Google Jibe: Better carrier messaging for everyone • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Jibe: Better carrier messaging for everyone

#21

Post by ohitsdom » Mon, Feb 22, 2016, 5:13 PM UTC

dheera wrote: post #7

Ick. I wish we could kill SMS/Whatsapp/Wechat/LINE already and just do everything over e-mail or some other cross-platform, multi-login protocol. I hate being tied up to one device to message people. I change devices on the order of minutes, move over the course of a day between a few locations that all have devices I own, and don't regularly carry or look at my cell phone if I am already staring at something bigger…

From the link: "Google is partnering with carriers and OEMs to offer a messaging client for Android that supports SMS, MMS, and RCS, and will be based on the universal profile. The client will be interoperable with any RCS-compliant client across any platform."

Wouldn't RCS deliver exactly what you're asking for?

Re: Google Jibe: Better carrier messaging for everyone

#22

Post by simoncion » Mon, Feb 22, 2016, 5:17 PM UTC

dheera wrote: post #19

stann wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you tried Telegram?

Hadn't heard about it. Just checked it out, and it looks interesting. Unfortunately, due to network effects and my social circle, 99% of the people I know pretty much only use either Wechat, Facebook, or e-mail, but I look forward to seeing something disrupt this space with something better, more functional, cross-platform, and multi-login. It would be killer if Telegram could interoperate with at least 1 or 2 of the…

> In this respect I really, really miss the days of Pidgin and those other similar applications...

Given that -AFAIK- Signal documents its protocols, I expect that there will be Pidgin support for it not long after the Signal desktop client moves out of population-limited beta and is officially released.

But yeah. It's a goddamn crying shame that this new crop of devs have decided to not only reinvent Instant Messaging, but to do it in such a way that leaves us back in the same situation we were in in the 1990's. [0]

That wheel keeps turning and periodically crushes us all, I guess.

[0] Of course, one could do the very same thing that was done back in the 1990's and reverse engineer the new wave of chat protocols. We still possess general purpose computers that can be used to snatch the plaintext of conversations that they're a party to that are sent over encrypted channels.

Re: Google Jibe: Better carrier messaging for everyone

#23

Post by ignoramous » Mon, Feb 22, 2016, 5:19 PM UTC

This is a clear move against WhatsApp? With Jibe, Google is going for the kill, 'cause WhatsApp just went life-time free for everyone with an eye on earning revenue from their enterprise APIs.

Re: Google Jibe: Better carrier messaging for everyone

#24

Post by bsharitt » Mon, Feb 22, 2016, 5:24 PM UTC

zellyn wrote: post #16

One big question: will carriers still charge exorbitant per-message fees? And one huge question: will iOS support RCS?

Are there still companies that still charge per message fees?

Re: Google Jibe: Better carrier messaging for everyone

#25

Post by grahamburger » Mon, Feb 22, 2016, 5:25 PM UTC

dheera wrote: post #7

Ick. I wish we could kill SMS/Whatsapp/Wechat/LINE already and just do everything over e-mail or some other cross-platform, multi-login protocol. I hate being tied up to one device to message people. I change devices on the order of minutes, move over the course of a day between a few locations that all have devices I own, and don't regularly carry or look at my cell phone if I am already staring at something bigger…

Google Hangouts does this for SMS. You can send/receive real SMS from your Google Voice number from any connected device.

Re: Google Jibe: Better carrier messaging for everyone

#26

Post by trebor » Mon, Feb 22, 2016, 5:27 PM UTC

habosa wrote: post #9

As a long-time SMS user, getting widespread RCS support is the biggest future mobile phone innovation I am looking forward to. SMS is wonderful because you can send a message to any mobile phone user regardless of their nationality, operating system, hardware, carrier, etc. However it has a few major flaws: cost, speed, lack of group messaging, limited multimedia support. The shortcomings of SMS have fueled the rise…

Here's irony for you: basic text messaging is almost free to the carriers, because it actually happens on the cellular protocol's control channel. [1] Your phone maintains that connection persistently (I think), so fitting SMS messages into idle time makes it virtually free. The SMS cost is just a profit center for carriers, but this explanation also accounts for the speed of delivery, etc.

