Pressure grows on Apple to open up iMessage
(finance.yahoo.com)
from L4s@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world on 12 Oct 2023 08:00
https://lemmy.world/post/6687466
from L4s@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world on 12 Oct 2023 08:00
https://lemmy.world/post/6687466
Pressure grows on Apple to open up iMessage::Samsung has joined Google’s campaign to force Apple to make iMessage RCS-compatible—but European regulators are more likely to get that job done.
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The pressure doesn’t matter, apple makes a legitimate amount of money from people scared of being a different colored bubble. Unless someone actually writes it into law and makes a provision that all the bubbles must appear the same, nothing will change
I don’t get why more people don’t understand this. There is literally no way Apple is going to ditch iMessage or open it up voluntarily.
Cue the EU.
They already got Apple on USB-C, repairability and RCS are next.
They’ll find some way to make it cumbersome and difficult to use so that no one bothers.
I’m sure their shareholders will appreciate getting billion euro fines.
/s
At best they will keep it out of the US market, until US regulators get up to speed.
There’s a difference between USB and RCS though. With RCS the standard was stillborn and the only surviving implementation is alive because it’s Google-controlled and represents their Nth attempt at a message platform. I don’t want to see something controlled by Google become a standard of communication. We’ve already seen what happens to such de facto standards, they have very bad aspects.
The EU will not mandate RCS, just like they did not mandate USB explicitly.
They will only mandate standardization, which will force Apple, Google and Meta (as owner of WhatsApp) to agree on a standard and then enforce that standard.
RCS is just the most likely outcome.
Maybe. Google certainly has a vested interest in RCS — but the others don’t. RCS is a large standard which goes beyond interconnecting networks. They can just as well design something smaller that only achieves the minimum necessary.
You have to keep in mind that these companies don’t want this. If they can waste time designing a new standard, they will. They are also not looking to re-implement their entire networks, they most certainly don’t want to “open them up”, they just want to comply with the letter of the law with as little change as possible.
Also keep in mind that RCS has glaring faults, such as the lack of encryption.
My guess is that they’re going to try to agree on a common message format, common API and common encryption protocol and leave it at that. There are already plenty of standards out there that cover these needs.
Perhaps. I am unfamiliar with merits of RCS versus alternatives.
Howsver, any solution that enables extra proprietary functionality outside of the standard would be non-compliant, so I don’t think they will be able to get a half-baked solution through.
Also, the EU has zero interest to play softball with these companies. If they can punish them with a billion euro fine for not complying, they definitely will.
Again, there is no particular standard being mandated for this. The EU just wants interoperability – being able to communicate to a person using iMessage on their phone from your phone using Whatsapp for example. How the providers accomplish it is their business. The only pressure will be to not degrade the user’s experience to the point the interop becomes a liability rather than a boon.
OK but they cannot simply slap fines on them and call it a day. If the companies say “what you’re asking for is too difficult” they will need to take the time to examine this claim. In fact I can guarantee right now that we’ll see the deadline extended at least once.
We’re saying the same thing.
iMessage isn’t anywhere near as popular in the EU as it is in the US, so it’s just not as big of a problem for them to target and apple is doing a good job lobbying them not to
This is weirdly only a thing in America. In Europe, where I live, iMessage isn’t that popular and iPhone users never seem to care about the bubble colour (likely because WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, Element, and Threema are so popular, everyone is used to using multiple chat apps anyway).
Edit: Also I’m not sure why everyone is championing RCS - it’s yet another proprietary communication standard like iMessage and isn’t open thus can’t be easily implemented in other chat apps.
Rather then pressure Apple to support and further popularise another closed protocol, we should be pushing for something open like Matrix or Signal.
I have never heard of anyone in the U.S. who cares about the bubble color either. The only reason I ever cared was that it used to mean there was a good chance it wouldn’t get through if it was a green bubble, but that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. I’ve gotten iPhone-to-iPhone green bubbles when there’s been some sort of communication difficulty to Apple’s servers and it had to go straight SMS.
Are you dating or in school at the moment? I if not, it might be that you’re just oblivious to this trend, because it is definitely a thing in many social circles.
Maybe for people much younger than me. But certainly I’ve never heard of such a thing in the many years I’ve had iPhones (started with the 3).
It’s not simply an age thing. I’m in my 40s and have definitely witnessed the judgment in the dating scene.
