That layout will fail if both sides write many short single line posts. You will have to alternate between both sides of the screen all the time and might lose

That layout will fail if both sides write many short single line posts. You will have to alternate between both sides of the screen all the time and might lose the line on the way. I never got the appeal of the "left and right" movement. I much prefer messages being shown top to bottom without me having to look left and right. I am not updating my SMS app because they switched to that layout and I found it annoying to use. I also find a timestamp on each message useful, much more than whitespace or bubbles.