With the arrival of iOS 14, it has finally become possible for iPhone owners to select apps other than Apple’s Safari and Mail as their default browser and email app, a feature that’s been requested by users for many years.
This is good news – or will be when it works; an early bug caused these choices to be reverted when users restart their device – but Facebook Messenger manager Stan Chudnovsky thinks Apple should have gone further by adding the option to select an alternative to Messages.
In an interview with The Information, Chudnosky explains what Facebook wants: for Apple to rebuild iOS so that text messages can be handled by apps other than Messages.
Needless to say, that’s a completely different proposition from just selecting a different default browser and email client. Choosing a default browser means http and https links are opened in that app; default emails open mailto links. That’s all.
What Chudnosky does not explain in the interview is that there are no similar standardised links for messages, and that Facebook’s demand is therefore unreasonable.
Facebook has been publicly criticising Apple a lot lately, although it’s usually Mark Zuckerberg putting the knife in. Last week he dissed the technology expected to appear in Apple Glass, while earlier in the month he said that Apple should be investigated for its dominant position in the apps market.
This article originally appeared on Macworld Sweden. Translation by David Price.
