Yeah I mean there will little tiny things different on each app, but it's not a big deal breaker for many. Whatsapp is the biggest IM on the planet for a reason. People could easily ditch iMessage in favour of Whatsapp if they wanted to, but for some reason Americans don't do that.

The absolute deal breaker for WhatsApp for me is that it is owned by Facebook. There is zero chance I would consider using it for anything, ever, because of that fact.

The idea of moving to a different chat platform won’t even come up if your current system has the features you need and everyone you want to reach is on it. What would nudge a group to collectively move to WhatsApp if iMessage is the default and works well for them?

> What would nudge a group to collectively move to WhatsApp if iMessage is the default and works well for them?

The fact their choice leads to needless exclusion of people who would otherwise be their friends.

I don’t use What’s App for the simple reason I like how my contacts are integrated across my Apple devices. From email, to “normal” phone calls, to Siri, calendar invites, and even directions “hey Siri, directions to Tom’s work” — it all works seamlessly. If I want to send someone a location from Maps, it’s seamless. If I am using something like Find My, I can easily send a message from there — or even create a Shortcut to send a geofenced message. And Memojis are just simply fun. When I am on the road, sending my kids a message with a talking robot really makes their day.

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.”

It's not a problem on Android at all and just a limitation of the Apple platforms.

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.

I use both iMessage and WhatsApp heavily, the annoying thing about iMessage is the lack of ability to quote messages and @people.

Rumors say this might be planned for an upcoming iOS release.

You're saying some people exclude others from their friends group because of fucking smiley faces on a message? God that would be stupid if true.

Social dynamics are subtle. For example, group SMS doesn’t support contact names. If you add someone to a group SMS, the other people only see a phone number unless they go out of their way to add the new guy to their contact list. Likewise, the new person has to add everyone else to see names. Decades of research in behavioral economics show just how powerful defaults are, so most people probably won’t bother to add names. Without names, the new person will have a more difficult time connecting with the group.

This isn’t stupid. It’s the natural consequences of tech that doesn’t conform to real human behaviors and social norms.

Your argument fails when you consider Whatsapp - the biggest messaging platform, where you need to add people's number in your contact to be able to see their names.

I agree with power of defaults though. Only reason iMessage took off, and so did other Apple services.

You definitely don't... Unknown contacts show as e.g. "+1234567890 ~Bob" (their WhatsApp display name). When you save them to your contacts it switches to the name you added instead.

Exactly this about excluding names. I was sent a group message and didn’t reply because I didn’t recognize the number. I started another chat, deleted the number and then responded.