What a shame that google is posting this on the android.com domain. Not only is RCS broken and regressive, google does not even ship a reference implementation in AOSP. They haven't updated their stock AOSP apps in a decade. So why should Apple implement some proprietary backwards standard that google only implements in their proprietary app ?
“It’s time for Apple to fix texting”
661–670 of 1001 posts
Re: “It’s time for Apple to fix texting”
#662This is a US thing, right? Haven't received an SMS from a real person (in other words, all SMSes I get are 2FA etc) for, at least 5 years, maybe 10. Even people who use iPhones don't send SMSes, MMSes or anything as obsolete (including RCS). Everyone just seems to use WhatsApp and Telegram (or if they don't know any better, Viber). Locale: Central Europe. So, why would anyone stick to the obsolete stuff? Are there re…
Network effect. SMS works everywhere, all phones support it out-of-the-box. WhatsApp is opt-in. Almost nobody I communicate with regularly has a WhatsApp account.
How do you SMS people without a USA phone number?
Re: “It’s time for Apple to fix texting”
#663RCS is dead. The Cross Carrier Messaging Initiative (CCMI) has given up. Google is the one still pushing for it. iMessage is simply a big Apple moat. Why would Apple give it up to enhance Google's business position? Google wants us to pick theirs over Apple's. Also note that to my knowledge, RCS is not available in all countries. The other funny thing is that Google complains about SMS being insecure -- all while RCS…
A lot has happened with RCS since that random article.
* All of the major US carriers announced that they'd ship Google Messages by default on android phones (including RCS). I believe Verizon was the last one [1].
* Google enabled end-to-end encryption by default for 1:1 chats [2]. They've said that e2e for group chats is coming later this year [3].
* Samsung replaced their own messaging client with a tweaked version of Google Messages on the S22 (edit: in the US) [4]. Samsung Messages already supported RCS, but I'm not sure if it supported Google's extensions like e2e.
And as others have mentioned: this isn't about Google wanting Apple to replace iMessage with RCS; it's about Google wanting Apple to support RCS as iMessage fallback in addition to the existing SMS support. Apple to Apple would certainly still be iMessage.
1: https://9to5google.com/2021/07/20/verizon-will-adopt-google-...
2: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/06/google-enables-end-t...
3: https://9to5google.com/2022/05/11/google-messages-rcs-group-...
4: https://www.androidpolice.com/samsung-galaxy-s22-series-ship...
Re: “It’s time for Apple to fix texting”
#664> iPhones make texts with Android phones difficult to read, by using white text on a bright green background. Wow. I can't really come up with anything creative to blame Google for this one. Whatever you want to say about Google's messaging mess and RCS - Apple seems to go out of their way to make it inconvenient to text with Android users. Also it doesn't sound like Google's asking Apple to give up iMessage - just t…
This point is a fallacy. Prior to the invention of iMessage - (iOS 6?) - all iPhone texts were this colour of green . It was the same no matter who you texted. This means Apple never intentionally designed the green bubbles to be more difficult to read.
The text was black though to be fair:
https://www.gottabemobile.com/how-to-tell-if-youre-sending-a...
White text on green is significantly different - the older green bubbles with black text are noticeably clearer IMO, even if I also find it unlikely it was done deliberately to make SMS look bad. That said, Apple will certainly be aware of the cultural thing of the green vs blue bubbles given major news outlets have written on it (in the US anyway), so...
https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-apples-imessage-is-winning-...
Re: “It’s time for Apple to fix texting”
#665What I really want to happen is for an independent, secure, ideally federated messaging system (matrix maybe?) to become ubiquitous and replace SMS and iMessage. Sadly, I don't have much hope that will happen anytime soon.
Re: “It’s time for Apple to fix texting”
#666Earlier quoted context omitted.
The US market standardized on mobile plans with unlimited texting a long, long time ago, so I think this caused people to mostly stick to SMS/MMS for communication since it was the path of least resistance. I don't know what the situation in Europe is like now, but in the past I remember it being difficult to find plans without very small SMS caps when traveling. That could be why Europeans naturally gravitated towar…
Unlimited SMS plans have been a thing in western europe for the past 15 years, at least. People switched to whatsapp because you can send pictures, not only text.
Also in Latin America.
Even though we have nice 4G
text messages do take a while to get through, even if my speed test is high!
TelCos just prefer to use the Internet. And I agree.
Re: “It’s time for Apple to fix texting”
#667Most businesses, consumers, and developers universally continue to ignore the primary reason that iMessage is a closed platform, rather than an app on every platform as iTunes is: Apple is using device serial numbers for anti-spam, supported by a fully-authenticated hardware and software stack that does not allow user modification. This permits Apple to simply “console ban” any Apple device that spams on iMessage. Th…
Would it be possible to have Android devices that have attestation, but with a one-way switch to disable attestation and allow users to root?
Re: “It’s time for Apple to fix texting”
#668Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Sounds like other people in this thread already get a lot of iMessage spam Same folks who didn't realize that all messages show up in the same color, the blue bubbles only happen when you send . They're getting SMS spam. > I just don't want to be locked into a system where that's the only choice. Who's locked in? I can and have switched back and forth between iPhone and Android devices. My contacts are sync'd betwe…
> Same folks who didn't realize that all messages show up in the same color, the blue bubbles only happen when you send. Doesn't seem that's the case. Folks have followed up confirming that the messages are coming over iMessage, and not SMS.
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Re: “It’s time for Apple to fix texting”
#669Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's cleary Apple nerfing the video to make it look bad. The site itself contradicts that claim. From the FAQ (emphasis added): > When people with iPhones and Android phones text each other, Apple relies on SMS and MMS, outdated systems that cannot support large media files . That means photos and videos are often compressed and come through blurry. The severity varies by location and carrier based on compression a…
> Apple relies on SMS and MMS This is the whole point. Apple chooses to fall back to an outdated system instead of one that supports higher quality media files. And that's just one of the ways they provide a worse quality experience for everyone involved in a cross platform group chat. There is really no reason for them to do that, except to force people onto Apple if they want to be part of group conversations with…
> This is the whole point.
It’s the point of the website but is not the point the person I replied to made. I replied to what I quoted, not the article.
Re: “It’s time for Apple to fix texting”
#670Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps you're missing the point though? Maybe your friends simply don't care enough to switch. Bottom line is iMessage works really well and people like it. Same with FB messenger and Whatsapp. You want to move friends to something else? There needs to be a selling point much larger than just security.
The problem with moving groups over to iMessage is that you'll always leave some Android users out. Here in Spain Apple has a minority marketshare so that makes iMessage a total non-starter. But even in the US not everyone has an iPhone. And really iMessage is not so much better than the cross-platform alternatives that it's worth leaving some friends out.
> The problem with moving groups over to iMessage is that you'll always leave some Android users out.
I'm on several text chains with a mix of iOS and Android users. It works fine.