Is there any texting app that doesn't require access to your address book on iOS?
I simply don't trust a single one of the messaging apps that they won't immediately upload my entire address book to their servers so they can have a more complete social graph.
I've tried Telegram at one point but it was a huge pain to use if you didn't let it access your contacts (or maybe it didn't work at all... my memory's fuzzy on which messaging apps were which.) Whatsapp was similarly awful as well.
Oh I'm aware I can revoke access to contacts (or in my case, never allow it in the first place.) I'm just saying the user experience is broken when you don't allow it.
Telegram won't let you just add contacts locally within the app (ie. stored privately within the Telegram app.) WhatsApp I think had a similarly bad experience. You try to tap "Add contact" and it just tries to access your device contacts again. No thanks.
I want my chat apps to have their own database of contacts, with basic CRUD for adding/removing them, which stays in that app. I don't need them getting a dump of the hundreds of contacts I have on my phone so that they can upload all of it to their servers and "suggest" friends (and likely, sell the data.)
Hosting my contact information on their servers and using invite codes/etc would work fine too (especially if it's pseudonymous.) But no, you can't get a dump of my whole contact database just so I can keep track of who I talk to.
I simply don't trust a single one of the messaging apps that they won't immediately upload my entire address book to their servers so they can have a more complete social graph.
I've tried Telegram at one point but it was a huge pain to use if you didn't let it access your contacts (or maybe it didn't work at all... my memory's fuzzy on which messaging apps were which.) Whatsapp was similarly awful as well.