Samsung joins Google in RCS shaming Apple
Samsung has released a new video in support of Google’s #GetTheMessage campaign which calls for Apple to adopt RCS or “Rich Communication Services,” the cross-platform protocol pitched as a successor to SMS that adopts many of the features found in modern messaging apps... like Apple’s own iMessage.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/10/23910941/samsung-rcs-shaming-apple-getthemessageOpen linkView original on lemmy.world1131
Comments432
AFAIK there is no open source messaging app that support RCS yet. It's not even included in android AOSP (or is it? I can't find any reference). It would help with adoption if google actually open-sourced the RCS client app.
They won't let any third party apps use it so they are basically as bad as imessage.
The simple fact that iMessage has 0 interoperability makes it much worse than everything else.
So I doubt RCS could be as bad except if they remove the ability to operate with other RCS clients. And even for Google and Samsung that would be extremely stupid.
At least it sends standard SMS to everyone without an iPhone. Wouldn't call that 0 interoperability
I've just been googling a bit because I haven't read about RCS in a while, but I remember thinking then that the show stopping thing is that it's not E2E, and Apple would be dumb to move to since iMessage is. It seems now that E2E is supported but requires clients to support it, which tbh seems the worst of all worlds. At least today I know blue = encrypted, green = not encrypted. If it's optional and we end up in a "is this encrypted? we'll see ¯\(ツ)/¯" type of world that is honestly terrible. I also don't know how great it would be if you have to rely on the client vendor to accurately report encryption status because there are some I trust, and especially when it comes to "just download whatever RCS client you want" I absolutely would not trust that.
iMessage is only E2E encrypted if both users have iCloud disabled or have gone into their iCloud settings and enabled “Advanced Data Protection”
Wow, thanks. Always assumed E2E was enabled by default. That sucks.
The message transit encryption is on but backups are unencrypted by default, which makes it quite pointless
Fair point. It looks more specifically they're not if you enable "messages in iCloud" or iCloud backup with messages.
“Enable” is incorrect, and why I was warning you about it. It’s on by default, so you need to “disable” it if you want E2E encryption
A blue bubble is unlikely to mean a message is E2E encrypted. That may not matter for your threat model, but Apple almost certainly has the decryption keys for your messages
So essentially they're just as bad as RCS. Both hamstrung by the limitations of their encryptions interoperability
The RCS e2e extension is client controlled, the client app knows if it's active
RCS is only interoperable with apps and carriers that adopt the Jibe protocol, so not much has changed.
Forgive me if I'm mistaken but did Signal adopt RCS? I they abandoned SMS for RC- if I recall - couldn't SMS my friends on it anymore and abandoned ship lol
Edit: wait, I don't think signal is open source
I don't know what you're talking about. Signal does not use RCS and it is open source.
ASFAIK Signal doesn't support RCS, only Signal protocol, after they dropped SMS.
This seems to be the mistake I made - thank you for clarifying :)
Signal is open source. The only part that isn't is the server side spam filtering.
Signal abadonned supporting SMS completely and afaik RCS is spoken of in regards to SMS.
Fundamentally the problem is that SMS is rather dated and doesn't support a lot of features expected of a modern messaging app. Apple decided to do what Apple does and made their own proprietary protocol that runs parallel to SMS. When you send a "text message" on iMessage it checks if the person you're talking to is also using iMessage and if so sends the message via Apples private service. If they aren't using iMessage it dumbs things down and send it via SMS as a fallback.
Google came along and more or less did the same thing but made their protocol (RCS) licensable which makes them slighty better than Apple, but it's still not as good as an actual open standard.
Signal is yet another solution, but they were primarily focused on security and encryption rather than new features, but fundamentally they did the same thing as iMessage initially. About a year or two ago Signal dropped the option to fallback to SMS so now you can only send Signal messages between Signal users. Unlike Apple or Google, signals protocol is open, but Signal itself is closed source and I don't believe they allow interop with their service so I'm not sure their protocol being open actually does much good.
Basically everyone sucks in their own way, but if you want SMS interop then the least bad option is RCS currently.
Signal is almost entirely open source but not interoperable
Well that's interesting. I didn't think they had made their server source available, but I just checked their github and it does actually have a repo for their server.
Okay, Samsung is the party with some credibility here. It's a lot harder to hear Google whine about messaging standards when their churn in messaging has been hilarious and embarrassing.
I've lost track of all the messaging apps they had:
I'm sure I'm forgetting a few.
Allo
Duo
begging they bring back whisperSHOUT from Allo to Google Messages :(
that was awesome
Google Talk
There's also Duo, which turned into Meet. it's basically Google Facetime.
Google Talk was the name before it became Gmail Chat
Hangouts was so close to perfect before they blew it all up.
Now I'm using a mix of Chat and Voice and it's terrible for everyone. Voice doesn't even support RCS from what I can tell, and all my messages with iPhone users are full of reactions. It's so annoying. I've had the same Google Voice number for over a decade, why is this so frustrating?
Voice is soooo frustrating. It had so much promise! But they haven't added anything to it in what 5 years? Maybe longer
tbh I don't know that I would remind anyone at Google that Voice exists, I think that's just about the only thing that is keeping it alive.
Duo (videocalling app)
They also killed YouTube DMs
Samsung has 0 credibility here because they just use Google messages and Google’s Jibe implementation of RCS.
If Google drops Jibe for something else, it means Samsung is as well.
RCS isn’t really a standard anymore either. Once Google put out their own proprietary Jibe implementation, everyone just adopted that instead of putting in the work to implement it themselves. All the carriers in the US use Jibe as their RCS backend, and Samsung moved to using Google Messages as their default messenger. And all RCS messages go through Google servers.
If Google decides to do something else and drop Jibe, like they have with every other messaging service they have had, that’s it for RCS.
Samsung's record on RCS isn't great. Their Samsung Messages app didn't work across networks for most of last year. Like RCS only worked on t-mobile, but only for t-mobile branded phones, and for some time they couldn't send to AT&T. Not sure if Google Messages was much better during that time period.
they also removed messages from aosp i believe
Unless the EU makes them, they're not adopting rcs. I could see them putting out an imessage app for Android though. Probably ad supported to make the experience extra shitty for us. They'd quickly own the messaging market, at least in the US.
Internal memos explicitly stated execs were worried that if they brought iMessage to android, poor families might buy their kids cheap android phones instead of iPhones.
You can't make this stuff up
https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/27/22406303/imessage-android-eddy-cue-emails-apple-epic-deposition
The audacity of parents trying to buy something less expensive in these crazy inflated times
That was from 2013.
Ok I'll ask, how is iMessage fundamentally any different from texting (other than this RCS stuff)? You can still text. Or is it that weird color thing or checkmark that kids are social pressured into?
