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Apple announces that RCS support is coming to iPhone next year

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Re: Apple announces that RCS support is coming to iPhone next year

#471
post #385
post #376

Probably related to https://www.engadget.com/nothing-phone-2-is-getting-imessage... Or at least they may have moved the announcement forward

I doubt it. Also I don’t know how they’re doing that, but I’m more than willing to bet Apple will make sure it doesn’t work very long at all.

Google has been trying thusfar unsuccessfully to get legislative forces involved. Really doubt Apple would decide to add any fuel to that fire by going after a small company trying to be compatible with their products. Would look terrible in court and they know it.

Re: Apple announces that RCS support is coming to iPhone next year

#472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought this bubble color thing was a joke but is it seriously something women look at? Why?

photos/videos get highly compressed, you can't share live location, don't share the typing status, don't have reactions, stickers, the list goes on

Clearly Apple intentionally resisted RCS for ten years for exactly this reason. Anticompetitive behavior.

Re: Apple announces that RCS support is coming to iPhone next year

#473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I care, actually a fair bit, but only because I work in a building that has two areas that are complete dead zones for cellular reception, and our IT department blocks WiFi calling (but not iMessage data). Blue bubbles can message me in those areas; green cannot. It's not at all unusual for my phone to explode in dinging when I leave one of those areas. I wish they didn't block WiFi calling, because my cellular recep…

> Blue bubbles can message me in those areas; green cannot. They can, but one or both parties is refusing to use any of the numerous alternative messaging options like WhatsApp.

I'm one guy. Six years ago, there were two of us out of ~30 that used Android. Both of us switched in the next year or so because nobody else would use a different app just to talk to us. So we were missing out on fairly critical information, and forget anything time-sensitive.

On Android, it wasn't an issue to use Signal, because it will communicate securely if it can and by SMS if it can't. So you can still text anyone from the app. On iOS, not so much.

I'd stay away from Whatsapp just to keep away from Meta.

Re: Apple announces that RCS support is coming to iPhone next year

#474
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU is interested in fair competition. Apple has managed to provide a terrible cross-platform messaging experience to their own customers for years while successfully convincing everyone that the problem is due to every other phone besides theirs. I agree it's almost comical, but it certainly affects competition in a negative way.

I don't buy this. Customers needed no convincing from Apple. Even where iOS isn't dominant they saw their dropped and expensive SMS/RCS messages and picked up whatsapp.

You are misunderstanding the function of RCS as making different message services compatible. iMessage doesn't exist on Android, hence the necessity of an open protocol.

Re: Apple announces that RCS support is coming to iPhone next year

#475
post #349

Excellent. The next step is for Google to release a free and open source way for Android developers to build apps that send RCS messages. Currently, the only messaging app on Android that fully supports RCS is Messages by Google, which is closed source and requires Google Play Services to activate RCS features. Also, end-to-end encryption is not part of the RCS specification, but is a proprietary extension to RCS tha…

I have no insider knowledge here, but Google tried to go the high route of working with carriers for years before giving up on their intransigence. I suspect that Google's RCS is proprietary as a blunt instrument to prevent carriers from trying to either (a) undermine e2ee in some weasely way or (b) have the ability to pick and choose the pieces of the implementation they want to support. You either get the whole thi…

> […] to prevent carriers from trying to either (a) undermine e2ee in some weasely way […]

Reminder that carriers have lawful intercept mandates through legal statutes: it may actually be illegal for them to implement E2EE.

Re: Apple announces that RCS support is coming to iPhone next year

#476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has nothing to do with finances. You can buy a perfectly good used iPhone for less than $100. It has to do with taste. Not wanting to date a guy with an Android phone is like not wanting to date a guy because he's a Weaboo.

