You know, for a tech site, people sure do love to forget that iMessage is preferred because it brings features instead of mere social status.
Because network effects are more important than UX or features.
economic barrier to buy ~$100 used iphone on ebay?
You can live without iOS/Android, even with Android/macOS VM (heh, I've tried it once) - this is your choice.
The fact their choice leads to needless exclusion of people who would otherwise be their friends.
I also have big trust problems with Facebook products. Apple makes iMessage to sell devices, what does Facebook do with What’s App? There have been reports in the past that installed Facebook, Inc., apps were sending analytics from devices on other apps people were using, pretty much like a Trojan horse. I don’t want any installed Facebook related apps on my devices because Facebook lost my trust long ago. While supposedly What’s App is “secure,” the entire history of Facebook has been littered with “oops, you caught us and we are really really sorry this time.”
When I try to use a "share" action for example, I get my contacts from the phone and Whatsapp at the same level. My list of contacts actually has a merged view of all my contacts stored on my phone, Whatsapp and other services. Contacts on multiple services are merged appropriately.
It works just fine.
This isn’t stupid. It’s the natural consequences of tech that doesn’t conform to real human behaviors and social norms.
I agree with power of defaults though. Only reason iMessage took off, and so did other Apple services.
But not all of the world have moved to whatsapp. I am from Scandinavian and I only have a very limited number of contacts available on whatsapp, most are on iMessage.
This is mistaken. I'm in the EU and do not know a single person using SMS, nor Whatsapp, they use iMessage, however, bigtime.
Whatsapp used to be a thing, but that has been over for some time. Now, most are using Messenger, Snap, and Telegram.
And iMessage is not a craze or a phenomenon, it is a simple convenience; it's on your phone already. For most people using it, it is not even a deliberate choice. The younger generation grew up with it, they do not even really know the difference between SMS and iMessage, except that if the bubble is green, the other user does not have an iPhone.
The older generation remembers SMS, so they still tend to call it SMS, even though they are using iMessage.
Android users are in the minority around here, well, at least between family, friends, and at work.
All I mean is: anecdotal evidence and social bubbles
Sure.
However, there is usage data available if one's interested.
https://www.digitalinformationworld.com/2019/02/whatsapp-fac...