The color is one part, the other is that it breaks functions in iMessage. So the elitism doubles up
Liked "The color is one part, the other is that it breaks functions in iMessage. So the elitism doubles up"
Gave thumbs up to "Liked "The color is one part, the other is that it breaks functions in iMessage. So the elitism doubles up""
This was the experience Android users had initially, then Android started parsing them and adding the reaction to the message. This is also when iMessage started getting that type of message instead of the reaction, as a sort of dig at iMessage
Doesn’t look like it does.
Can you tell me what functions? Emojis?
Images are a lot lower resolution (and no “live” photos which are cute if your mom takes a pic of their pet bunny), you can’t add people to group chats or rename them, you can’t see if someone’s read or typed your message, you can’t “like” texts without them appearing like the above post, I think there are even sound bites, little games but I haven’t played with them.
Are "custom stickers" (or whatever they're called) a thing on Android? My dad's been having a blast taking a bunch of goofy pictures of himself and making stickers out of them. We get a good laugh out of them whenever he sends us a pic of himself leaning into the screen giving us the finger.
Yeah, they are built into Gboard and work even animated over MMS.
Iphone users keep sending me long horribly compressed videos i can't see at all because it's not a problem between iPhones. And something about group chats?
That's all I know of based on my experience.
And Android users send me postage-stamp sized videos I can't see at all. Not gunning, just saying it's a problem in both directions (and apple's fault). Also, Android doesn't have the same easter eggs, like automatic confetti filling my screen when someone writes the word "congratulations!" in iMessage. Oh, right - iMessage gives me in-line replies and the ability to give a thumbs up/down/heart etc. response to a single message. Don't know if android has this feature, but android users just get a blank text if I "thumbs up" a comment, for example.
Yes, we literally have all of that including normal quality images if Apple would just play fucking ball outside of their own ecosystem.
Reactions are a thing in most messengers. It's just apple using proprietary code.
Some android messaging apps have the ability to interpret emoji reactions and display them correctly. The issue with photo and video quality is infuriating, though.
Google Messages (RCS app) does that. It even works from iMessage to Android but that is just because Google parses the SMS text that says they reacted that iMessage passive-aggressively sends and makes it appear correctly. It's not following RCS protocol, it's basic text parsing is all.
Incidentally, Google also started sending the same pass-aggressive reacted SMS messages to iPhone users for those using those RCS features, so now Apple gets the messages Android users had to deal with for years (and still do, if they aren't using Messages). I don't know is Apple is doing the same parsing or not as Google, if they aren't then somewhat ironically to Apple's intention Android now has the better react experience.
It's a lot of things, and Apple kinda backed into the lock-in aspect I think by mistake. At the time it debuted, you mainly used SMS when mobile texting, and SMS is garbage. It's not encrypted, was limited to a small number of characters, etc. Picture/video messaging also isn't part of the standard, so MMS was tacked on with massive limits, because the thing about SMS is that it wasn't really designed with it's own bandwidth in mind and instead piggybacked on the carrier signal in idle time (I'm real fuzzy on the details because it's been so long, if someone knows exactly that would be helpful context.) Most importantly, in the US at least, SMS was a fee carriers absolutely scalped you for. When iMessage came out, carriers were still charging absolutely stupid prices for a package of like 200 texts and per text after, and receiving also counted towards that.
Apple says "hey we have the internet on this thing, let's make it a feature that when you send to other iPhone users it doesn't count against your text package" and then built a "modern" text platform. E2E, rich image/video support, the stuff you mention, etc. They made it so that you didn't have to worry about whether your friend was on iPhone, you could send a message to their number and Apple would figure it out. The green bubble thing initially was just "btw you're paying for this one." The reason I say they kinda backed into the lock-in thing is because obviously the idea here was "buy an iPhone and stop paying stupid carrier fees" which is obviously a lock-in strategy, but that aspect of the carrier plans basically collapsed as Facebook released Messenger that same year, so it quickly became "unlimited for $20" and then just "it's all in your plan (which we're just being less obvious bout gouging you on.)"
The green bubble thing sticks around though in the US largely because the US is one of the few places where iMessage becomes a major player in the messaging space, probably because the US market sees a larger share of iPhone sales due to economics and Apple not really having a low-end strategy except "buy an older iPhone." Other places go to WhatsApp or WeChat or whatever, but Apple continues to grow (I think around 55% in the US?) and now it's an annoyance for everyone. I don't think I've ever really seen anyone care about the green bubble other than "shit now I have to figure out how to send them this video of the whatever." At least for younger generations, this just means that the primary text method becomes Snap (me and my wife are about the only people my kids open the Messages app instead of Snap for) while the olds all use Facebook Messenger, and those who refuse just spend more of their day annoyed.
Anyway, it was a nice convenience when it launched. Personally, I think Apple has little reason to develop and process messaging for free for Android and businesses don't do things to be nice, but they're all about service revenue, so I think they should release an Android app, and make it easy to buy stickers and shit like that, send money via Apple Pay, etc. iMessage has already subtly shifted that direction on iPhone and I know at least in my friend/family group we pass money around like that all the time, and this becomes another thing that's sort of annoying when we hang out with someone who isn't on iOS. also, probably obviously, but it's not even like "oh we're hanging out with the poor friend on Android" or anything, he is also holding a $900-$1200 phone, so the lack of interop on these types of things that should probably just be a protocol is annoying af.
Wikipedia sais WhatsApp was released 2009, two years before iMessage. So the idea wasn't new and they most likely didn't lock out Android users by accident.
Of course the idea wasn't new. That's very nearly Apple's business model - they're rarely first to market with a technology. I'm sure if I go look, AIM was probably in there pretty close the App Store launch. But Apple's implementation was quite new. Everyone in the US at least was texting with the phone number as the identifier. Apple made it so that no one had to change any habits, use the same method for texting you have been literally in the same app you always have, and if you text another iPhone it just works better. They didn't make it worse on Android.
I'm not sure how this is "lockout." I already made the argument it's a lock-in tactic, but like when Tesla came out with the supercharger network, should I be mad that it doesn't gas up my Honda? Why would we expect that Apple is going to develop and maintain an app for Android for free and the massive amount of infrastructure that goes with it any more than I would expect Tesla to have added a gas pump to the supercharger network? And similar, it's not like superchargers existing means all of the gas stations are gone.
It's also worth noting that RCS functionally didn't exist during development of iMessage (I think they were forming a committee to decide which committee will implement committee structure votes or something) and that even now RCS implementation is questionable at best between not having E2E as a requirement and the fragmentation that exists even across Android and most especially carriers (lots of examples of RCS being iffy in this thread alone) so it wasn't like Apple looked at a fully-formed SMS/MMS replacement and chose to do their own thing.