Ok, fair, I’ve been married for over two decades. I don’t get why anyone would care though.
It’s not that difficult to understand. An iPhone is a symbol of affluence, and that aspect is important to many people who are looking for a mate.
Edited to add: And as dating has shifted to being mostly online, the first real connection you have with a potential mate outside of the apps is via text.
Yeah, but there are Android phones which are unquestionably also a symbol of affluence, like foldables.
Don’t bring reason and logic into this. It’s not logical. It’s a wide-sweeping generality, but it is reality nonetheless.
Easy way to filter out the shallow people not worth your time
Seeems mostly a US centric thing though. I’ve never experienced this, 99% of people here with smartphones have whatsapp/telegram and use that almost exclusively, even iphone users.
No one said it wasn’t, but US is the largest and most affluent market and therefore the only one that matters. /s
I haven’t encountered any adults who actually care about that in one-on-one conversations. I have however been excluded from group chats because mixing iMessage and SMS users resulted in a degraded experience. The iPhone users were, of course unwilling to consider installing any other chat app.
I find the last bit pretty annoying. It takes about 45 seconds to download Signal and confirm your number.
I just had that conversation with a group of adults who all had iPhones and were unwilling to add non-iPhone people to a group or change messaging apps.
The reasons given were:
The conclusion by the group was “just buy an iPhone!”
And that’s a group of adults. I can’t imagine the bullying and peer pressure teenagers have to face over something as idiotic as messaging apps.
Meanwhile, I have six messaging apps on my phone (which is neither new nor high-end) and would be willing to install most others (not Facebook chat or Instagram) if it made communication easier for someone.
I have to say that in Denmark at least, iMessage seems to thrive quite well. There are quite a lot using Facebook messenger, but SMS and iMessage is a close second. This is entirely from my point of view. Never met anyone using the examples you mention, unless they are communicating with foreigners on a daily basis.
In finland everyone I know uses WhatsApp, and my friend circle and family also use Signal. So, eh.
It’s popular in Sweden too
It is proprietary but at least it will interoperable with other phones and carriers.
My guy, this entire article is about Google and Samsung trying to convince Apple to adopt RCS.
Is a completely open standard better? Yeah, absolutely.
Would RCS basically create unified rich communication for virtually everyone? Also yes.
RCS isn’t open at all in practice and anyone who wants to put the carriers (or more likely Google) in control of messaging is a moron.
Nobody wants to do that, except that the alternative is SMS, which is much much worse.
Two related issues are being confused/conflated here.
The first is the American cultural significance of the green and blue bubbles. This is the thing that Europeans generally don’t care about as most are using WhatsApp et. al.
The second is the lack of interoperability between chat protocols such that it degrades the experience for everyone. This is what the EU is targeting.
I don’t think the colours of chat bubbles for specific devices as displayed by other specific devices falls under that remit. The implementor must comply with providing the same service level though. Whether or not this will lead to less cultural significance for bubble hues in the US remains to be seen.
It won’t be with RCS. The “gatekeeper” criteria applies to interoperation between dominant technologies. RCS has very small adoption in Europe. If iMessage will make the cut it will have to integrate with Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger and Signal.
Edit: I should clarify, there’s RCS the standard and there’s Google’s implementation. Google’s RCS is too small to be considered for itntegration. The standard on the other hand would be nice, in an ideal world; however, merging proprietary networks into an open standard is a very high goal and goes beyond what the EU wants to attempt at this time. Instead it will let the tech owners achieve interoperability in any way they want and can.
I’m pretty confident the blue and green colors have nothing to do with it. It’s simply the difficulties of using sms (or at least how Apple implements sms). iMessage allows much higher quality videos/images to be sent and enables group chats to be dynamic where people can be added and removed at will. On iOS sms group chats have to be made with every member in it at creation, if you want to add another person or remove a person then you have to make a whole new group chat. Compound this with iPhone dominance in North America it often presents an annoyance where the single android user forces all the iPhone users to use sms and all the difficulties/reduced features it comes with.
WhatsApp, Telegram, and whatever chat app isn’t used in NA because it’s just harder to convince someone to download and make an account. Why should a user download another chat app? Why isn’t iMessage (sms) app good enough? Usually I’ve seen people just use instagram to chat with android users because sms is just so bad (at least on iOS, I’ve heard some things about how android works around the limitations).
Yes Apple could implement better sms features but they won’t.
