Apple has been in the messaging game even longer on the Mac: It first introduced iChat way back in 2002, which supported AOL Instant Messenger, then later expanded to Jabber, Yahoo, ICQ, and more. Eventually, iChat transmuted into Messages and getting iMessage support, and for a while, things were pretty stable.
However, with the new additions in iOS 10, the Mac is once again left out in the cold. It gets some of the new features, like Tapbacks, but the flashier additions are iOS-only. It’s a puzzling move, to my thinking, though unpacking it brings a certain degree of logic: The Mac is a much smaller market than iOS, and messaging is no doubt less popular on the desktop than on mobile.
I’ve never been so happy that a feature stays iOS only. I disabled emoji a long time ago on all of my devices by deleting the keyboards and I disabled all of the iMessage effects as well. I would prefer if we return to the BBS days of plain-text and ASCII but those days are clearly behind us.
My point is, mac OS’ lack of the fancy new iMessage features is a great thing. I don’t want them to invade the platform that I use for real-work and productivity. iOS for me is entertainment. Macintosh is for work.