Then you tack on 10 years of Google absolutely fumbling the bag with their messaging strategy (everyone reading is thinking of a different one - you're all correct) and now we end up in the situation we're in where not only did iMessage lock-in work for Apple, it worked better than they hoped and it's not just keeping people on iPhone, it's actively attracting people.
My optimistic take on this is that I hope they decide the lock-in isn't worth it in favor of the type of model where they monetize through Apple Pay and stuff and build an Android app because I sincerely doubt there is any other way toward unified messaging, in much the same as Tesla now licensing superchargers to other EV makers. As it stands, Apple could give a shit about Samsung's ads, and aside from the lock-in, a core of their brand is privacy/security so RCS as-is will be a non-starter. Well covered in this thread, but the EU isn't coming to save us and the US has congress that can't even regulate it's own bowel movements, so
Yes, having to figure out how to send a video is super annoying. The easiest default is FB messenger because everyone has it, but fuck I don't like giving my private messages to meta.
My go-to is just to send an iCloud link. I technically have a Facebook account, but for various social reasons I don't tell anyone and basically only use it for occasionally browsing marketplace. Even that is more data than I like to give Facebook.
It goes both ways. Both videos and photos from Galaxy phones end up at like 128x80 on my iphone.
It would be fixed both ways if Apple adopted rcs
iMessage is basically proprietary RCS. SMS doesn’t support images, for example. When you send an image via “sms” you’re really probably using “mms” behind the scenes, which has severe limits to quality. If you send an image with imessage, RCS, or any of a variety of custom messaging protocols, you can get the full-quality image.
They also support gimmicks like “reacting” to messages which get overlaid in-line with a heart icon. On SMS it is sent as “MooseBoys loved ‘be right there’”.
Technically, yes SMS doesn't support reactions. But you can do what Google does and just parse that text and "turn" it into a reaction for viewing purposes.
If an iPhone user sends me a reaction it looks fine to me, but funnily enough now when I send one back it looks the exact way Apple sends it to non Apple devices.
RCS is basically proprietary RCS.
It is not open, it is controlled by the telcos, and google has been pushing their own proprietary version of RCS to the telcos.
It’s no better than iMessage. This isn’t a problem in the rest of the world, they just all use WhatsApp.
This is a legacy of the US being out in front of adoption of SMS, and it still being ingrained. It’s largely only a US problem. And it’s not even really a problem.
I love iMessage, but I have WhatsApp and signal and like 19 other apps that offer messaging for people who prefer it.
That’s the problem. Maybe it’s a cultural thing, but Americans seem to be quite averse to downloading a new app or signing up for a new service just to communicate with someone if I have their phone number. As a result, it needs to be supported by default on all phones as shipped. Today, the only thing that fits that is SMS.
I guess. I’m American and interact with plenty of friends via discord, instagram and others. My friend group has a private discord and I use DMs instead of iMessage all the time.
You can turn off iMessage and you’ll be sending texts as regular SMS.
No clue, just saying you’re “allowed” to use SMS if it’s important to you. But I might have misinterpreted you!
Above commenter was saying that you're not allowed to use any other app besides the default messages app to send SMS on an iPhone, so a third party can't just come in with an SMS app that also implements RCS so everyone can be happy
You can send SMS on iPhone with the Google voice app. Yes it would be from a different phone number than your SIM, but it works.
The other replies answered it.
It’s not just the bubble color. The bubble color means it will be more difficult to exchange photos/videos (they get sent in MMS and compressed to hell) or use stickers/reactions properly.
Or just don't use iMessage for texting. Every other messaging app has these features and is free and usable on every smartphone
SMS isold and shitty, but its supported on every phone model. Apple stacked iMessage on top of it for rich media when both endpoints support iMessage. android and others stacked RCS on top of SMS for the same rich media purposes. When incompatible devices communicate (iOS<->non-iOS), they fall back to crappy SMS. You're saying you like the separate-system status quo and if you want to communicate with one group or the other (iOS or non-iOS), switch devices. We're saying why can't we all just have one rich-media format that works for everybody?" I don't care if Apple switches to RCS or opens up full-featured iMessage to everybody. I just want to be able to talk to all my friends without us having to buy the same hardware. Are you just being intentionally obtuse?
I have an iPhone, and the primary reason why is because 90% of my friends and family will not adopt another app for messaging. Why should they when literally everyone else they communicate with can take iMessages?
But when everyone is passing around photos and videos, the one person who greatly prefers open-standards gets (and sends) potato quality.
And that is really Apples “fault”. Not really, though, because it’s not an accident that they have an amazing messaging platform that is the system default and just so happens to be proprietary. And as such they have no incentive to fix it, because it will only lead to people like me leaving iPhone.
Apple literally created the hierarchy...
Except that You literally made it up though? You embellished the part about poor families and cheap phones, here's the actual quote:
How else would you read that lol come on, now
Kids might want an Android phone for another reason than "we're poor". For a while, there were plenty of apps you could get on an Android that you couldn't get on an iPhone. Customization was a big deal back when I was in highschool. All the cool kids had these shitty custom launchers that made their phone borderline unusable if you didn't know how they were setup, but that was the cool thing to do back then.
I've got the money to buy an iPhone, but prefer Android for customization and app reasons still. Apple is far too restrictive of a phone that you own. I like the ability to side load apps, and I play a lot of emulated GBA/DS games, and apple doesn't allow emulator apps on their store.
I can afford an iPhone 15 but I run a used OnePlus 6T I got on eBay for $100 because postmarketOS runs well on it. I ran a $200 PinePhone for a while before that. Bring on the phones that put the user's control ahead of the profits.
I'd read it the way it was written. Apple has less expensive phones for people who want them, and honestly most poor families just get their phones through their carrier at a monthly rate, so your assertion isn't really a necessary tactic.
Uh... Apple has the iPhone. That's all they have. They make the iPhone. One phone. What other phone do that have?
They currently offer 4 different families of iPhone for sale. The cheapest one is the SE for $429.
What else could it imply? Surely if money is not an obstacle they'd just buy the iPhone they wanted for their kids.
Since not even iPhone users in Europe use iMessage I highly doubt anyone would use it outside the US.
I feel Europe is a lot more diverse than you think. In Norway, which have a fairly high percentage of iPhone users, iMessage is the most used - or at least I don’t know anyone who doesn’t use it by default.
A few friends chat are on Messenger or Snapchat. Signal / Telegram / WhatsApp etc are extremely rare.
And also as a Norwegian I don't know a single person that uses iMessage.
Everyone I know are using Facebook messenger, Snapchat or WhatsApp.
Well but I’ll guess most of those you know use Android while most of who I know use iPhone?
Mostly iPhones actually, they do use a lot of facetime to be fair, but almost all chatting is Facebook messenger
I tried using the Apple app on Android for tracking the tracking thingies. Horrible, horrible app. I will not be trusting anything put out by Apple for Android unless they do a Microsoft and go all in. Otherwise, they will always have a reason to make the Android experience worse than the iPhone experience.