Based on what I’ve read on reddit/lemmy lately, some people still have the impression iPhones have an air of exclusivity from being more expensive. I agree that of course this isn’t true, though perhaps it was 12 years ago. As far as your second point, well… I guess that’s precisely the attitude I was addressing. I definitely don’t agree that a phone brand is as strong an indicator of personality traits as the exampl…

I think you should read the Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson

Re: Apple announces that RCS support is coming to iPhone next year

#477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, based on what I've read: "no end-to-end encryption" simply means that Apple is not going to either a) develop their own, proprietary E2EE system for RCS, or b) pay Google for theirs. And good grief, get over the bubble color thing. Of course RCS isn't going to have blue bubbles; those specifically indicate an iMessage message. Maybe they'll be green, or maybe they'll be purple, orange, or red, to differe…

> And good grief, get over the bubble color thing I agree it is stupid, but there most definitely is a "status thing" going on with the whole green vs. blue as well.

This will probably go away over time as everyone supports most the same features.

Re: Apple announces that RCS support is coming to iPhone next year

#478
post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I don't buy Google's bad faith shaming of Apple for not adopting RCS. The current version of it that people are using on Android isn't even a "standard" by any normal usage of the term, it's just another Google messaging service. No one can make their own app, and there's barely any carrier adoption, so Google is basically running the whole network. Does this mean that now if you send a message to someone…

RCS is still standardized and maintained by the GSMA, of which Google is a member. Google acquired Jibe in 2015 in order to get their RCS server and client architecture (Jibe was a leader in shaping the RCS-Standard). Everyone can make his own app, it's just that he would need to develop a whole RCS-client for it to interact with (Google's or carriers') RCS-Servers as well. So what is missing is Google offering their…

The way it works is ugly for the privacy oriented folks. Turning it off and block by the firewall is a must. Just like "Private" DNS. Both are unfortunately forced.

Re: Apple announces that RCS support is coming to iPhone next year

#479

Excellent. The next step is for Google to release a free and open source way for Android developers to build apps that send RCS messages. Currently, the only messaging app on Android that fully supports RCS is Messages by Google, which is closed source and requires Google Play Services to activate RCS features. Also, end-to-end encryption is not part of the RCS specification, but is a proprietary extension to RCS tha…

> the only messaging app on Android that fully supports RCS is Messages by Google Plus, unless they fixed it, if you enable RCS and then regret it and disable it again, anybody who texted with you via RCS will no longer be able to text you at all. Things won't revert to SMS. This bit me pretty hard, but I finally fixed it by changing my phone number.

whoa really ? i did NOT know that. deregistering immediately.

Re: Apple announces that RCS support is coming to iPhone next year

#480
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminder to everyone who wonders why WhatsApp and iMessage won: US phone carriers used to charge $0.10 to $0.25 per message. Yes, it was as ridiculous as it sounds. There used to be news articles about kids racking up hundreds of dollars on their phone bill. Here's one from the same year the iphone was released: https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/0...

Was that really a concern in the US? WhatsApp and iMessage require data plans, and as far as I can remember these have largely included unlimited SMS as well. It was definitely a factor in the EU, though: SMS still aren't free on many prepaid plans there. WhatsApp was the first popular application supporting unlimited messaging on mobile phones for many.

> WhatsApp and iMessage require data plans, and as far as I can remember these have largely included unlimited SMS as well.

The reason why WhatsApp was huge internationally (like, 10^8 users huge) was because many teclos in developing countries included data usage in their plans but SMS was extra (and talking minutes were finite), so people used WhatsApp for all comms.

WhatsApp's had a free tier, but their basic plan was (IIRC) $1/month, and they many (tens/hundreds) of millions of users that paid it.

Facebook bought WhatsApp for $20B:

* https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-whatsapp-idUSKCN...

> Evidently, Zuckerberg lied to the European and American trade commissions. It was in fact possible to interface Facebook and WhatsApp platforms to mine data. Facebook has been doing it since day one of its acquisition. As always, Zuckerberg admitted to the misdeed, apologized and paid the fine. He got away scot-free.

> Months later, co-founder Jan Koum discovered that Facebook’s management weakened WhatsApp encryption system to make it easier for them to mine data. Koum resigned too.

> Fast forward to today and Zuckerberg continues to mine our data through Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram (which he acquired in 2012). Facebook has become a surveillance behemoth – arguably the biggest surveillance organization in the world.

* https://www.philstar.com/opinion/2023/04/05/2256935/real-rea...

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