iMessage still remains unbeatable
I like iMessage most of the time, but you can't tell whether your message was received, and sometimes it isn't. I've had messages dropped, sometimes important ones like "I'm at the door, please open it." Regardless, I still use it.
The Messages app on Mac is great because it's so versatile. I love receiving SMS with my regular phone number.
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Mostly no one uses WhatsApp where I’m from. Some don’t even know what WhatsApp is I didn’t even know what WhatsApp was until early this year when it was introduced as a messaging platform at work. So I don’t know what you mean by “most popular”
It's the most popular in the world, which doesn't mean much to any individual. I'm surprised that everyone you know uses iMessage, though, if you're in south-east Asia.
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To be fair quite a few of those weren't necessarily failures as much as they were attempts at something that Google in a sense experimented with and then in many instances brought in various features or improvements, in one way or another, from those attempts into existing/established products.
Unfortunately this hasn't been the case for their messaging apps. There's no reason for them to launch so many failed ones. And there's no longstanding Google messaging system that's become very popular. At this point they've lost the trust of customers in any messenger they create.
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I'm very suspicious of that.
It is mind boggling to me that in 2018, technologically sophisticated companies are getting together to design a next-gen messaging system, and it doesn't even include End to End Encryption.
E2EE is such an obvious and basic requirement for communication that I have to assume these companies have omitted it for their own purposes, which I'm sure I won't like.
It does make things a bit harder for them. But companies can usually defeat E2EE deliberately if they want to. Most services don't have clients generating the private keys, so they can keep a spare*. And those that do could always give fake public keys to clients, allowing the server to intercept messages without clients discovering unless they were to meet through other means and compare pubkeys**.
It's only truly safe from a malicious corp if the clients generate private keys, people can review the client code, and users are diligent enough to always compare pubkeys with their friends, which... they won't be.
I think corps only put in E2EE because 1. it reduces their risk of security breaches 2. it forces better diligence in their SWE efforts 3. it looks good publicly.
*I know for a fact that Apple had an extra key to my iMessages at some point because I was able to reset my password and gain access to them.
** Some app has a tool for this via QR code scans. I forget which.
