Excellent point. I remember the caveman days of separate buddy list apps.
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iPhone 12 Pro Max What’s so great about iMessage?
- Thread starter jts1207
- Start date
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From what I see
The positives
+ built into iOS SMS app, so no extra app needed, and it's transparent to iOS users
+ can transfer photos in high quality full size
+ supports multiple phone numbers and multiple iOS devices and Macs using the same iCloud account
+ Backed up automatically as part of iPhone backup
The minuses
- iOS only
- some carriers don't support it (failed authentication). Example: Telkomsel in Indonesia doesn't officially support it so the authentication can fail with no reason
Comparing this to, let's say, whatsapp
Positives:
+ multi-platform
+ easy sign up, only requires a phone number
+ widely used in many countries
Minuses:
- only support one single phone device at a time. No tablet app, no native desktop app, doesn't support multiple instances. Desktop solution is only via web app.
- One phone number = one account.
- reduce resolution of photos significantly
- backups are not cross platform. Android backup is not compatible with iOS backup, and vice versa.
- it's owned by Facebook, and has questionable ToS with an ultimatum looming
Many reason I use iMessage. Main it is secure with end to end encryption. Everyone I know have iPhone so we use iMessage and I am from UK.
Some other reason I use it:
Send photos and video full resolution
Send PDF files and documents
Send apple map location. That really useful when meeting up with someone and not sure where they are or show where I am.
Sync all Apple devices even Macs
All work same
There many other things iMessage can do.
One thing I would LOVE to have here is Apple Pay Cash send money I owe or they owe me (unfortunately it not here UK yet since it still USA only).
Some other reason I use it:
Send photos and video full resolution
Send PDF files and documents
Send apple map location. That really useful when meeting up with someone and not sure where they are or show where I am.
Sync all Apple devices even Macs
All work same
There many other things iMessage can do.
One thing I would LOVE to have here is Apple Pay Cash send money I owe or they owe me (unfortunately it not here UK yet since it still USA only).
Sending and receiving pictures and video at full quality is a biggie. I had an android for the longest time and whenever my parents would send pictures or videos in the group chat with my wife they would come through compressed and horrid. I tried getting them to use other messaging apps or cloud services but no joy. Now I have iMessages and air drop to share things and mail drop for truly big files. Also as a side benefit I can share my apple subs with the whole fam.
It wasn't always easy like that though. There was a time back on iOS 6 with the iPhone 5 that you had to have the country code for the contact you wanted to iMessage and have it designated in your contacts that they had an iPhone. If it wasn't set up that way, it sent an SMS instead.
Id estimate 95% of my friends I text and all of the groups I’m in use iMessage. This makes sending things like videos and such so convenient because iMessage doesn’t compress them. Once a non iMessage person is in a group, it changes it to an SMS thread and the pics videos can look awful. I don’t know anyone personally who used WhatsApp or an alternative. So for me, iMessage is key.
imessage is great, it just works so seamlessly with your other apple devices. The problem is that in the UK/EU, most people use whatsapp as the defacto messaging app. I will always use imessage to communicate with those who have an apple device whenever i can though.
Why I don’t like iMessage:
takes „forever“ to send images
Management of attachments is annoying and cumbersome AF
no last seen
no wallpapers
Images don’t auto save to the camera roll - also annoying
no way to reach android users obviously
„No one is using it unless I force people to answer me on iMessage“
positive:
works on more than one device
takes „forever“ to send images
Management of attachments is annoying and cumbersome AF
no last seen
no wallpapers
Images don’t auto save to the camera roll - also annoying
no way to reach android users obviously
„No one is using it unless I force people to answer me on iMessage“
positive:
works on more than one device
Don't know what you're smokin. Most in Canada use iMessage. iPhone makes up 55% of the market here.
I agree. Not me either. it's always worked flawlessly for me.
This, and in particular its introduction at a time when mobile providers charged extra for texts, or a (limited) bucket of texts. iMessage went around that by using data, which also was a bonus internationally.
Of course they've added loads of features since then.
Disagree. Most my family outside US using iMessages. A lot of my friends in Australia using iMessages.
Just to be picky, the app is called Messages, no prefix "i". Messages does send what they named iMessages but only to other Apple devices. You can text an Android phone with Messages, but you cannot send them an iMessage.
There are several incorrect statements regarding WhatsApp in this post, and in this thread in general. It does have a desktop app which is fully synchronised with the iPhone. On the iPad you’re right that you’ll have to use it through the browser, but not on any Mac. No reduced photo quality as far as I’ve been able to tell, maybe in the past. When was the last time you actually used WhatsApp? You’re right about the lack of cross platform support, when it comes to transferring chat history between iOS and Android, but hey, at least you can easily send messages between the OSs. iMessage on the other hand is completely incompatible with Android other than sending messages as simple SMSs, lol.
