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I use SMS from time to time too - especially random people that call me, but I don't see much added value of having it unified in Signal. I just use the default SMS app on my phone (iMessage app in my case, which also works for SMS). For me Signal is about E2E encrypted messages with more features, SMS is a different much more limited platform.

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Discovery. If you and another were texting each other via SMS, but signal was your app, signal would just upgrade your sms to a signal msg. You didn't have to have a conversation ahead of time, or save them in your contacts and let signal scan them - it just worked.

Discovering you're not limited to sms was nice, when now you have to have an aside - "hey, have you ever heard of signal?"

Signal on Android previously worked a lot like iMessage on iOS - you'd use it as your default messenger, it'd SMS if that was the lowest common denominator, or it'd seamlessly upgrade to Signal protocol if both sides had it.

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