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As much as I don't like WhatsApp for other reasons, at least it's honest in a way that you know that messages sent over WhatsApp will be sent and received using

As much as I don't like WhatsApp for other reasons, at least it's honest in a way that you know that messages sent over WhatsApp will be sent and received using WhatsApp, and not some confusing half-backed combination of SMS and another App that you can't control. iMessage is not the only one at fault here, Google Messages (or how they call it today) is not better. It's the first thing I disable when switching to a new phone.

bmitc 4y ago
WhatsApp can also be confusing. It's a message client but yet is tied to your phone number. I recently logged into a backup phone that has WhatsApp on it. The reason WhatsApp is in the backup phone is because you cannot backup between iOS and Android. So I left it there. i recently got a new phone, so I tried to back up WhatsApp, but it claims no such backup exists, which is not true. So I log into the backup phone and see that WhatsApp has discontinues support for that phone or version of Android. That was a change that occured over just a month or so of not logging in, and I received no warning. There's no way to get around it. And I think that action is potentially what deleted my Google Cloud backup of WhatsApp. It's a mess, and I have potentially lost years of messages.
- ValentineC 4y ago
  > The reason WhatsApp is in the backup phone is because you cannot backup between iOS and Android. So I left it there. i recently got a new phone, so I tried to back up WhatsApp, but it claims no such backup exists, which is not true. You can migrate between iOS and Android, but I think Android > iOS is a very recent feature. iOS backs up to either iTunes as part of a phone backup, or separately to iCloud within its own app container; and Android backs up to Google Drive. I'm very surprised that WhatsApp on iOS doesn't support Google Drive either, given that it's the more "open" of the two. [1] https://faq.whatsapp.com/1295296267926284/ https://faq.whatsapp.com/1295296267926284/ [2] https://faq.whatsapp.com/686469079565350/ https://faq.whatsapp.com/686469079565350/
hackmiester 4y ago
If that's the configuration you want, it's more or less available in iMessage. You can either disable SMS fallback (and you will always use iMessage to talk to contacts with iPhones) or you can disable iMessage (in which case you will obviously always use SMS). Of course they do not offer to split these up into two apps, which may be what you want.
- sangnoir 4y ago
  iMessage also does not have multiplatform clients for its proprietary protocol, which would be more useful than the either of the scenarios you presented. To me, that is the distinguishing feature between iMessage and every other non-SMS message app.

bmitc 4y ago

WhatsApp can also be confusing. It's a message client but yet is tied to your phone number. I recently logged into a backup phone that has WhatsApp on it. The reason WhatsApp is in the backup phone is because you cannot backup between iOS and Android. So I left it there. i recently got a new phone, so I tried to back up WhatsApp, but it claims no such backup exists, which is not true. So I log into the backup phone and see that WhatsApp has discontinues support for that phone or version of Android. That was a change that occured over just a month or so of not logging in, and I received no warning. There's no way to get around it. And I think that action is potentially what deleted my Google Cloud backup of WhatsApp. It's a mess, and I have potentially lost years of messages.

ValentineC 4y ago
> The reason WhatsApp is in the backup phone is because you cannot backup between iOS and Android. So I left it there. i recently got a new phone, so I tried to back up WhatsApp, but it claims no such backup exists, which is not true. You can migrate between iOS and Android, but I think Android > iOS is a very recent feature. iOS backs up to either iTunes as part of a phone backup, or separately to iCloud within its own app container; and Android backs up to Google Drive. I'm very surprised that WhatsApp on iOS doesn't support Google Drive either, given that it's the more "open" of the two. [1] https://faq.whatsapp.com/1295296267926284/ https://faq.whatsapp.com/1295296267926284/ [2] https://faq.whatsapp.com/686469079565350/ https://faq.whatsapp.com/686469079565350/

hackmiester 4y ago

If that's the configuration you want, it's more or less available in iMessage. You can either disable SMS fallback (and you will always use iMessage to talk to contacts with iPhones) or you can disable iMessage (in which case you will obviously always use SMS). Of course they do not offer to split these up into two apps, which may be what you want.

sangnoir 4y ago
iMessage also does not have multiplatform clients for its proprietary protocol, which would be more useful than the either of the scenarios you presented. To me, that is the distinguishing feature between iMessage and every other non-SMS message app.