There is a FOSS app for that https://github.com/seemoo-lab/AirGuard
It's built into my phone now. But thanks
Under new EU laws, Apple will be forced to allow interoperability with iMessage in the future. That doesn't necessarily mean them adopting RCS or bringing iMessage to non-Apple platforms, but it does mean they'll need to at the very least publish an API allowing external software or services to use iMessage.
I just expect them to make the interoperability as shitty as possible
I think they found imessage not to be a leading platform so AFAIK this isn't the case for now. Maybe if more people start using it they'll revisit the question.
I do, but most people don't
I lost half the people I'd gotten on signal when they removed sms. People liked it well enough when they could do all their messaging from one app on Android.
Is there any precedent to ads in Apple products (apart from their store)? Although they'll surely find other ways to annoy non-Apple users, I don't think ads are "in style" for them.
Unless carriers deprecate SMS/MMS.
Phone carriers should be deprecated.
This is what I believe Google is actually trying to get carriers to do, and I suspect carriers (in some shape or form) will actually do this, just not in the way you think.
RCS will eventually become the dominant messaging standard, however, I think they're actually working on a backwards compatibility for SMS and MMS in some capacity. In this way, phones (like the iPhone or older Android phones) will still be capable of sending and receiving SMS and MMS in typical elitist walled-garden fashion, but the carrier will receive it as an RCS message and relay it to an RCS-compatible device as an RCS message.
In this way, group chats with four Android users and two iPhone users will still allow those Android users to benefit from RCS from each other (typing indicators, reactions, potentially some level of E2E, support for large media, etc), while the iPhones in the group chat will actually be the ones having a negative experience (no typing indicators, reactions appearing as text messages, no E2E, obnoxious green bubbles) since Apple refuses to integrate RCS into their Messaging application. Of course Apple will continue to gaslight their customers through high contrast green bubble dark patterns, and continued refusal of adopting RCS or creating iMessage for Android. As they've made clear, they don't care about giving their customers the best possible experience, and prefer to maintain market control for as long as possible.
The #GetTheMessage ads are likely gearing up for the eventuality of this change, and the Pixel x iPhone ads are all "buddy buddy, kill them with kindness" so they can out Apple as the hostile ones when they refuse to acknowledge the existence of other smartphones either through its aggressive marketing, or through refusal to adopt open standards.
If this were all to happen, depending on how well the RCS backwards compatibility worked and its ability to out Apple as the shut ins that they are, I could (crazy talk) foresee Apple creating a standalone iMessage app to, at the very minimum, keep Android users talking within their iMessage ecosystem.
Not going to happen. They charge such an insanely high premium vs real cost for a very primitive messaging system, they're not letting that go!
Friendly reminder that none of these asswipes are your friend :)
Gotta love how Google has spent the last, what, 10 years?, fighting iMessage and losing due to their own short-sightedness/lack of focus and incompetence. The company that dethroned MSN Messenger couldn't win a fight against an opponent that, on a global scale, represents ~25% of the mobile market. Meanwhile, Whatsapp dominates the instant messaging world.
I really thought Facebook overspent when they bought Whatsapp for $1B but I was wrong. It took Google too long to finally get behind a single messaging strategy. That's just poor leadership.
Messaging with Google is a funny story thought. They had something that worked and destroyed it by defederating it
After that they had like what 10 more apps, and multiple one not link together from their own services
Google photo has its own, google Drive too, probably other as well, and then there's Google Meet...,
Wasn't it a crazier number—like $15 billion or something?
Edit: Siri says $19 billion [pinkie to corner of lips]
My memory was waaaaay off
Thatz ok, little buddy :) U just leave all the thinking to me [mind tap]
Yes, 16
In order to grow a chat app you need a consistent and stable interface over a long period of time. It can't have too much bullshit in it either.
In order to grow your career at Google you need to build ridiculous shit and then leave once you get your promo. Entire departments get reorged so someone can hit their people manager quota.
Product groups, business units, "orgs", VPs, SVPs, it's all just a game and "everyone's playing except you." This is why Google kills shit. Because Google rewards behavior that results in killing shit.
Facebook bought Instagram for a billion. WhatsApp was 16 billion (and additional 3 billion in restricted stock units).
Ahh yes my memory isn't great anyways. Thanks
iMessage will have to open up bridges to other messaging services soon regardless thanks to being a Gatekeeper under the EU Digital Markets App.
bad news, imassage was not classified a gatekeeper because in europe they have to few users
But for the same reason nobody cares about iMessage. I don't know anyone who uses it.
Even Apple users in my country are using WhatsApp.
While Apple should adopt RCS, I cannot help but feel that Google is being extremely hypocritical. They complain about iMessage being proprietary, but their implementation of RCS isn’t open source, and I believe they even mentioned they have no plans to open it up for 3rd party devs to implement it into their own sms apps. This just feels like an iMessage equivalent for Android. It has rich features that are exclusive to Android as a platform (more specifically exclusive to Google Messages or whatever the app is called now)… just like iMessage within iOS/MacOS/iPadOS..
MKBHD closed this topic for me forever. Apple is never going to open up. It provides them tremendous value. They don’t give a shit if Samsung taunts them lol. They want your teenage kids taunting their friends over their green bubbles. And it’s working.
Why should anyone care about RCS? The trend has been to get everything into data instead of carrier owned services for two decades now, we don't need another SMS (it will likely always be a fallback). What we should move onto is a carrier and device type angnostic universal standard protocol over TCP / QUIC like XMPP or Matrix, with SMS as the backup.
When you get a phone you can get an phone system account and a telephone number already. Modern apps in the Google ecosystem should already recognize you are already signed in with Google and sync your contacts. Since almost everyone is already in the Google ecosystem, if Google supported it they could have extended their XMPP implementation in Hangouts to allow messaging directly via XMPP to those contacts and SMS for anyone not yet in the system (similar to how Signal did, Apple does, and Google does now with RCS). Unlike Apple, since its just XMPP, users can still add friends and be added by friends on other XMPP servers (ex. their ISPs, their own, or a third party). They could have supported or jumpstarted a new very simple open source alternative app for that portion for AOSP if the EU complained. Eventually Carriers could have supported passthroughs for those still on feature phones and other users of SMS to use the number@carrier accounts to hit XMPP users with generated SMS numbers for non-SMS users (pushed either by business necessity or part of a government / teleco org like GSMA staged removal of SMS and telephone numbers). It's all data at the end of the day.
Instead, they developed a whole new protocol to fluff the telecos and keep the now badly managed telephone number system even more necessary allowing spammers and allow the problems of legacy SMS to continue.
Apple, Google, and Samsung should all be shamed for not supporting fully open protocols and necessitating dependency on user harming stacks.