> Look at what happens to iOS users trying to switch to Android: iMessage blocks their communication for months afterward.

It used to, but Apple built a "deregister my number" page that'll be able to unlock that within a matter of minutes.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_Message_Service#Initial_...

Re: Google Jibe: Better carrier messaging for everyone

#27

Post by easytiger » Mon, Feb 22, 2016, 5:28 PM UTC

stann wrote: post #15

dheera wrote: post #7

Ick. I wish we could kill SMS/Whatsapp/Wechat/LINE already and just do everything over e-mail or some other cross-platform, multi-login protocol. I hate being tied up to one device to message people. I change devices on the order of minutes, move over the course of a day between a few locations that all have devices I own, and don't regularly carry or look at my cell phone if I am already staring at something bigger…

Have you tried Telegram?

Has literally all the problems he mentioned.

Re: Google Jibe: Better carrier messaging for everyone

#28

Post by dheera » Mon, Feb 22, 2016, 5:29 PM UTC

grahamburger wrote: post #25

dheera wrote: post #7

Ick. I wish we could kill SMS/Whatsapp/Wechat/LINE already and just do everything over e-mail or some other cross-platform, multi-login protocol. I hate being tied up to one device to message people. I change devices on the order of minutes, move over the course of a day between a few locations that all have devices I own, and don't regularly carry or look at my cell phone if I am already staring at something bigger…

Google Hangouts does this for SMS. You can send/receive real SMS from your Google Voice number from any connected device.

Yes, but Google Voice is only available in the US. I have my Google Voice number forwarding to my e-mail which is nice. Of course, just actually using e-mail would be preferable. With e-mail I have one permanent address that hasn't changed in 15 years, and won't change anytime soon. Hangouts+SMS seems more like a bridge to the pre-mobile-internet era to me, a time when people were identified by a location-dependent number instead of an nice, worldwide alphanumeric identifier.

Nevertheless, a lot of operators/countries either don't have or don't want to allow these kind of gateways, for whatever reason. A purely IP-based solution would get around these restrictions.

Re: Google Jibe: Better carrier messaging for everyone

#29

Post by easytiger » Mon, Feb 22, 2016, 5:31 PM UTC

unsignedint wrote: post #11

eximius wrote: post #10

Anybody have a good source on what the heck RCS is? I've never heard of it until now. I will google also, but I bet someone knows of an introduction they'd recommend.

Rich Communication Services https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Communication_Services

That has no details of the technicalities

Re: Google Jibe: Better carrier messaging for everyone

#30

Post by habosa » Mon, Feb 22, 2016, 5:32 PM UTC

trebor wrote: post #26

habosa wrote: post #9

As a long-time SMS user, getting widespread RCS support is the biggest future mobile phone innovation I am looking forward to. SMS is wonderful because you can send a message to any mobile phone user regardless of their nationality, operating system, hardware, carrier, etc. However it has a few major flaws: cost, speed, lack of group messaging, limited multimedia support. The shortcomings of SMS have fueled the rise…

Here's irony for you: basic text messaging is almost free to the carriers, because it actually happens on the cellular protocol's control channel. [1] Your phone maintains that connection persistently (I think), so fitting SMS messages into idle time makes it virtually free. The SMS cost is just a profit center for carriers, but this explanation also accounts for the speed of delivery, etc. > Look at what happens to…

1 - yes that is a major issue with SMS and why SMS use is in such sharp decline. I doubt the carriers will make the mistake of pricing RCS like SMS or they'll never get to break into messaging again.

2 - the iMessage to Android experience is still broken in many other ways. For instance if you were in any long-running group messages that were iMessages, your messages will be silently dropped until the thread is re-created explicitly.