> You don't care about any features, apart from the features you care about. Just like everyone else.
That's a pretty uncharitable way to interpret the statement, when the three features OP mentioned are a part of literally every modern messaging platform that people use. Not just iMessage and RCS (the open protocol which is the best analog to iMessage), but WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, Discord, Messenger, Instagram, Slack... It's actually hard to think of one that doesn't. I guess IRC, if you consider that in any way comparable to the others, but it really isn't at this point, being a now fairly obscure protocol reserved mostly for tech-savvy people and niche cases.
I similarly interpreted OP as someone who only wants basic features in messaging while the reply implies that not everyone views those three features as the only necessary features. Nothing uncharitable about saying that everyone’s needs are different.
Exactly. For example, I care about pictures and emojis but not groups. And groups crucially is the one thing that (from what I hear) is extremely non-trivial to do well alongside with E2E encryption. So nothing "basic" about it, it turns out.
> RCS (the open protocol which is the best analog to iMessage)
It's so "open" and so "best" that Android doesn't even provide a public API for third party clients to use it. It's just yet another pseudo-open thingy that in practice is only open to a handful of mobile oligopolies, and all other developers are locked out of it just like they're locked out of iMessage. Google replacing the actually-open SMS with vendor-locked RCS is a major reason why Signal is dropping support for SMS. Much good that fake openness is doing, smh.
It doesn’t matter if it’s an obscure protocol, if it’s used in a large business then they must comply. Wait until discord or any of the gaming focused media apps try to unify on features.
Sounds like what you really need is a contacts manager that links to recent conversations with them. You know who you want to contact, you pull them up and navigate to the relevant convos or apps.
That's a pretty uncharitable way to interpret the statement, when the three features OP mentioned are a part of literally every modern messaging platform that people use. Not just iMessage and RCS (the open protocol which is the best analog to iMessage), but WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, Discord, Messenger, Instagram, Slack... It's actually hard to think of one that doesn't. I guess IRC, if you consider that in any way comparable to the others, but it really isn't at this point, being a now fairly obscure protocol reserved mostly for tech-savvy people and niche cases.