This sounds nice at a superficial level, but there's a lot of reliability and backwards compatibility issues being ignored. During natural disasters and emergency situations, internet and cellular data are the first to fail. It's not casual. For the phone and SMS (GSMA) protocols are sturdy enough that they can operate with very simple, low energy consuming and highly reliable machines. Internet data services on the other hand consume way more electricity (more expensive to have them operate with backup generators, for example) and are more delicate and prone to failure. They also need to be replaced more often. 100% of national emergencies systems run on phone and SMS tech, that could reliably operate for several decades with little maintenance that would cost billions to replace them with internet based system that were as reliable and durable. And then on top of it all, wired phones can even operate without electricity and connect with cellular terminals to contact other phones and cellphones. Only the tower needs to have power. There's just a lot banked of that reliability that most modern conveniences don't have.
In case of emergency it runs or it doesn't run. No matter if cellular or data.
Best were something like Briar's local wifi mesh standardized for emergency anyway.
I totally agree we can't simply drop SMS immediately, but what am I missing in supporting backwards compatibility (for example via my pseudo number solution, like how VOIP works) preventing us from moving forward during a stagged shutdown in the span of decades? MMS and RCS both would also fail under cellular data loss, and SMS itself hasn't always been available during major disasters. I'm not sure I buy the argument you can't have similarly low energy towers (even with net neutrality states, you can still cap all bandwidth per user), and a simpler tower that only does data should be far more reliable than a tower that provides multiple carrier services given the simplicity (and it's very rare to have towers that only do voice + SMS anymore).
Neither has running water or electricity. And SMS isn't actually the last fall-back (over here), that's FM radio which has better reach and crank-powered receivers start at like 10 bucks. Also there's a ton of generator-powered receivers around (called cars). Oh, dang, no, that's not actually the last fall-back that'd be megaphone trucks and cars practically all emergency service vehicles have some kind of PA system.
Solar storm killed the electrics of the new vehicles? There's a 60-year old Unimog still standing around getting moved once a year to keep it operational and I bet you'll find an analog megaphone in storage somewhere. It's astonishing how little stuff gets thrown away, we once stumbled across a stash of field telephones, half of them with swastikas ground off, the others still intact. Those require a crank and a copper cable to operate, nothing more. We used them to organise parking for a summer camp before the days of mobile flatrates.
The actual upside of plain ole GSM is that practically everyone carries around a receiver all the time, and there's reception literally everywhere. Better reach and better signal bandwidth than sirens, though of course nothing beats the oh fuck oh fuck hear it in your marrow aspect of sirens.
Catastrophe relief isn't an area where you ever want to have a single strategy because absolutely nothing is 100% fail-safe. In principle something like TETRA would be better than GSM but civilian phones don't speak it. (TETRA uses mesh networking, you can do direct handset to handset calls, drive around base stations in trucks to extend reach, etc)
Great points!
I don't know for certain. But one point to consider is that you have to qualify your “simply” statements with the fact that we are talking about millions of towers and hundreds of millions of repeaters over millions of square miles. While RCS works on top of the backbone that's already there and fallsback to SMS by design. So it might actually be simpler. The big up is that the server is on the carrier, not centralized, which makes it entirely different than what you are talking about and giving it more resilience.
There is so much nonsense being said about RCS, it will not fail under "cellular data loss".
Imagine a world where we can adopt a scalable, secure, open communication protocol where users can use whatever app they want. Imagine humanity moving past the diaspora of special-snowflake chat apps and on to better things.
Breaking news: Apple and majority of its users still don’t care.
I’d love to have RCS, but it’s not a make or break feature for me, and I’m tech savvy enough to know what it is and what it does. Good luck trying to convince the average consumer to give a fuck about invisible tech that doesn’t meaningfully change their experience.
Well, it would change their experience. They would see improved photo quality to/from Android users via text messages. But Apple has managed to train people to think that Apple's refusal to put iMessage on other devices is somehow a shortcoming of Android.
Considering how much time Apple users spend bitching about green text bubbles and "shitty android photos" it would meaningfully impact their experience when talking to anyone that's not on iPhone.
They blame Android for that for some reason. Makes no sense.
Apple deliberately makes it appear that way so the competition looks bad.
They don't really advertise the fact that they're quietly intercepting all of their customers messages to other customers and routing them through a proprietary network.
And if you dare leave, messages from your old iPhone friends mysteriously won't arrive unless you proactively deregister your number from iMessage or it eventually expires out.
...or when you are given a new number from the provider and dont find out it doesn't recieve messages from iPhones.
Happened to my fiance a few months back. She got a new number, and her dad received no messages from her. (He had an iPhone) It was fathers day weekend. All plans fell through.
Cause they don't realize it's a protocol issue, they just imagine that only iPhone has progressed past 2007 photo technology I guess.
First part is true, second part isn't. Most people aren't that dumb.
Apple users are.
That is a terrible generalization and even my less tech savvy Apple friends and family don't think this.
yeah, people are use to having 10 different chat apps, and it seams to be normal, which is sad (somebody should make a standard! *insert that xkcd comic about making a better standard)
With RCS there seams to be less chance that they destroy it like they did with XMPP (google / Facebook and cie)
As you wish
Yes, until now we've accepted to be governed by what Big Tech can convince "average users" to use and here we are.
Internet is controlled by a handful of company who decide what you read, what you watch, how you communicate with friends and family.
It sucks because there are so many great alternatives to most big tech solutions but it doesn’t matter until you can convince people of the benefits of using those alternatives.
Apple don't want it because it removes part of their marketing strategy. (Being, if your friends have Apple, you also need apple)
Apple Users don't know what it is.
You say you don't know what it is or does. Yet you say you'd love to have it. That's quite contradictory don't you think?And it WOULD impact their experience.
It amazes me that people like you, who don't actually know or understand the topic, can be so vocal about your opinions and conclusions. About something you don't know.It's the USB-C standard all over... "Apple and majority of their users don't care". And that's still not what it's about. It's about setting a standard so we don't need 9 different cables and 7 different apps, just to send a God damn picture or video.
Edit: I misread the comment. I take back what I said that's striked over. My bad. Sorry.
They said in the comment that they are tech savvy enough to understand what RCS is and does.
My bad. I completely read that wrong. Could have sworn I saw a "not" in there.
This isn't about making iPhone users care per se, I really think it's just a public perception thing.
I’d love to have RCS if only because iMessage is literally the only reason I have an iPhone.
I got roped into it because all my friends and family refuse to change to be able to exchange media messages with essentially just one person.
Granted, as far as phones go, it’s pretty damn good and aged incredibly well. My 12 pro max performs better than any flagship I’ve owned previously would’ve at the 3 year mark.