So don’t just parrot “it’s because of the colors” it’s most likely due to users association with past experiences of “green chat bubbles”.
Apple is still to blame here but it’s not because users are scared. Most iPhone users or phone users in general just want it to work and never think about what features they’re missing. Asking/convincing someone to download yet another app and set up yet another account to yet again be spammed by emails, texts, phone calls is just too much for a majority of people who are used to the simplicity of iMessage. It comes with your phone, you make a single Apple account, and it just works™.
“Where every single android user forces iPhone uses to use sms” Apple forces this, they are very happy to do this, to make iPhone users hate the different colored bubbles and for people to absolutely not want to be the different colored bubbles.
It’s everything to do with the bubbles. You can’t say it isn’t. People literally talk about this.
SMS=carrier junk.
RCS=Google junk.
Exactly? From an iPhone users viewpoint the android phone is forcing them to use sms. I go on to say Apple is to blame.
Apple has nothing to do with the SMS junk other than allowing that junk to work because it is legacy.
You’d be surprised. A lot of girls won’t date someone if they don’t have the right colored chat bubbles.
I agree.
Doesn’t the EU DMA would eventually force Apple, Whatsapp… to open up ?
iMessage was excluded because nobody uses it here
What’s here ? I’m French and I think 90% iPhone users use it. For what I see, Whatsapp here is more, of an app dedicated to family groups and travelling abroad
EU. They took a look at the market position in EU and came to the conclusion that it could be excluded from the legislation because it held such a little position. WhatsApp and Messenger are massive compared to iMessage.
Oh alright. Too bad
statista.com/…/messengers-voip-penetration-france…
gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/france
Considering that Android and iPhone have 65% and 34% respectively market share in France, iMessage being used 24% overall sounds about right. But you can’t disregard how massive Messenger and WhatsApp are.
Indeed ! I just thought iMessage would be a bit more used
.
They did fully not exclude it from legislation yet. Apple simply contested their iMessage’s as a gatekeeper under the definition used in the act, and the Commission is in the process of determining whether or not that is true. If iMessage is determined to be a gatekeeper, Apple will only have bought themselves a few more months before they have to comply with the DMA.
Nobody I know uses iMessage (or RCS for that matter) here in Germany. Most people use WhatsApp.
I think this is an American problem
Not nobody, it’s number three after WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger (both owned by Meta).
So yeah, the EU is definitely focusing on Meta, but iMessage, Signal and RCS (Google) are large enough to all be in scope of the regulation.
I don’t know if things like Snapchat are also in scope.
Edit: got corrected below. WhatsApp and Messenger are in scope, iMessage is being reviewed.
Signal and RCS are not in scope. You can see the targeted services here, for communication it’s currently just WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. iMessage is being discussed but that’s it. Signal and RCS don’t have a large enough share, Signal is tiny and RCS is not even a blip on the radar. If anything it’s going to be Viber and Telegram next. Viber has a 25x larger userbase than Signal, Telegram about 10x, and WhatsApp is about 75x. Here’s a chart to give you some idea.
Thanks, that clarifies it!
Funnily enough, here in Scandinavia next to nobody uses WhatsApp, we pretty much exclusively use sms/RCS/iMessage and Snapchat. Sometimes Messanger. Weird how different it is
I remember Steve Jobs stating on stage that the protocol will be opened up when iMessage was revealed. Apparently this statement surprised the developers of it, because they didn’t know anything about that (based on some rumors).
Then that statement was silently ignored.
It was FaceTime, not iMessage. The reason the developers were surprised was that they didn’t own the tech, and Apple lost a patent lawsuit about it and almost had to remove FaceTime entirely. www.bbc.com/news/technology-20236114 fiercewireless.com/…/apple-s-facetime-open-standa…
Oh you’re right, I misremembered.
But first you remembered.
“Lol, no.” -Tim Cook, probably.
“Hell yes” - the EU, definitely
“Too bad” -the EU, as well
My issue with RCS is its only open to other device makers, like you can’t make RCS apps cause you need a special license. Its a closed system that on android will likely always depend on google
The idea of making Apple use it is also part of Google giving the operations to carriers, just like SMS, and then gradually replacing SMS altogether. Google isn’t even supposed to be running the RCS servers. But they did it in order to get the standard up and running everywhere. It’s an open standard, and multiple carriers in several countries are on their way to carrying the burden of the servers, the way the standard is supposed to operate. Once it’s operating, all servers can talk to each other, just like you can SMS a person on another carrier line. RCS will allow universal rich texting.
