldwide friends who seem to have assimilated into other third-party messaging platforms. But I wish Apple would just fix what's broken along with the new jazz.
Bringing iMessage to external platforms would remove a major network effect benefit that Apple currently enjoys. Like it or not, blue messages signal that you have an iPhone and that’s going to be more desirable for many people. iMessage directly drives iDevice sales.
To put a finer point on it, I have a friend who bought an iPhone for the sole purpose of keeping up with the iMessage group chat amongst our friends.
Apple wants to sell hardware. iMessage itself is a cost center.
As a shareholder, I totally appreciate your friend switching to iPhone just for iMessage, but I expect that is a trend that began and ended with your friend. Many of the people I message, I wouldn't spend iPhone money to go visit them in person, much less to send blue text bubbles to.
