Immediately, you'll be greeter with a splash screen. You'll want to tap on the Set default SMS app button. From the list presented, tap on the text messaging app of your choice. Tap on Set as default.

How to Change Default iPhone and iPad Apps You can change default apps via a neat little menu that was introduced in the iOS 18.2 update.

If you decide to change your default calling or messaging app, any phone number that you tap will automatically send you to the WhatsApp app to make a call.

While apps like 1Password quickly took advantage of these new changes, there have been few to no takers in the calling, contactless payments, and messaging categories. Enter DefaultSMS, a new app that ...

Note also, in case it isn’t obvious, that you need to install an app before selecting it as default: on a brand-new iPhone the menu for default email apps, for example, will only show Mail, with ...

iPhone users can now get setup so that WhatsApp is their default messaging and calling app. If your iPhone is updated to iOS 18.2 then the functionality is already available for you right now.

In iOS 18, you can open Settings then tap Apps at the bottom of the settings page to show all your app-specific settings. With the iOS 18.2 beta, that list is topped by a new Default Apps menu.