Apple, Microsoft win exemptions for iMessage, Bing from EU rules

It depends whether whatsapp or viber or messenger dominates, but not whether iMessage is widely used or not.

It's whatsapp or telegram, i've heard of viber.

It really does not matter which one. You can install them next to each other and just use them all at once.

With iMessage fallback is on SMS, so people would be paying for each message sent. And that's the reason why it never catch on.

Signal is common in Western governments, particularly the more sensitive and diligent parts. If you work with government people, and I do, that tends to be the messaging app of choice and sometimes policy. WhatsApp also tends to be commonly used in Europe for official government things despite being forbidden for such purposes, but that isn’t seriously enforced. If you wanted an intelligence backdoor into the entire European political apparatus, WhatsApp is the way to do it. Colloquially and by inference, Signal seems to be considered the most secure common messaging app in governments, though this doesn’t mean it is actually true.

I’ve used a lot of messaging apps around the world but never had a need to install Telegram. I know it is used in Eastern Europe but I never had a need to install it even when I was there.

I’m just a user but my messaging footprint is more global than most.

For sure, content sent over iMessage has been used for remote exploitation repeatedly historically, though the attack surface becomes smaller every year. Android’s attack surface is at least as large, but the ecosystem is so fragmented that it is more difficult to attack. Content codecs are an issue everywhere. Aspects of iOS “lockdown mode” severely reduce this attack surface, at the cost of reducing the kinds of random media that can be trivially consumed.

I’m not an expert. My impressions from people that are in a position to know is that a modern and properly locked down iOS device is extremely difficult and/or expensive to penetrate. Most people are pretty careless about security regardless. Many orgs that are willing to spend money for security do end up with iOS devices. It is hard to say what that means. I’ve never heard anyone say that Android is more secure than iOS, and the Android versions used in security sensitive contexts are quite unlike anything that would be tolerated on a normal person’s phone.