Messages App Store Launches Ahead of Tomorrow's iOS 10 Release

[JGIGS]

I like customization but this is the last type of customization that I wanted to see in iOS. Just seems like such a waste of time and energy but I guess we'll see how much people use it. Let me change notification sounds/vibrations for third party apps, let me place icons where I want and change the icon grid size (no auto arrange top left), let me set up icon themes (I just like a uniformed look), and some on screen widgets to fill space where I can't reach. Yes I know how to use reachabliity I just rather not HAVE to use it. Basically everything that is better about Android.

 

[ThatGuyInLa]

If any of you still have delusions to Apples focus and concerns. Look no further than the time, people power, spent on Messages.

MacOS and hardware R.I.P.

 

[perkedel]

- Open the Messages app
- Tap the App Store icon to open the app interface

Can you hide that iMessage app store icon?

 

[ErikGrim]

So that's just my own experience then. And I think it may depend a bit on the country as well. WhatsApp is by far the most popular messaging service in the Netherlands, I learned about a few months ago. That might make a big difference.

I literally do not know a single person that use a separate messaging app (other than Facebook messenger I guess, but that's part of FB). I'm pretty sure that culture only arose in countries where SMS wasn't already cheap or free.
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I have to admit I was skeptical about how useful this would be at first, but so far in pretty impressed. There's some pretty useful apps coming out so far.

I agree. A lot of these apps actually make a lot of sense in a messaging environment, like shared shopping lists and asynchronous multiplayer games.

 

[puma1552]

The messages app with all the new features (sans rich links which are welcome and the ability to down vote my buddies' smart ass messages) looks like a bloatware cartoon filled with junk. We got rid of skeumorphism, just to have a cartoonish imessages app? Looks like it caters to teenage girls.

 

[Betobe]

Almost everybody! In my experience.

Yes, it is way more private than Whatsapp and others, but also much integrated with MacOs.

 

[Geert76]

finally!
pre-ordered a new iPhone with a value of about $1000 and I get acces to colorful (childish) Message App Store.

thank you Tim!

 

[ErikGrim]

The messages app with all the new features (sans rich links which are welcome and the ability to down vote my buddies' smart ass messages) looks like a bloatware cartoon filled with junk. We got rid of skeumorphism, just to have a cartoonish imessages app? Looks like it caters to teenage girls.

And what's wrong with that?

 

[CarlJ]

Now Apple can safely release a limited iMessage for android devices which will make the users envious, and want to buy iPhone, because although they can see all the wonderful stickers they cannot partake in the fun and send them themselves to their friends.

While it would be kind of nice to have iMessages take over everywhere, I can see three reasons for Apple not to do this:

1. It is, as you allude to, a competitive advantage for Apple to have an exclusive built-in messaging client that's far more capable than basic text messaging.
2. They're already handling 200,000 messages a second from iOS users, they'd need still yet more capacity to add an appreciable number of Android users.
3. Apple has end-to-end control over security on iOS and OS X, in order to keep the necessary private keys secure, and they have a user base who are almost all running on the one or two most recent OS releases, and all on a handful of hardware of Apple's own making. Android has a large variety of hardware to support, a large number of OS releases to support with many users running/stuck-with ancient versions of Android, and none of the hardware or software is of Apple's choosing. So, harder to ensure security and harder to support.

 

[Euge]

Well, google can manage it with gmail and google hangouts. I'm sure apple could as well. Except it would probably only work in safari because of their insistance of the walled garden.

It's not about whether or not they could handle it or if it's technically feasible, it's a paradigm that goes against the privacy nature of iMessage.

Google's services are all built to be web-based with Google having access to your data. With iMessage, the only way anyone, including Apple, has access to your messages is to have access to the source or destination devices. If Apple were to build a web-based iMessage application, their servers would be an additional source and destination device.

Right now Apple claims they couldn't get access to your messages if they wanted. If they hosted a web application for iMessage, that would no longer be true.

 

[bkushner]

I know I'm not speaking for everyone, but who on earth actually uses iMessage anymore? I've used it a lot in the beginning, but these days everyone uses other messaging solutions such as WhatsApp or Telegram. I think this 'stickers' thing (including its own App Store) is a bit overreactive for something that - at least that's what I think - is not being widely used...

Maybe get a clue? Apple handles several BILLION imessages daily.

 

[Smith288]

I know I'm not speaking for everyone, but who on earth actually uses iMessage anymore?

Everyone I know who has an iPhone.

 

[Iconoclysm]

So that's just my own experience then. And I think it may depend a bit on the country as well. WhatsApp is by far the most popular messaging service in the Netherlands, I learned about a few months ago. That might make a big difference.

How can any app be more prolific than SMS and the app that's tied to SMS? It's probably not even close.

 

[AJ5790]

The messages app with all the new features (sans rich links which are welcome and the ability to down vote my buddies' smart ass messages) looks like a bloatware cartoon filled with junk. We got rid of skeumorphism, just to have a cartoonish imessages app? Looks like it caters to teenage girls.

I get it... the features you want are the best ever, but the ones you don't are bloat ware... lol. Dude, not everything apple does will cater to your whims.

 

[CarlJ]

if only the could open the gate to allow developers to create faces on the iWatch !

I'd love that, but I don't see it happening for a long time. It surely is partly because the faces have to be very careful about how much power and resources they use, but also, unless they choose to endow a handful of developers with a "you-may-submit-watch-faces bit" (which itself would create much wailing and gnashing of teeth among those not invited), they open themselves up to having to sort through 900,000 mostly bad watch faces, and then, what... do you reject all but the 100 best ones? A lot of them won't meet power requirements, a lot of them will basically duplicate the existing ones or other submissions, and a lot of them will include copyrighted designs/artwork from real watches. I suspect also that even 100 3rd-party watch faces would be troublesome for them, because it'd mean that any future version of the watch is constrained by still having to work with all those watch faces. Anyway, there are some additional faces I'd like, but I don't see it happening soon.

