Apple WWDC: In iOS 10, get ready for a more useful, fun Messages app

Then there’s Facebook which wants to open up Messenger into a bigger platform with chatbots, its own apps and a voice-assistant called M. Facebook’s chatbots have gone live, and in the US people can use the app to call an Uber or check flight bookings.

For Messaging apps, the writing on the wall is clear: they need to do a lot more. And that’s the direction Apple’s headed with Messages.

Cupertino is opening up the SDK for Messages and wants developers to create apps for iMessage. Apple’s own developer website explains how these apps will work, “An iMessage app lets you present a custom user interface within the Messages app, create a sticker browser, include text, stickers, and media files within a conversation, and create, send, and update interactive messages. An iMessage app can also help users search images that you host on your app’s related website while they’re in the Messages app.”

Custom apps will let people do a lot more from the Message conversation thread itself

As Apple’s senior Vice-President Craig Federighi showed during the WWDC Keynote, custom apps like these will let people do a lot more from the Message conversation thread itself. For instance, order food while staying in a group chat in iMessage thanks to the app extension feature.

App extensions per se is a feature across iOS that let’s users access an app’s function anywhere on the platform; for instance in the current iOS version you can add widgets to your Today Tab from apps like Zomato, Amazon.

App extensions on Messages will let current app developers bring this capability to iMessage, letting them give valuable suggestions to users inside the app. In turn, it will also make Messages a lot more useful for core iOS users, which are the company’s target base.

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Apple is also integrating Apple Pay into the Messages app to give users the ability to transfer money and make payments from chat itself. This too is a big step, because integrating payments with Messaging is not something other players have done seriously so far. A recent report pegged Apple Pay’s monthly users at 12 million, which is a big number, given the service has not been launched globally.

Of course, some features like the ability to draw on pictures, send fun videos with drawings on them are nothing new. Snapchat lets users do a lot of this already, and more. It is one of the few apps, which has managed to merge messaging with social networking in its own way, relying on Stories, Snapchat Live, Face-swaps and more.

And almost every other messaging app offers stickers, though Apple is enabling third-parties like JibJab to give customised offerings in messages, thus adding an extra value. Apple is also adding animations like balloons, confetti or fireworks that can take over an entire screen to celebrate a special occasion, invisible ink to send a message which is only revealed after a friend swipes over it, and handwritten notes.

But it would be short-sighted to dismiss Apple’s changes to Messages as just fancy touches. Apple has finally woken up to realise that Messages has a lot of potential; after all according to the company this is the most used app on iOS.

Will Messages challenge Snapchat or Messenger? Unlikely, because what Messages is offering is a different experience, and yes it is limited to iOS. Apple needs to make sure Messages stays relevant for iOS users and that’s what it plans to do by making it a lot more useful than it has ever been.