Finally Apple does the right thing… Seems like they only listen when regulators breathe down their shoulder. Man it was always frustrating to text my friends with android - I love all the iMessage features and wished there was a shared protocol much earlier.
Is it really that frustrating? My friends just download discord or Line and we good lol even my iPhone friends.
With how convoluted RCS was in the beginning. Where literally US carriers had their own versions, then some manufactures had their own RCS profiles. You and your Friend could have the same phone, but different carrier and it wouldn’t work. Or two carriers would agree to support each others RCS profile, but the same phone model on either carrier had different OS versions so it wouldn’t work.
It was a mess.
A mess indeed, which seems to be why the rest of the world abandoned carrier/manufacturer controlled messaging and switched to WhatsApp
Which is a mistake. Never a good idea to abandon open standards and pool everything into one private business.
Let’s not pretend the rest of the world isn’t on competing messaging platforms (Line, Wechat, FBM, Viber, etc)
Everyone stopped running their own RCS servers and it all goes through Google now. Apple will probably run their own and by indications it will implement the standard strictly–but guess who doesn’t? Google. So it might end up being worse than just having SMS. When things don’t work right, Apple can just shrug and point at the standard and say ‘thats what we do. take it up with google.’
When things don’t work right, Apple can just shrug and point at the standard and say ‘thats what we do. take it up with google.’
And that’s exactly what they should do.
Google’s version runs the universal profile. If Apple uses the universal profile, all the RCS things people talk about will work. E2EE is a separate thing that Google Messages added but that won’t break RCS on the universal profile. Discussing E2EE is a separate issue than RCS support by Apple.
At lease with Apple stepping into RCS it will get better. Having them contribute research would add more features or at lease actual End to End encryption to the GSM Universal profile. Not just Google and Google Messages.
I think initially RCS features were determined by what Server was hosting it. Google of course wanted everyone to use their profile on their servers… With a great reputation on data retention and privacy Google was of course getting Apples approval.
Google finished adding full E2E encryption a few months ago. It’s actually more secure than iMessage now since your RCS messages aren’t stored on the cloud like iMessages. I’m guessing this is also one other reason Apple is adopting RCS.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/8/8/23824800/google-messages-rcs-end-to-end-encryption-default-group
I thought RCS only works with a server present to act as the host. Having things pass through a Google controlled server was the privacy concern. Since they can easily retain that data in its encrypted form. Which they could likely just as easily unencrypt.
While Apple relies on AWS and Azure for their cloud services. I’m sure they have some sort of agreement or control over the data that limits what Amazon and Microsoft could potentially access.
Apple however can’t guarantee the security or privacy of the Apple user when interacting with an Android phone via RCS. I wonder how they will twist a false sense of privacy
Google of course wanted everyone to use their profile on their servers…
Not exactly; they spent years trying to herd the carriers into doing RCS the GSM way. They only shifted to the iMessage-like strategy when the carriers couldn’t get their act together. They reached a “Fine, I’ll do it myself” moment, and suddenly, finally, the ball really started rolling for RCS.
Having them contribute research would add more features or at lease actual End to End encryption to the GSM Universal profile.
It’s not a lack of research that hinders E2EE on the universal profile. Google only did it themselves because the standards bodies and carriers just wouldn’t do it themselves.
Hope this means Apple will have to implement emoji as Tapback replies, if it’s a feature of RCS then it would be weird to have a worse/different implementation for iMessage.
You are talking about Google rcs implementation of translating “John doe liked “lol”” or does rcs has its own emoji reply?
I don’t think Apple’s RCS will support tapbacks, at least not initially. Google’s extensions to RCS do have them but Apple has said they will only implement the generic standard which does not yet.
The low quality RCS images will just be the perfect marketing to increase Apple usage. It’s like the freemium version of what it could be, it will increase the exposure to android users and convert some. In EU most of us just use Whatsapp and are perfectly fine with it but I see this move, though forced, to end up being a net positive for Apple.
RCS images are high quality. The current MMS images are low quality.
RCS has the same file size limit as imessage
What do you mean low quality RCS images? Images sent via RCS aren’t low quality.
I’m happy. I have friends with androids who I can’t share pictures and videos with unless it’s third party DMs like Facebook
The majority of people outside the US use WhatsApp as their default messaging app.
Great, I’m an American. My friends and family don’t use WhatsApp and they’re aren’t going to get it just to send me pictures
MMS messaging still works and always has.
Sure, but it compresses the shit out of pictures and videos. For text it’s fine, but media sharing is terrible without RCS, iMessage, or a 3rd party app.
Granted, but the argument was “can’t”, not “the quality is bad”. Also I believe RCS still depends on third party implementations on what the image quality will be, though it’ll definitely be better than MMS.
Idk why peoples friends and families can’t just take 5 seconds to download LINE or any other dozens and dozens of chat apps.
Because now, instead of 1 chat app to track, they have 2.
Because people obviously don’t want to use dozens of chat apps. Why is having a better option built in to every phone a bad thing?
I never said that’s a bad thing. I’m mainly referring to the people who complain about sms photo quality and whatnot. But there are easy alternatives that people refuse to use.
And dozens? You only need to download one mate. But keep on making up bs arguments
And dozens? You only need to download one mate. But keep on making up bs arguments
That’s my whole point, mate. Which one? How do you get your entire social circle to use the same app? That just isn’t how things work. People are going to use what they are familiar with, which in the case of most Americans is their default texting app/iMessage.
One of the advantages besides hopefully a better experience is that any problems or lack of support either by OEMs or carriers will get fixed ASAP. I expect Samsung, Google, Motorola, etc will make sure that their default messaging app supports RCS by default and well.
I expect Samsung, Google, Motorola, etc will make sure that their default messaging app supports RCS by default and well.
They do. Basically everyone is aligned on Google Messages (with RCS) as the default texting app.
So my pictures and videos sent to iPhone friends will look the same as they do from one Android with RCS to another?
What’s the size limit increase?
Seems to be ~100MB.
On Apple side I don’t see what they have to gain with that. It will cost time and money to implement to help Android users mostly not Apple users.
It’s counterintuitive for a company to invest to support others, but I guess now it’s the end of the polemic.to help Android users mostly not Apple users.
It helps any iPhone user that will message an Android user. The people on both ends benefit from the improved experience here
The tapback reactions that you use on an iPhone will have an emoji reaction equivalent on Android, so tapbacks won’t be quite as confusing to your Android using friends.
My experience has been the opposite
Better security. Google’s version of RCS has end-to-end encryption, which Apple does not intend to use. Apple will instead work with the GSMA to develop a more secure form of encryption that is baked natively into RCS.
Basically Apple is going to make RCS better than Google ever hoped for, in other words, RCS on the mobile carriers side will become E2E by default, and doesn’t have to go through Google servers.