Personally, I don’t like iMessage at all. The user experience is way better on WhatsApp, IMO. And frankly I don’t really care about Facebook collecting some data. There’s practically no way in this day and age to own, and fully take advantage of all, or most of, the features of a new smartphone while completely avoiding things like data collection and tracking. I reluctantly installed Telegram because some peeps are getting irrational and paranoid about Facebook collecting some rudimentary data, because sensational news stories have blown it way out of proportion. And if you’re already a Facebook user, or the user of practically any other social media app, it makes even less sense. I’d be far more worried about Google and 'big-tech' companies stifling free speech and doing political censorship ad nauseam.
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He is technically correct about WhatsApp desktop being a “web app.” Its an Electron app that uses the Chromium engine (the primary rendering engine of the Chrome browser). Basically its a web page wrapped in a native-app window dressing along with some node.js.
Thanks, I wasn’t aware of that as it works just like any other app made for Mac OS.
Someone finally pointed this out but the main reason for iMessage is its encrypted, its reliable (doesnt rely on just cellular connection), it syncs with your devices if you have other apple devices, its backed up AND IT DOESNT RELY ON CARRIERS OR CELLULAR SERVICE.
SMS is a old ancient technology and its garbage. Its carrier also does it differently. Send a long text message to a CDMA carrier like verizon and it gets sent in parts and the parts always get delivered wrong. This has been a thing since the early 2000. I remember my friends say "i only got half your message" and when you look it says "2/#" because its all parted up.
Even with GSM carrier not parting up text messages, I always noticed longer messages took longer to deliver and dont get me started on MMS on any carrier. There's a reason other messaging apps blew up because they reliably delivered your message no matter length and type (video/photo/etc). Apple introducing iMessage was the best because now people had a method that was built into their phone that was also reliable. I dont know about you but I would rather use the message app on my phone versus trusting a third party. iMessage is so popular and reliable that even Google tried copying Apple with RCS and still failed because RCS was suppose to replace SMS but they couldnt get all the carriers on board and rollout was super slow whereas iMessage was reliant on Apple and they were ready with infrastructure to support all of the users and didnt have to rely on carriers or anyone to be onboard.
TL;DR: iMessage is more than just blue bubbles
SMS is a old ancient technology and its garbage. Its carrier also does it differently. Send a long text message to a CDMA carrier like verizon and it gets sent in parts and the parts always get delivered wrong. This has been a thing since the early 2000. I remember my friends say "i only got half your message" and when you look it says "2/#" because its all parted up.
Even with GSM carrier not parting up text messages, I always noticed longer messages took longer to deliver and dont get me started on MMS on any carrier. There's a reason other messaging apps blew up because they reliably delivered your message no matter length and type (video/photo/etc). Apple introducing iMessage was the best because now people had a method that was built into their phone that was also reliable. I dont know about you but I would rather use the message app on my phone versus trusting a third party. iMessage is so popular and reliable that even Google tried copying Apple with RCS and still failed because RCS was suppose to replace SMS but they couldnt get all the carriers on board and rollout was super slow whereas iMessage was reliant on Apple and they were ready with infrastructure to support all of the users and didnt have to rely on carriers or anyone to be onboard.
TL;DR: iMessage is more than just blue bubbles
In the US there’s not much point in messaging apps. iMessage is great for a lot of the reasons listed, it’s encrypted as long as you don’t save it to the cloud, it’s reliable, easy to use, and the list goes on.
Most people here just send text messages in this day of unlimited texts. I’m not sure if that’s how it is elsewhere. The built in messaging app switches between texts and iMessage automatically. Most everyone I know has an iPhone so it’s all iMessage. However, there is the one friend that doesn’t and that group text is in regular text format.
The messaging app having iMessage is great because it allows us to send/receive messages on our iPads. We have no reason for a cellular iPad so being able to do that with WiFi is nice.
I haven’t had a need for a third party app the built in one does what I need.
Most people here just send text messages in this day of unlimited texts. I’m not sure if that’s how it is elsewhere. The built in messaging app switches between texts and iMessage automatically. Most everyone I know has an iPhone so it’s all iMessage. However, there is the one friend that doesn’t and that group text is in regular text format.
The messaging app having iMessage is great because it allows us to send/receive messages on our iPads. We have no reason for a cellular iPad so being able to do that with WiFi is nice.
I haven’t had a need for a third party app the built in one does what I need.
There's no native desktop app. The desktop app you think is basically a web app, a wrapper around the browser.
Photo quality is reduced, even the resolution is reduced. Transfer the photos to your PC and check the resolution and size. The only work around is to send photos as documents.
Maybe it's you who have not used whatsapp. In my country, nobody use iMessage, and everybody use Whatsapp.