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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

#61

Post by rattlesnakedave »

bastard_op wrote: post #53
edent wrote: post #14

I was working on RCS systems back in 2012. It was the future back them - incredible low latency for messaging and gaming, rich messaging, and a decent SDK. How did carriers fuck it up so badly that, a decade later, it's barely a blip on the messaging landscape? The were so desperate to stop OTT (over the top) services that they... locked everything down in the hope that customers wouldn't churn. It backfired spectacu…

It wasn't the carriers, it was Apple mostly winning the race in creating their walled garden, and everyone else being disinterested in an alternative in the phone race wars. It's now some badge of shame Apple users discriminate against the blue vs green windows if a friend or relative doesn't have an i-thing, and Apple loves it all the way to the bank.

Apple only has dominant marketshare in the US. Everywhere else in the world people use Whatsapp. Why didn't they all hop on the RCS train? Because it sucks to implement and is a black box to use. Google was stuck with SMS because of their inability to implement a cohesive messaging app, despite owning and distributing an operating system. So what did they do? Pitched sob stories and got the europeans to threaten to regulate. Shitty move. They should have just built something good.

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

#63

Post by rattlesnakedave »

crazygringo wrote: post #60

What a surprise! I'm quite sure RCS bubbles will be green though, and that's still going to be enough of a difference when it comes to teen groups and even adult dating. The EU may mandate interoperability, but I don't see them mandating bubble color...

> but I don't see them mandating bubble color

I personally see no limit to what arbitrary nonsense regulation the EU is willing to push.

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

#64

Post by smoldesu »

moritonal wrote: post #7

Note that this is "Rich Communication Services", not "Reaction Control System" from KSP which would have been a much more dramatic update.

I can imagine a pretty great commercial where Craig Federighi throws an iPhone like a football, and a tracking shot zooms in to show it swiveling around to correct it's orientation mid-flight.

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

#65

Post by hotnfresh »

jmull wrote: post #56

> the green bubble shame set to end I'm betting the non-Apple bubbles will remain green... and remain a bit stigmatized. It was never about the resolution of pictures and even technical limitations around group chat was just part of it. It's a social thing and the technical protocol is incidental. Dr. Seuss probably explained it best in The Sneetches.

> It was never about the resolution of pictures and even technical limitations around group chat was just part of it.

It can be about both. It’s really nice to know when the images you sent are gonna be potato-quality and you need to find some other channel to send them, or that message reliability and capabilities in general are being limited to SMS (or RCS!) levels. I don’t give a shit about the social aspects, it’s valuable as a UI affordance.

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

#66

Post by throw0101a »

no_wizard wrote: post #28

This is something I never thought I'd see. I hope the GSM association moves fast to make robust E2EE a standard required for proper implementation for carriers. That would go a long way in making a huge improvement over SMS/MMS. This is a win for RCS, ultimately. Maybe this will kick carriers into high gear to up their messaging standard support game and have standard interop. I don't think this will lead to a declin…

> I hope the GSM association moves fast to make robust E2EE a standard required for proper implementation for carriers. That would go a long way in making a huge improvement over SMS/MMS.

Can telcos actually offer E2EE given the various lawful intercept statutes that they are usually subject to?

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

#67

Post by AequitasOmnibus »

filmgirlcw wrote: post #54
edent wrote: post #14

I was working on RCS systems back in 2012. It was the future back them - incredible low latency for messaging and gaming, rich messaging, and a decent SDK. How did carriers fuck it up so badly that, a decade later, it's barely a blip on the messaging landscape? The were so desperate to stop OTT (over the top) services that they... locked everything down in the hope that customers wouldn't churn. It backfired spectacu…

Bingo. The cartel was so focused on trying to save their existing money printing machine they took their eye off the ball and refused to disrupt themselves. The cable television industry did the exact same thing. If they’d been willing to go OTT a decade ago and not force agreements based on geolocation, a lot of the streaming services that exist wouldn’t even need to exist today.

> The cable industry did the exact same thing.

Kinda but not really. The cable providers were and continue to be hamstrung by the networks who force the cable providers to buy channel packages. Cable never had the leverage to, say, tell Disney that they only want to offer ESPN but not the 10 other Disney branded networks being offered. It was often all or nothing.

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

#68

Post by enragedcacti »

signal11 wrote: post #44

What’s the story around e2e encryption on RCS these days? In the past there were a few countries that didn’t allow it, no idea if that has changed. Also, will iMessage support for RCS include e2ee?

The current status iirc is that Google built its own e2e solutions in Android Messages, first for one-on-one conversations and as of August 2023 for group chats as well. They released technical papers but I don't think the implementations are part of the official spec. I think this section is basically Apple saying that they are going to push for that standardization:

> Finally, Apple says it will work with the GSMA members on ways to further improve the RCS protocol. This particularly includes improving the security and encryption of RCS messages.

I doubt anything has changed since 2020 in terms of China, Cuba, Iran or Russia but I couldn't find any news one way or the other

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

#70

Post by [deleted] »

Obscurity4340 wrote: post #42
eropple wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple doesn't put a green bubble on SMS "to ostracize people's kids". Kids are ostracized just for having a default skin in Fortnite--because kids can be little shitheads. Apple differentiates because what you can do with SMS is different from what you can do with iMessage and that's a clear way to demonstrate it (and also to indicate if there's something weird going on when it changes from iMessage to SMS). RCS is a…

> what you can do is different Can you talk a bit more about how iMessage is fundamentally diferent than SMS on the functionality level? Is it like "Signal" different or is it like "different" different? Edit: bonus points if you can offer why iMessage is able to be the skeleton key into your iPhone, as often it and WebKit seem to be behind most of the serious 0-days...

[deleted]
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