iMessage
No written verdict yet. Here is what commenters said.
Why people recommend it
“The kids and young adults all moved to Telegram, Discord, Whatsapp, iMessage, etc.”
“Photo sharing is a breeze and even integrated iMessage "just works".”
Show 3 more
“iMessage is a legitimately superior experience to other messaging apps”
“I like having access to iMessages from the desktop.”
“the iMessage integration between devices is also great”
Caveats and dissent
“most people fall for the E2E-encrypted iMessage story, while the Messages are only encrypted at rest”
“This is why as a Mac user I don't use those apps.”
Show 2 more
“FWIW, iMessage is largely unencrypted already.”
“unless BOTH sides are using it, your iMessage conversations are all readable by Apple”
Often compared with
Who recommends it in their own words
Threads where it came up
- Apple Platform Security (Jan 2026) [pdf] 3 mentions
- Launch HN: Chert (YC P26) – Twilio for iMessage 2 mentions
- Apple's accidental moat: How the "AI Loser" may end up winning 2 mentions
- US has investigated claims WhatsApp chats aren't private 2 mentions
- I just want working RCS messaging 2 mentions
- Somebody please stop the spam texts 1 mention
Also written as imessage. Data: imessage.json. Quotes are verbatim; the verdict and theme labels are written by a model from these comments, and every clause links to its sources.
All comments 40
“The kids and young adults all moved to Telegram, Discord, Whatsapp, iMessage, etc.”
“most people fall for the E2E-encrypted iMessage story, while the Messages are only encrypted at rest”
“This is why as a Mac user I don't use those apps.”
“The only thing in the Apple world I’ve become hopelessly dependent on is iMessage.”
“FWIW, iMessage is largely unencrypted already.”
“My understanding is that iMessage implements PFS.”
“Photo sharing is a breeze and even integrated iMessage "just works".”
“iMessage is a legitimately superior experience to other messaging apps”
“it renders like this, which... I'm not sure is correct?”
“I use Signal, Messenger, iMessage and Snapchat”
“If you know anyone who uses WhatsApp, Signal, iMessage, and other encrypted apps”
“iMessage is intended for communicating with family and friends”
“Seems pretty damn clear.”
“I can communicate via iMessage”
“unless BOTH sides are using it, your iMessage conversations are all readable by Apple”
“iMessage can do high quality video and images”
“When I turn my iPhone on and open iMessage, it will sit at a black screen and won't open for several minutes and usually crashes.”
“I had a single person I used iMessage with no but we since switched to SMS.”
Agreed, I’ve been a loyal iPhone user for a long time, and very few people I know use iMessage. I use it with my parents because they don’t have any other messenger, and they don’t even really know it’s iMessage, they just think of it as texting. Everyone I know is using something else for messages, whether it’s Discord, Instagram DMs, WhatsApp, or occasionally Telegram or Snapchat.
“Apple championed the idea with iMessage scanning”
“When I use em-dashes in my /family iMessage thread/”
“I use what it came with: phone calls, imessage, maps, browser.”
“being an iMessage and WhatsApp user, I'd just stuck with those mostly”
“and half the features go away”
The relevant xkcd is Chat Systems https://xkcd.com/1810/
“To my knowledge, there's nothing in the security model to prevent this.”
“Apple defaults only to e2ee of messages, leaving a massive backdoor.”
“In fact on this page they still claim iMessage is end-to-end encrypted.”
“Apple has always been able to read encrypted iMessage messages”
“upload your iMessages to their own servers in a form that they can read, breaking their own E2EE”
Teams messages expire in 30 days at my job, we use email for anything that needs a paper trail
“I think my parents and their generation use iMessage”
“They don't do that for iMessage though”
“I like having access to iMessages from the desktop.”
“but Apple runs on-device content detection that pings their servers, which you can't possibly even think of disabling.”
“seems to be a few apps that can do this, but you need a mac to do it”
“which is concerning when you consider how much iMessage relies on it”
“TypeScript, Rust, JetBrains IDEs, Firefox, Slack, iTerm2, Sublime Text, Apple iMessages.”
“the iMessage integration between devices is also great”
“I recommend it over Signal.”