Facebook has been asking Apple to let users set other third-party apps as default messaging apps, The Information reported.
Stan Chudnovsky, the Facebook Vice-President in-charge of its Messenger app, told The Information, “We feel people should be able to choose different messaging apps and the default on their phone.”
“Generally, everything is moving this direction anyway,” he added.
Android users have the option to set other messaging platforms as default. However, Apple does not let users choose other apps for messaging with iMessage the only default.
According to the report, Facebook has been asking Apple to allow the option with the latter never agreeing to do so.
According to MacRumors, letting users switch to third-party apps for messaging would require major changes to iOS along with significant privacy implications. Apple does not currently allow third-party apps to receive SMS text messages sent to an iPhone’s phone number.
Apple as part of iOS 14 has allowed some leeway to third-party apps in terms of email and browsing. Apple now lets users set third-party apps as default for mail services and web browsing. Google and Microsoft have already added updates to let users leverage this feature for iOS 14. Google has updated its Chrome browser and Gmail while Microsoft has added a feature to its email service Outlook to let users set it as the default app on their iPhones.