It can run other apps inside of it, You can @people inside a group message, pin people to the top, etc..
You may not care for the app, but they update it relatively frequently!
“Inline replies You can reply directly to a specific message in a group conversation. See all related messages in their own view to easily keep track of a thread.”
It baffles me that I can't search someone by firstname lastname and have our messages thread come up 100% reliably.
Sure it works some of the time, but not for older threads.
Im ok with waiting 10 seconds as long as it returns the results I know are there. I am forced to go to Contacts and find the person, then click the new message button linking into messages.
Contacts app has a similar issue. I have < 1000 contacts, yet I can't search reliably for a contact I know is there by first / last name. I have to scroll through the list of all my contacts to get to it.
Maybe this is a bug, but its been an issue for me for years.
You do understand that the iPhone is designed for the widest of audiences from children to elderly. I don't think making Messages significantly more complex is a good thing.
I wonder how much of it is competitive advantage to push people to switch to iOS vs. Apple executives literally never texting people with Android phones.