Then you just refuse to chat with all of your friends and family. Problem solved. They don't get to pick which phone you are going to buy because of a mere communication problem.
Let me be clear, I care more about my friends and family than I do about what kind of phone I have.
Nobody wants to use anything except the default app or maybe FB Messenger (which…just…no, for so many reasons). But Apple wants to make sure that their default app remains intrinsically incompatible with the default app on every other major brand phone.
Not that they have much of a choice. They know that if iMessage were compatible with RCS, they’d lose a handful of customers like me. And they probably wouldn’t earn any new Android customers as a result.
Supporting RCS in iMessage is the “right” thing to do, IMO, but there’s absolutely no incentive for Apple to do it, so they will probably only ever adopt it if their hand is forced.
Apple is not going to change this unless legally forced to because it is quite possibly the biggest driver of iPhone sales.
A whopping 87% of American teens use an iPhone, and the green text from Android SMS is the biggest reason. At that age people will do almost anything to fit in and get a date, and the green text was chosen specifically to elicit an "eww" response. Most of those teens will likely will continue to use iPhones as adults because it's what they know.
I'd be ok with everybody adopting Signal protocol but I can safetly say no government anywhere would "allow" that
I am beyond bummed that Signal abandoned SMS support. It worked, it isn't a constantly evolving standard. Just leave it alone, Signal!!
I used it too. I miss it, but i get why they removed it: it just kinda breaks the Signal user experience and trust model. This app lives and dies by the users trust their conversations will be private. By having an option to message someone in a completely unencrypted, easy to intercept mode like SMS it risks this trust for little gain (some power users like us liked it). By removing it, the app concentrates on what is expected from it and removes a big possibility for user error while fleshing out its marketing image even more. It makes perfect sense but its a tad annoying.
Unfortunately, in doing so, Signal became Yet Another Messaging App. It really damaged their value proposition in my eyes.
If I need a separate app for SMS, WhatsApp, Messenger, Telegram, Signal, etc, it just becomes a chore to find enough friends willing to move to it exclusively.
The IM ecosystem really needs to be harmonized on the user end. I remember Trillian was this great app back in the day that brokered all your MSM, Google Chat, etc IM accounts into a single app that let you just focus on messaging people and not worrying about what platform was being used. We badly need this again.
Matrix can kinda emulate this kind of "all messages in one app" experience with bridges but you introduce a single server who decrypts all your end to end encryption so you pretty much have to self host. Also the bridges arent perfect so your msgs will sometimes look weird or not support some features.
A shared frontend would be a little more convenient, but is having multiple apps that big a deal? I think I have eight right now.
Android's default Contacts app has buttons for each option a given contact has so there's not even much cognitive load to pick the app you need if you start from there.
I don't have people saved in Contacts, they are only saved in my apps directly
Most chat apps will sync with Contacts if you allow them to. If you don't do that, then you have to remember which app you want for each person, which becomes inconvenient if you have a lot of contacts who use different apps.
I understand what you're saying, but I feel it was pretty transparent the way they handled SMS vs. Signal Messages. I suppose it's a bit like the D.W. meme, though.
Yeah, I don't follow the details on this much and my first thought was "Signal had SMS support? WTF?"
I understand that they wanted stay true their philosophy but that decision is the reason we will never see Signal be relevant ever again. I hope they do a U turn
I always thought having SMS support in Signal created a significant risk of confusion about what kind of message the user was sending. Of course sophisticated users always knew the difference, but it's for software that emphasizes security it's better not to have to tell people who don't understand the technical details "it's secure unless...".
It's a valid point that it could potentially create some confusion when a user assumes that everything in Signal is secure. Unencrypted SMS threads could contain an open padlock icon and even an ominous red window border, but someone inevitably will not understand the difference.
However, my frustration has been how both convenience and security is reduced by removing SMS from Signal.
Many people will continue to use SMS for a variety of reasons, necessitating the use of an additional app. So now we have people continuing to communicate over this insecure protocol, but with the additional target vector of potential vulnerabilities in the supplemental app.
You'll notice Signal backtracked on supporting SMS as soon as they got an ex-Googler as their new leadership.
lol you can say that again
Signal protocol is mainly an encryption protocol, not messaging.
Even if Apple adopt it, you won't be able to talk with Apple users from Signal.
First privacy, then USB, now RCS.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Samsung has released a new video in support of Google’s #GetTheMessage campaign which calls for Apple to adopt RCS or “Rich Communication Services,” the cross-platform protocol pitched as a successor to SMS that adopts many of the features found in modern messaging apps... like Apple’s own iMessage.
The video, titled “Green bubbles and blue bubbles want to be together,” shows a Romeo and Juliet-style conversation between two users who want to be together, but who are kept apart by one of their “parents.”
The “bubbles,” of course, are a reference to Apple’s iMessage interface which shows feature-rich blue bubbles for messages sent between Apple users, and discordant green SMS bubbles with reduced functionality when Android users participate in the chat.
This two-class system is especially frustrating in countries like the US where about half the population is using an iPhone and the other half is running Android on a Samsung device.
Apple, of course, has every incentive keep the status quo as a form of ecosystem lock-in, but it might be forced to open up its messaging service as a result of the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA).
Regulators are currently investigating whether iMessage meets the bar to be considered a “core platform service” under the rules, which would compel Apple to offer interoperability with other messaging services.
The original article contains 232 words, the summary contains 218 words. Saved 6%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Bad bot
Why?
6% reduction isn't a summary
I mean, technically its still condensed...
why use many words when few words do trick
Bad datavoid!
Apple will never listen, but maybe the EU could decide it's important enough issue for them to force it. It's starting to feel like we should just go to them, first. I'd like to imagine we have another candidate problem for regulation enforced fixing, with Mac laptops' long-standing displayport multistream problem. Macs will only mirror and never extend to an nth monitor over displayport splitting ... but the availability of thunderbolt adapters as a workaround takes some of the "oomph" out of that argument. That one's been around like ten or more years.
The other issue alluded to by another commenter, though, is that rcs is not low-level in Android os quite like SMS is. Like the API to get the information into other competing apps is not there, so it seems a little bit hypocritical.
The EU could have had an effect on it via the DMA, but it seems that not many people use iMessage in the EU. People use Whatsapp and Facebook Messenger way more here, so those are forced into opening up.
iMessage message bubble colors seem to be an US problem.
Maybe don't buy Apple hardware? Why is it the government's job to fix every minor annoyance you have with Apple?
Most people complaining about imessage are people who bought Android devices. In places where imessage use is prevalent, people with iphones tend to leave their android owning friends out of group chats and complain about their text bubble color being green if they text an android phone.
And you want the EU to fix that?
I haven't said anything about the EU. There's no way the EU would address this, it's almost exclusively a US problem.
I mean... I did and you were replying to me so... Guess you just ignored my point and posted with a "fun fact" for no reason then.
