> Particularly when they gently slid people out of SMS and into iMessage, for example.
Or put another way, certainly the way it was perceived of at the time by their customers then and now: gave their customers a superior messaging experience over what was typically available to cell phones at the time that they wouldn’t be charged for. RIM also did this with BlackBerry Messenger. Then and now iMessage is a selling point for their phones, not the future of mobile messaging out of some misguided noblesse oblige or something that they owe the world (and by world I mean their competitors and non-iPhone customers) simply because they made it and people like it because it’s actually good–and for a long time it had its hiccups, but better than SMS was a low bar.
Things that existed before iPhones and that Apple cannot lock down? I'm glad they're open, but I won't give Apple credit. Particularly when they gently slid people out of SMS and into iMessage, for example. (Google did this less too but less successfully and are also at fault.)