> because Apple have deeply coupled iMessage to the OS
No they haven't. On my Mac it's just an app and a reusable framework.
There is nothing stopping them releasing it on the App Store similar to Mail.
No they haven't. On my Mac it's just an app and a reusable framework.
There is nothing stopping them releasing it on the App Store similar to Mail.
In the sense that the app is just a wrapper around a system framework, sure. But changing that framework would be an OS release.
It's not deeply integrated into the iOS by any normal definition. It's just shipped together.
Btw, maybe related, on iOS I have "app privacy report" enabled, to show me a list of apps and the recent entitlements they used. Every Apple app, even those that don't need access to them, is shown as having recently accessed my Contacts. I find this weird. Anyone know why they do that? e.g. I've never even used the Health app and yet it's accessing my Contacts for some reason.