I’ve always used a 3rd party app on my Android phones and it’s so much better than any of the texting programs they have had come installed on the device. There are so many issues. You could get a different program depending on what mfg your phone is from, which could be great or utterly suck. Hangouts used to be a thing but as far as I know texts s weren’t integrated into it so it was a secondary or additional app. Of course I don’t know what exactly iMessages even is but based on your comment, it’s better than that lol