Surely XMPP and other standards are different and I would prefer any other than something championed by Google. But the truth is, that the other standards aren’t invited to sit at the right tables and don’t offer the same “replace SMS once and for all” potential the way RCS does. XMPP for example is super expensive to escalate and like almost all of the traffic is just presence messaging, which is super wasteful and energy intensive on servers. RCS is not the best, but it’s one that all carriers and telecommunications agencies are on board for replacing the archaic SMS. And it doesn’t preclude using other protocols. Like, WhatsApp, Signal, Matrix and Telegram will still continue to exist.
It requires provisioning by your mobile carrier. iMessage doesn’t.
Anyone advocating for something that isn’t OTT has been living under a rock.
So does your data service. You have to pay the carrier to have Internet in the cellular network. Do you think that iMessage work with faeries carrying the messages around?
Truly the only reason RCS is pushed by the carriers is because of RBM, to monetize business to client communication. But it’s no better nor worse than WhatsApp for businesses.
Works over any internet eg wifi. You don’t need to have a subscription to anything at all to use iMessage.
And RCS works when you don’t have internet. What part of everything has pros and cons and it doesn’t make alternatives go away you don’t understand? what’s this need to simp for Apple? I don’t give a fuck about Apple, I just want the modernization of SMS.
Or SMS should just die….
And how does RCS work without internet? It doesn’t work without connectivity to the cellular IMS. RCS only works on 4G and 5G. It doesn’t work on 2G/3G service which in the US is being phased out, but still exists in lots of places.
And here is the part that no one seems to understand.
Apple forced the carriers to allow iMessage because they were in a power position to do so.
Meanwhile, GSMA has been fucking around since 2008, because no one could agree to anything.
Management by committee or take control and make it happen.
RCS and GSMA will not prevail.
2008 !
I’m not so sure about the special license thing. The limit on 3rd party apps is because there isn’t an API in Android that exposes RCS to users, only OEMs (which is how Samsung can do it). If Google flipped that switch and made the API public, 3rd party apps would be able to use it just as easily as they do SMS without paying extra or obtaining a license. It’s an open standard.
Only Google knows why they haven’t done this already.
Because RCS is provisioned by the telcos and the telcos won’t let them.
Want end to end encryption, have to use Google Messages, not Samsung Messages, both RCS. How’s that for interop?
RCS is a mess and not the savior.
Also, encryption is a mixed bag depending upon the client, and you need a phone number. Using iMessage with an email address is quite nice.
They aren’t going to budge, at least not willingly.
a la USB-C
I don’t want next-gen SMS. I want adoption of Internet based and democratic standard instead.
I honestly think the odds of Apple making an iMessage app for Windows/Android/Linux is more likely than that sadly
People keep getting messages the app and iMessage the protocol confused. While never written that way (as far as naming goes), I’ve seen nothing to indicate that the EU isn’t just saying that Messages the app doesn’t just need hooks to allow third party apps to integrate into the one interface. It’s about adding more bubble colors as it were. So stuff like WhatsApp would just pop up in the same feed over whatever protocol it uses.
I hope this is right
But that would still be easier to convince someone to sign up for Signal or whatever other app if it came in a unified inbox. I just started using Beeper a couple of months ago, because while the security concerns are valid, it is really damn convenient.
Oh agreed. I think (if I’m right, I’m not a lawyer just a programmer who reads all this from a highly Apple centric technical background) it would make for a much improved messaging experience. Like this with RCS, I don’t care if Apple implements it themselves. I do think the carriers apps should though and those messages should just show up like any others in Messages. Same with say WhatsApp providing its messages. Ideally they’d handle their own encryption/keys/requirements basically externally to Messages itself, like many of the other apps that provide system wide extensions do.
Anyway here’s hoping 🤷♂️
As OP said, Apple can open up the iMessage protocol and still mark the non-iMessage mesagges inside their app as they used to. Apple didn't create the green/bubble class divide, but they sure are enjoying the ride and can claim they're innocent (since it's technically the users, not the company discriminating).
Anyways, I'm all for open protocols and cross-platform compatibility. If some iUsers decide to ghost me because my Signal message appears in a different color, then screw them. Can I make them purple or orange?
