Social Post Draft: The Case Against iMessage Integrations

Date: 2025-11-28
Platform: Twitter/X or LinkedIn
Status: Draft

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I'm glad Apple kills integrations for iMessage.

Had some interesting conversations with developers recently about how they wish there were more ways to build on top of iMessage. My reaction surprised them.

I told them:

"The last thing I want is my messages full of automated human slop."

I thought about this while sending Thanksgiving messages to friends. Sure, you could use AI agents to automate holiday greetings. But that completely misses the point.

The power of a handwritten card or personalized message is that it's NOT scalable. Human attention is scarce. That's what makes it valuable.

When you dedicate time to write someone a personal note, even if AI helps with parts of it, you're still manually investing attention in that person. There's something sacred about that.

I don't want people receiving my messages to wonder if I'm automating my relationship with them. That's one of the last things I want to see fully automated.

Would I love better tools to remind me to follow up with people? To see when I last connected with someone? Absolutely.

But the actual work of maintaining relationships? The power is in the scarcity.

Ironically, iMessage being cut off from integrations is exactly why it's such valuable data. It's one of the last bastions of mostly human-generated text.

Apple accidentally created something sacred by keeping developers out.

Food for thought.