I'd argue that that is irrelevant. What's the point in having anything other than a flip phone if you refuse to download apps. It's not a barrier to entry in every other case and it's never been a barrier to entry with my friends.

Why would you download an app for the basic functionality of a phone? Texting is an integral part of phones and I haven't met a person in the US without unlimited texting in years.

I know a lot of friends who use WeChat to avoid things like international texting rates, but Americans talking to Americans generally do not need this.

> Why would you download an app for the basic functionality of a phone?

Having a blue circle is not the basic functionality of texting. People here are talking about fancy facetime stuff, like group names, and reactions.

Those are all part of iMessage.

Thank you for making my point. iMessage is not texting. I'm responding to this.

"Why would you download an app for the basic functionality of a phone? Texting is an integral part of phones and I haven't met a person in the US without unlimited texting in years."

> Thank you for making my point. iMessage is not texting. I'm responding to this.

To your average iOS user they are one and the same, which is why US iPhone users don't generally download secondary chatting apps unless they have to.

I don't actually think this is true. Is there any verification that most iOS users do not have a single one of the most popular messaging apps in the world?

I never said they don't have anything but if you ask someone to download an app specifically to contact you they're going to be very bothered by it. It's like how as streaming services proliferate there are only so many services people actually want to subscribe to, or how pre-unlimited calling people were very judicious about calling people not on their network.

Anecdotally, in my social group:

- Snap: withering on the vine.

- Messenger: generally declining with the declining popularity of Facebook in my age cohort

- Instagram: everyone has it, but messaging is definitely a second class part of the app and no one really uses it other than to send instagram memes

- GroupMe: I downloaded it once for one person, most of the people in the chat have iPhones anyways, and people don't really use it other than to contact the non-Apple users specifically.

Well, here's an anecdote for you. I am a US iPhone user and I use zero third party messaging apps. I know of no one in my friend circle who has an iPhone and uses a third party messaging app.

> 90% of the people might already have an iPhone

85%+ of the world's on Android, think outside your social circle =]

The whole point is to be about your social circle. If 90% of my social circle is on iPhone, they're on iMessage.

What the rest of the world outside of my social circle does isn't really relevant to my conversations inside my social circle.

I've run up against this reality multiple times. I personally prefer signal & whatsapp for group chats than iMessage. If only because I can mute them and not get an annoying red bubble telling me about the hundreds of messages I'm trying to not react to in real time when I'm busy.

If you tap on the info button in Messages, you can click "Hide Alerts", which works fine for me.

That doesn't stop the red counter bubble from appearing and incrementing on the messages app, sadly.

Whereas a muted group chat in whatsapp is completely muted, unless someone explicitly @tags you in a message or explicitly replies to your message (another feature iMessage group chats lacks - tagging specific people, and explicit/contextual replies to specific messages)

Swipe a conversation in Messages and tap Hide Alerts.

But it is precisely my social circle that matters when choosing a messaging platform.

> 85%+ of the world's on Android

I'm assuming the majority seems to be third-world countries because in big UK cities the majority of the phones I see around are iPhones.

The UK seems to be about 50% iOS.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/271240/android-market-sh...

And yet everybody seems to use WhatsApp even between iOS devices