BTW, love your angry-Bender avatar.
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Assuming you either have no friends or are over the age of 65...? Pretty much everyone with an iPhone uses iMessage...

I think it varies much more by country - outside the US, other services are more popular. FWIW, I know a number of people over 65 who use iMessage quite handily.
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We got rid of skeumorphism, just to have a cartoonish imessages app? Looks like it caters to teenage girls.

Nobody is forcing you to look at, or purchase stickers. And are you more important than all teenage girls, categorically?

 

[deany]

if say a gif is sent to an android user will this count as an MMS
i.e. Chargeable (unless you have a MMS bundle)

 

[CarlJ]

if say a gif is sent to an android user will this count as an MMS
i.e. Chargeable (unless you have a MMS bundle)

Does anyone pay separately for text messaging these days?

I remember being concerned about message counts used to be a thing, because the carriers had plans with various amounts of text messages included, and they made a big deal out of how many messages each plan had. Then Apple released iMessage, wherein the Messages app could short-circuit text messages by sending it as data, via Apple's servers, instead of as a text message, through the carrier's servers, and I remembered thinking, "this is gonna p*ss off the carriers big time, because Apple is draining all the profit out of something they've been leaning heavily on the past few years (as messaging eclipsed talking)", and everyone could cut way back on their text messaging plans.

And sure enough, the next round of plans arrived from Verizon (the carrier I'm familiar with), and they'd put a positive spin on it (while grabbing as much money as possible themselves) by saying, "isn't this great, now you don't have to worry about how many text messages you send, because everyone gets unlimited messaging!" (meaning, essentially, they removed the lower-priced, limited, options, and everyone pays the premium price for the unlimited messaging plan that you no longer need, because now 90% of your text messages are actually sent as iMessages) - smart way for the carriers to still get about the same amount of money from everyone, despite people no longer using one of their services.

 

[dannyyankou]

The ESPN one is pretty cool. You can send scores to people and if you tap the score, it brings up highlights from the game without leaving messages.

 

[deany]

Does anyone pay separately for text messaging these days?

I remember being concerned about message counts used to be a thing, because the carriers had plans with various amounts of text messages included, and they made a big deal out of how many messages each plan had. Then Apple released iMessage, wherein the Messages app could short-circuit text messages by sending it as data, via Apple's servers, instead of as a text message, through the carrier's servers, and I remembered thinking, "this is gonna p*ss off the carriers big time, because Apple is draining all the profit out of something they've been leaning heavily on the past few years (as messaging eclipsed talking)", and everyone could cut way back on their text messaging plans.

And sure enough, the next round of plans arrived from Verizon (the carrier I'm familiar with), and they'd put a positive spin on it (while grabbing as much money as possible themselves) by saying, "isn't this great, now you don't have to worry about how many text messages you send, because everyone gets unlimited messaging!" (meaning, essentially, they removed the lower-priced, limited, options, and everyone pays the premium price for the unlimited messaging plan that you no longer need, because now 90% of your text messages are actually sent as iMessages) - smart way for the carriers to still get about the same amount of money from everyone, despite people no longer using one of their services.

Hi
With EE (UK) they do charge for MMS- unless a MMS "bundle" is is place they are approx 50 cents per message so not cheap
Many pay monthly UK plans now have unlimited text for the reason (I guess) that you have pointed out.
cheers

 

[iToph]

My gif keys are gone?! Does anyone know how to get it back?

 

[CarlJ]

Well, if anyone is mildly curious, like I was... I didn't see a method of getting to these specifically called out in the article (maybe I overlooked it)... you can go into iTunes (I'm on a Mac - on Windows YMMV), into the App Store, search for "imessage" (something likely to be in every relevant description), and then click on "iMessage Apps" in the column of choices on the right-hand side to narrow the search, and you're looking at (most of?) the iMessage-related bits in the store (this is on the current release iTunes on El Cap, not Sierra).

Found some Cookie Monster stickers, for free from the Sesame Street folks (i.e. official), that my niece will love playing with at some point.

 

[truthertech]

I know I'm not speaking for everyone, but who on earth actually uses iMessage anymore? I've used it a lot in the beginning, but these days everyone uses other messaging solutions such as WhatsApp or Telegram. I think this 'stickers' thing (including its own App Store) is a bit overreactive for something that - at least that's what I think - is not being widely used...

Hundreds of millions of people do. In fact, it is the most used thing on the iPhone
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finally!
pre-ordered a new iPhone with a value of about $1000 and I get acces to colorful (childish) Message App Store.

thank you Tim!

Your showing your age. Messages is the mist used thing on iPhone and immensely popular among younger people-sorry

 

[MH01]

Stickers will make apple loads of money. Classy they might not be, but sell they will, apple just wants the $$$$

And for many they will be fun. Yup I'm old and grumpy.

 

[deany]

so can I confirm a gif text is MMS? thanks

 

[Soccertess]

Almost everybody! In my experience.

Really, Android has really taken most of the market share and I have seen a significant drop in imessage friends. We all have our own stories, but we know that Android has really been kicking butt around the world. I would suspect this trend to only increase in the holiday session. The note 7 is a really gorgeous phone except for the whole recall and exploding part!


Anyways, my only imessage group that has grown is for older family member. Most of my tech friends have moved on. Anyways, hoping to pull the plug on my iphone, and upgrade to an S7.