Unless the EU makes them use RCS they never will. In the US iMessage is literally THE REASON people buy the iPhone. It’s their main selling point. They don’t care how much pressure you place on them, they aren’t going to lose those sales willingly.
The EU has dragged Apple through the mud in order to make them change for the better, they will be able to do the same.
If what the first commenter said is true. They will just implement RCS or an alternative in the EU and make up some reason why they can’t or won’t for the US market.
I’ll take it. Whatever makes them suffer at least a little bit. (Apple, that is.)
USB C was a hardware change. Economically it was not viable to run separate production lines of lightning/ USB-C phones.
RCS is a software issue. Supporting RCS in certain regions but not others (the US for example) is much simpler.
I have seen people literally say they like that iMessage is exclusive, and they like to keep Android users away/separate
It was reeking of classism in addition to being generally a terrible thing to read
I’ve heard of people not responding to the wrong colored bubbles or being judgemental, like my $1,200 phone is better than your $1,200 phone?
In so many ways.
Bullet dodged. Thinking you’re hot shit because you use the ultimate basic bitch phone is just ridiculous.
I mean, guys have the same thing going on. Fickle knows no gender.
I think basic bitch is not a gender specific phrase, I personally use the meme bitch on myself even as a cis guy.
What an American problem. 😂
That's just sad. Not even sports teams or musicians, but over a walled-gardened messaging app?
Top whack android phones aret really cheaper than iPhones these days so it’s not classism as such. Yanks just seem to love to tribalise everything, see masks during Covid as another example. I think it’s a result of having a two party political system.
I know it’s not actually a thing, it was about how they were talking about it
I knew a 29 y/o woman that switched to iPhone so that others with iPhones would see her text messages bubble as blue instead of green. Imagine blowing over a thousand dollars so that someone else sees blue rather than green in text messages. Meanwhile, I can make the bubble colors whatever color I want on my Android.
I honestly blame Apple for abusing the societal penchant for forming tribes around random things.
It is not literally the reason.
Yeah this thread is wild… like no imessage isn’t literally the reason people buy iPhones. And iMessage doesn’t have “higher quality photos.”
Everytime I discuss apple vs android with colleagues, it always boils down to “but come one, you can’t take someone with green bubbles seriously”. And we all work as developers for god’s sake. iPhone users are more shallow than you think.
And yes iMessage has way higher image quality than sms, just like RCS has
MMS resolution seems fine for me and on Android, if I try to send a photo via SMS, my phone will alert me and suggest that I send that particular text (with a photo attachment) via MMS.
Group chats in RCS weren’t even end-to-end encrypted on Android until August of this year. Green texts are a security risk.
😂, a security risk 🤣🤣🤣🤣 Are you Edward Snowden that you think it’s such a massive risk?
You are delusional. I use text messages all the time and there is zero risk.
Is there zero risk or do you think there is zero risk? Text messages can absolutely be intercepted by your service provider
Don’t you think you’re a bit paranoid? Does the service provider care to know that you sent a message to your friend saying “great party last”? Or to your wife, “pick up bread and milk please”?
I’m quite sure they are not wasting their time doing that.
If what you need to say is so secret, you should not be using iMessage, SMS or WhatsApp but something stronger like Signal, Matrix etc
I don’t think it’s paranoid to not want any intermediary to know what you’re talking about, even if all you’re talking about is innocuous things like groceries.
Besides, they don’t have to “waste time” on anything. They’ve got computers to collect it all.
Of course, like you said, Signal or Matrix are potential solutions for that, but you still need to get both sides to agree on using them. SMS have the advantage that everyone has a phone number and can thus use them. Upgrading to RCS will secure this insecure-yet-very-popular medium.
I understand that but as we know from Edward Snowden, the CIA literally have direct server access to all of Apple servers, Google servers, Amazon servers and Microsoft servers to name a few.
So they can just log in and view your iMessages at anytime. Or have the system collect them. This was part of the Patriot Act that requires the tech companies to make sure the government can view all of this at any time to identify terrorists.
That means the server definitely has the encryption key to your conversations. However you are protected from having a snooper snoop your line using snoop tools because the connection to the server is encrypted
<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.ca/pictrs/image/523972dc-00ef-4675-9122-d486182285e1.jpeg">
Okay so now that it has encryption, what is the security risk?
If you’re that concerned with security, shouldn’t you be using Signal and try to convince others to do so? iMessage is E2E encrypted but Signal is platform-agnostic and has better security/privacy.