Oh, I see the problem. You seem to have forgotten that you wrote:
I was responding to your point. You appeared to be arguing that this was a problem that could just be solved by just buying a different phone. I was saying that the people complaining are already the ones buying different phones.
You seem to think you know my point better than me.
Someone leaves me out of a group chat due to the color of my text bubble, I doubt there was any benefit to being included in the conversation anyway.
Well they aren't leaving you out because of the color of the text bubble. It's because having a phone that isn't an iPhone in the group causes it to fallback to using MMS instead of imessage. They lose a lot of the features that iPhone users love about imessage and the quality of shared images and video is much worse. The moment someone tries to share a video and everyone just gets a blurry smudge of pixels is the moment all the iPhone users get their own group together.
This public shaming bullshit reminds me of Epic's Fortnite debacle and it's not a good look, especially from Samsung who usually mocks Apple on Monday and is copying them by Friday (see "no CD drives in laptops" or "no headphone jack" or "no removable batteries in the phone"). I know they're completely different issues but whining is whining.
Satan and the Devil call Lucifier.
Just download Signal. Cross platform, verifably E2E, and verifiably no data collected by Open Whisper (as per their submission in a lawsuit). Also, one of the authors/architects of Signal occasionally trolls the companies that provide mobile spyware.
I haven't sent an SMS since like 2013 or something like that. Couldn't care less about this blue green controversy, my use of SMS is receiving 2fa codes and spam.
RCS needs to happen, I'm so sick of Whatsapp.
Why not switch to something not owned by Facebook like Signal (or something on an open protocol like Element)?
No one I know uses Signal or is skilled enough to switch away from Whatsapp. 100% have WhatsApp.
Trying to switch, would be like talking people into using Linux. Not going to happen unless the current option got much worse.
Wat? If they managed to register with WhatsApp, they can do so with literally any other messaging service.
Yeah that's a big problem that I'm trying to research solutions for myself too. It was way better when I could tell people to just install Signal and it'd replace their SMS app but be secure when others use it, but unfortunately Signal dropped SMS. Currently I just have all the apps, but since Signal does contact discovery (like Whatsapp) I follow a Signal, Whatsapp, FB Messenger, RCS (via Google Messenger), then SMS pattern and stopping when I can contact someone. Obviously, this has the issue that all these apps are getting far more data than they need and I'd like to look into a multiplatform app that does e2e. From what I've researched so far, Matrix bridges (servers that connect your Matrix account to a third party messaging service) might be the answer.
I haven't tried it yet but there is a Matrix bridge that you can host if you are selfhosting a Matrix server (or use a commercial Matrix provider that already hosts it) that will allow you to connect to your Whatsapp friends without needing the Whatsapp app yourself that could be interesting for at least that use case https://docs.mau.fi/bridges/go/setup.html?bridge=whatsapp .
Using Signal is incredibly easy. Unless your friends are too incompetent to even install an app, they can be set up in a couple of minutes.
Notice I said using and not switching, because there's no need to pick just one.
They are incompetent enough. They also see no reason to switch. They will tell you that other apps will also use your data and that Whatsapp is working fine for what they do with it. Doesn't matter if it's true.
Some even use the status to share stuff like Instagram and are addicted to it.
They'll tell you that there's no point in installing two apps. I've had that topic often enough.
You originally said nobody was skilled enough. It seems what you really meant is nobody cares enough.
Unfortunately, that's the actual reason in my experience. I got most friends and family to run Signal next to WhatsApp though.
You underestimate how tech-dumb the majority of people are
Google's RCS is as proprietary as iMessage
But it is at least available for Apple to implement if they do choose, unlike iMessage.
No, its not available. There is no FOSS RCS app, because its not available
I didn't say it was FOSS. I said that unlike iMessage, which Apple refuses to allow Android to use, RCS is available to be used by Apple if it so chooses.
Yes, a FOSS protocol/standard would be better, and I hope we have one done day that is actually available and used by default by both iOS and Android (and any other future players in the field). But until that happens, RCS is at least allowed to be used by other companies so it's at least a small step in the right direction, even if Apple continues to stubbornly refuse to use it.
Open standard is the only option
...of a single company controlling major sms functions turned on by default by every phone?
But we are talking about messaging standards, not messaging services.
Looks like it's not open sources, yes.
The only way something replaces WhatsApp is if WhatsApp stops existing.
Besides, RCS is not in any shape or form ready to the general public, considering all the blatant inconsistencies and instabilities, let alone replace one of the most used, tried and tested messaging platforms out there.
I switched my parents group chat to RCS from whatsapp after pestering them for ages.
Over the span of 2 months we had 4-5 inconsistencies where I would recieve a message from my mum or dad in the group that would be in another language or clearly not be written by them. It wouldn't show up on her phone but my brother and dad would see it.
Here's the proof of the last occassion it happened. They're never going to switch now...
I think this issue is mostly a USA one, considering that most communications there have caps (data, phone time, SMS etc.) Paradoxically, the market there doesn't work very well and prices are relatively high. Big corporations take advantage of it to lock people to their ecosystems. There is a high probability that this issue, will be regulated by the EU, since US policy makers are unable to solve much more important problems. For them this is not an issue. The market has solved it.
RCS dates to 2008 and Appul didn't support it. Now we know that Appul is stuck in 2007 or earlier.
Edit: it seems RCS is another centralized hellscape
Everyone (in America) wants them to be together
Rest of the world already moved on to better services.
"What did the EU ever do for us?" in the monthy python mood. After usb c, apple is getting its proprietary model challenged again. When will Apple understand that in the long run it hinders innovation? And that openness and standardisation is a catalyst for it. RCS might not be the interoperable solution the EU pushes though. Anyway that's the future of not using standards : https://lemmy.nz/post/2316522
My understanding with RCS is that similar to SMS it uses the infrastructure of your phone carrier. First question: Do all carriers support this? Second question: Is there anything that prevents carriers from eventually monetizing this? At least with some sort of roaming trap when you are abroad...
My big question is: Why does Apple need to adopt it in the first place?
Answer is: closed nature of system they created and closed (yes) nature of RCS ecosystem.
We should adopt user-friendly democratic operating systems and chat protocols instead.
Why doesn't a third party just come up with a standard
https://xkcd.com/927/
Signal
Great until they got rid of sms fall back for people that don't have signal
That pretty much only affected the small percentage of American users that used Signal for the SMS integration. For everyone else it literally made no difference whatsoever. Besides, it is completely in line with their vision to not include SMS since it is an insecure protocol.
I'd argue the percentage wasn't small. The available population was Android users with SMS contacts.
Either way, it was an unforced error for the Signal leadership that gave away their competitive advantage in their home field to mainly Google and Facebook apps.
There is no way to convince me to go back to supporting Signal after that blunder. They destroyed my secure contacts network in less than two months after the announcement.
