[vetinari]

I don't really care for iMessage or Facetime, I don't use them even though I can, but

> because Apple left a decade-long opening for Google to build equally good Android alternatives to iMessage

is simply not true. No one but Apple can integrate SMS and messaging on iOS as Apple can; others do not have entitlements for that. You could do it on Android (and Google did for a brief period with Hangouts, and so did Signal), but you can't do it on iOS.