The new version of iMessage is an invisible browser in iOS 10

Just as public market investors are very optimistic about the value of iOS applications, we will see many companies emerging on information service platforms.

In today's social age where people use emojis to persuade others and motivate others, various emojis, animated pictures or stickers can better reflect and express the emotions, thoughts or intonations that users want to express, which cannot be expressed in words or cannot be conveyed through the Internet. This visual language is no longer a simple entertainment tool, but a "language" that people frequently use in daily conversations.

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Apple's upcoming iOS 10 will have a profound impact on this transformation: it makes visual expression in iMessage easier, allowing the world's 1 billion Apple device users to express themselves in a more impactful way. It also brings new opportunities and challenges to the industry, accelerating the transition from public to private sharing.

iOS 10 iMessage provides message bubble effects and supports sending handwritten messages, making chat interactions more personalized. At the same time, the built-in emoji expressions have also been optimized. In addition to increasing the size of pictures by 3 times, text can also be directly converted into emoji expressions. Users can also use iMessage to send red envelopes, transfer money, share music and videos, and other functions.

In iOS 10, iMessage will have its own app drawer, which allows users to seamlessly add visual information to their messages - from disappearing text to GIFs, stickers to videos. These apps are natively called out from iMessage. In addition to integrating an app drawer that displays app icons in iMessage, the platform also supports users to embed fully programmable apps in iMessage conversations and send them out. The recipient of the message can simply click on the app to call out a programmable dynamic screen.

Apple is not the first company to launch such a feature-rich platform. For example, Kik launched its first HTML 5 messaging platform in 2013, Facebook Messenger is also a similar messaging platform, and WeChat is the most representative one in China. However, compared with these platforms, Apple also has two powerful and unique features: the messaging application they own and operate is the most commonly used messaging platform in North America, and they also own the underlying operating platform, which has created a unique advantage for Apple to dominate the industry.

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As more user conversations shift from public networks to private conversations through messaging apps, a new type of service will emerge, and products that rely on public sharing and web pages may feel a huge threat. There is indeed obvious friction in switching between messaging apps and web browsers, because this switch will allow messaging apps to have more services built in to meet the different needs of more users. And iOS 10's iMessage goes even further, adding these services directly on top of messaging.

Apple's messaging platform will accelerate the speed at which messaging users move to the "new browser," expanding the language of communication from text and images to GIFs, videos, stickers and embedded dynamic content. Craig Federighi, Apple's senior vice president of software engineering, previously said that iMessage has become the most used app in iOS. Users are spending more and more time using messaging apps, sharing their thoughts or content privately with each other. Although people use the web as a tool to find information, browse news or entertainment, when they need to communicate with others, they will choose to use messaging apps more often. "Information-first" services will best understand your thoughts, feelings and emotions. Unlike the web, which is organized by hyperlinks, messaging apps organize users' conversations, which are generated by users communicating with others through visual, interactive applications.

Developers also have the opportunity to build businesses on this platform that can generate revenue for them. Like the App Store, the apps in the iMessage app drawer also adopt a 3:7 split ratio, with developers taking 70% of the profits and Apple taking 30%. iOS 10 developers who develop apps for iMessage can also use the same underlying advertising architecture as other apps - all of which enjoy several times the stability of the operating system. Just as public market investors are very optimistic about the value of iOS apps, we will see that many companies on the messaging service platform may spring up like mushrooms after rain.

The stability of the operating system-level platform (compared to some companies' SEO or Facebook's News Feed) will enable these companies to gain more advantages and have a greater chance of success. Unlike other companies that dominate the web, services built on information services are built around user communication. New centers of gravity will form around the user's emotional graph, attracting various brands and media to create new types of content that best suit emotional and visual expressions.

However, while iOS 10 creates new opportunities, it will also have a certain impact on other manufacturers in the industry, and these manufacturers may need to make corresponding adjustments and changes in response to these updates from Apple. Although Google does not have a messaging application with a large user base like iMessage, they still acquired the communication service provider Jibe Mobile, which was famous for developing a mobile application for sharing content on social networking sites in 2008. Since then, the company has transformed from an application developer to a platform customizer, and also cooperated with operators to establish Internet services based on IP addresses. Google acquired them to promote the development of RCS, the SMS standard, and lay out its mobile ecosystem as the basis for future software development. At the same time, the robot-based ecosystems of Kik, Facebook Messenger and Telegram will continue to grow and develop, forming a healthy and competitive platform ecosystem.

This hidden browser in iOS 10 is very different from the web browsers we are familiar with. The interactive applications we use will change more because we need to express our various emotions and feelings privately in a visual way.