@Virkkunen @0421008445828ceb46f496700a5fa6
Nobody outside the US uses SMS anymore.
You're simply wrong about that.
> As many as 63% of users worldwide rely on the default texting app on their cell phones. The remainder of the texting market is split between the most popular messaging apps such as Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, etc
> 37% of consumers prefer to use instant messaging apps like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger to communicate with companies, while 31% prefer text/ SMS
https://www.telemessage.com/messaging-trends-by-country-and-platform/
https://textus.com/playbook/2022-texting-statistics-and-2023-predictions/
@GigglyBobble
Didn't really think so, just wanted to apply Cunningham's Law. ;)
Thanks a lot for the links.
It's not really needed because unlike iMessage, anyone can use Signal.
Matrix. It’s far more open than signal.
True, however it's not as polished as Signal and not as noob friendly. I've been using Matrix daily for a couple years using Fluffychat and Element and not much has changed.
Unfortunately, no federated service will be as noob friendly as a centralised service.
It has made improvements although I agree it needs some more work in the ease of use department.
I can't agree. What is the thing that decentralized service cannot have?
Imagine theoretical Matrix client with Signal's UI and Signal's identity (phone number) resolution.
Phone number resolution is already a feature with identity servers but most servers don’t implement it.
Also have to choose a server increases the barrier of entry. I guess element works around that by defaulting to matrix.org although that’s not a great solution.
That's not a standard
Because the technical part has been solved for a while and this has moved into being a social problem. My kids only use iMessage/SMS for people over thirty, and use Snap with all of their friends. In family groups, you standardize on on whatever. Most of my extended family decided on FB Messenger a while ago (I don't participate, but my wife does and can fill me in.) My immediate family just uses iMessage. Friend groups I've seen generally do the same. They pick Telegram or WhatsApp or whatever, and then the quilting club just uses that. This also seems a very US centric issue - basically everywhere else is either on whatsapp or Line or WeChat or whatever.
Matrix with bridges and bots all the way.
Whole situation reminds me of another one. When Google created their services to be unavailabe to install without root access, while Huawei locked their devices so device owner have no root access that Huawei has remotely.
Then people started blaming regulators for inability to have Play Store on Huawei branded phone, not questioning why blessing from device vendor to install an app is required in the first place.
I use SMS mostly. From time to time Google asks if I want to activate RCS and presents a policy along with it, which I decline. Does it pass through their servers? If it does, that's gonna be a big no.
As an iPhone user, I agree with this message. Group chat's with Android users currently just ran in Telegram or Discord.
Google and Samsung should bribe regulators to make it happen. Apple will never changed unless they are forced to and the only way that happens is shoving money in corrupt assholes pockets.
My only issue with RCS is that it requires that either LTE or wifi be on. I personally keep those off unless I want to actively use the internet. Not a big deal, minor annoyance though.
Does it matter if Apple starts supporting RCS? If they start supporting it, they'll still treat it like SMS - green bubbles and all.
Apple users are absolute shitheels. And that's why I'll continue releasing bugs I find into the wild.
I think we should get rid of all SMS/phone services and just use data.
Sorry, this just reads to me as the little kid being angry he can’t join the bigger kids. I really believe that were the shoe and the other foot and were it Google with iMessage, they wouldn’t be so keen to let Apple use it.
Based
The absolute state!
iMessage works.
Who has even heard of RCS outside of tech folk?
What is TLS?
Tach person stuff.
Ok. What makes anyone want RCS?
What makes anyone want iMessage?
It works and I don’t need to know what TLS is to use it.
Why would anyone want to stop using iMessage? It's honestly quite good and the app integrations are great. Honestly the only iPhone users I know who don't use iMessage are due to network effects (families in foreign countries where Whatsapp dominates).
It's not about people wanting to stop using iMessage. It's that over half of the mobile customer base CANNOT use iMessage because apple refuses to allow it. If Apple had created a solid Android app for iMessage, RCS would never have been created.
Because it's obnoxious to anyone not using an Apple device.
Among the 20% of all phones globally, it does. Outside the US it's hardly usable.
Not only does iMessage work, it works internationally for free.
iMessage doesn't 'work' unless you're on an Apple device. Then it's just falling back to using SMS, at which point Apple fanboys/girls start bitching because the text bubbles are 'the wrong color' which it's seriously the most ridiculous first-world problem I've ever heard of.
RCS is an attempt to provide similar functionality to EVERYONE without the walled-garden lock-in.
While I'd much rather a fully open (inl source), non-proprietary solution exist, until such time RCS is at least an attempt at a step in the right direction.
Insert meme: You (iMessage user) can't use RCS because Apple won't let you. I (Android User) can't use iMessage because Apple won't let me. We are not the same...
Wait….. isn’t this the whole point of the article? Samsung and Google are bitching because they don’t want to be green bubbles. Don’t make it out like this is all iPhone users. Google has had I can’t count how many substandard messaging apps, but now they’ve developed their own proprietary format and are crying for Apple to support it.
So let me get this straight, Google & Samsung want Apple to be forced to do something that will cost Apple sales and increase sales for their competitors. Good luck with that.
I've never originally seen, heard, or read anyone complaining about the wrong color bubbles except for iMessage users.
The article is just about Samsung and Google poking fun at Apple about it.
What I want is for all of the companies to, use a common (preferably open) standard for messaging as a default. I don't give a shit which it is.
Ideally they would all do so voluntarily because it's the right thing to do for their users. Since Apple refuses to let anyone else use iMessage, RCS was created, and made available to be used, even by Apple.
But apparently Apple can't be bothered to play nice with others no matter what because all they care about is squeezing every possible dollar they can out of their suckers, I mean users.
So Apple came up with a great system that encourages people to stay in the ecosystem, and Google is mad about it. So Google comes up with an iMessage clone, and now they're pitching a fit that everybody won't jump onto their implementation. Which, while RCS is open, Google's implementation is not. "Apple is locking everyone into their system! Make them stop so we can get them locked into ours!"
Wait... wait... you think Apple (or any other company for that matter) should do what's best for those that aren't they're customers?? So I'm going to say this again a little louder for the people in the back - Apple is under no obligation to modify the way their products work to promote the competition, which will lose them sales. And as an Apple stockholder, I'm beyond fine with that.
So does 4G. Imagine if apple refused to support 5G? Yes the end consumer might not notice but apple refusing RCS is them refusing to update an old standard to it's next version. I guess they dragged their feet with USC C and kept with a old USB 2.0 lighting cable for so long...
They could adopt RCS. But still keep iMessage users using their iMessage service backend and have the green/blue bubble thing still.
More like Apple already has 5G and you want them to support a different standard that you made up.
Apple bitch detected
How rude of you.
How rude of you.
Insincere.