"Default messaging app" is a creation of Android, necessitated because every cell phone manufacturer wanted its own messaging app. It somehow later became a feature people needed because those pre-installed apps were often dreadful adware junk. This was never a problem on iPhones. No one wants to set a "default messaging app". It mixes up where messages go. I want my Signal messages in the Signal app. I want my LINE messages in the LINE app. Putting them in random different places doesn't make sense and confuses where they're coming from. I don't want my contacts showing up half a dozen times repeatedly for every messaging app they're using.

I don't see anyone on Android wanting to put their SMS messages in the Discord app.

On Android there is no such thing as a default messaging app. There is such a thing as a default SMS app, but my point is that messaging and texting represent two different things (texting is a subset of messaging) which has an extremely material impact on the dynamics of what is happening in the US, and why iMessage, RCS, and interoperability is a very big deal to users who use a texting app.

Weird take. Default apps for certain file types and links (email, video, etc) are a precedent across multiple operatings systems.

> No one wants

Quite the assumption. I had Google Hangouts set as my default SMS app for a time.. this seems quite similar to your Discord example?

It hurts nobody to have the _choice_. If you don't want to change the default that's totally OK.

Do you mean a default "carrier SMS service" app?

In everyday iPhone usage, you would either run an app directly, use sharing intents, or use a messaging service specific identifier (eg custom URI scheme) to converse with someone. The social graph is either in the messaging app itself or in individual contact entries. There's no expectation of a Trillian/Adium style app that consolidates all information and messaging options.

The confusion is that there is only one texting app on iPhone. Chat apps are done "over the top" and can be whatever you want. You or I can make one. There is only one texting app on iOS and most users in the US only use their phone's texting app. This is why Apple's iMessage is genius, insidious, and diabolical- because they took SMS which had universal adoption in the US and had it invisibly and transparently extended into a component of their walled garden. They didn't need to convince everyone to move from SMS to their own messaging app, because if you used SMS on an iPhone, iMessage just happened.

The point is, if someone has an iPhone and I have an iPhone, I simply cannot send them a text. For anyone who has moved from iPhone can attest to, it is quite effing annoying, especially if your workplace gives you a Mac that you are logged into.

There’s no choice not to use iMessage or their iMessage app to send a text, except if the other person is registered to iMessage, it will use that instead.

It’s really annoying. They either need to disable iMessage or open it up as a separate app you get from the App Store.