I don’t care but you have to convince Apple. People really pile on for the most trivial of comments.
I can’t speak for the others, but I’m just curious as to why iMessage’s quirks are heavily put up with. With the options of messaging apps nowadays, the “green bubble” stuff seems like an arbitrary problem.
Sure, it’s stock software, but plenty are willing to switch off Edge/Safari for Chromium browsers. I understand that there’s strong social pressure to conform to using the same messaging service. I think it’s something that can be worked around with any proficiency with tech, along with a good argument to the social circle. I managed to get off Messenger this way and it worked great.
Personally I’d rather find the best message service than use what everyone else uses, but that’s just me. It’s not a big problem at the end of the day, really. People value different things with their tech, and that’s fine.
Network effect. It’s easier to convince the one green text to switch than to convince everyone to switch to an alternative. Even in my one immediate family we only have one Android. As a result we have two group threads, one of which excludes that number so images and videos will go through at full quality. Message is the default so people use it. I’m aware that’s not the case in other countries.
True. So true in fact that I’d be willing to bet that even if the EU made them implement RCS they still wouldn’t do it in the US. USB-C only worked because it’s a hardware change and maintaining separate lightning and USB-C models and accessory ecosystems doesn’t make sense. RCS is a software change that costs them nothing to NOT use in the only market where it would hurt them.
Agreed
💀
Encryption, photos are higher quality through it (this is where “Android cameras are bad” came from,) typing indicators, sending messages over Wi-Fi, iMessage games, and message effects.
All of this is available on just about every messaging service, so the real answer is tribalism and lack of consumer education.
But still, if you have an Android and someone you want to text has an iPhone, you’re using SMS, not RCS.
I do believe RCS-compatibility for iMessage would make take a chunk out of iPhone sales honestly.
Um, no, most of us just use WhatsApp
But most iPhone sales are in a region where WhatsApp is irrelevant.
I message people on iOS from my android all the time, we use WhatsApp and the problem is solved.
Some of that isn’t i-message specific though, right? I have a Pixel and it has high quality pictures, typing indicators, reads receipts, sends over wifi… the other stuff I don’t think Android has but that’s a bit gimicky anyway. Not trying to be an android fan girl but I really don’t understand what makes i-message better.
I agree that all the stuff iMessage has that RCS doesn’t is gimmicky, I’m, an Android user myself…but if you have an Android and someone you want to text has an iPhone, you’re both using SMS.
The problem is the walled garden, both ecosystems have those features but they don’t work together. If all your friends have iPhones, there’s a lot of pressure to also have an iPhone. And once you’re in, you’re not likely getting out unless all your social circle does at once. That kind of lock in is extremely valuable.
I have an android and use Textra as my messaging app. I can see iPhone reactions and also react to messages agnostic of the other phone’s OS
It isn’t better, but it’s an extreme example of Americas corporate fanaticism, everywhere else people say “well if Apple and Google don’t play nice together, we’ll use a third party app and skip it all”. In the US they say, “if you don’t have an iPhone that makes you worse than me somehow so this allows me to lord it over you”.
My understanding of “Android cameras bad” came from snapchat on Android literally taking shittier pictures and videos for some reason.
It took a screenshot of the viewfinder instead of an actual shot with shutter settings etc.
Nothing. Google Messages app has all the same features. The only problem is that Apple refuses to also support RCS (which Google messages uses) and so if an android user sends a message to an iPhone user, the iPhone user gets it as an SMS. If the Android user sends a picture, the iPhone user receives it as an MMS.
In the rest of the world this is not an issue because most people use WhatsApp or Signal or Viber or any other local messaging app. Also most android phones have the Messages app as default which means if you message another Android user they will get it over WiFi/data in the messages app.
But in the US for some reason the iPhone users consider getting an SMS as somehow bad and that the Android user is poor or inferior because they sent an SMS.
It’s totally stupid and only a US issue, but it’s so strong that teenagers will be bullied if they don’t have an iPhone for iMessage. So they all get iPhones in order not to be bullied. And this way Apple makes mega sales.
This is the reason I got my first IPhone. This is also the same reason why I left IPhone.
I’m glad you left. Welcome to the good side 👍
The fact that other people they know also use it.
The app itself is pretty much the same as any other modern messaging app, but network effects are everything when it comes to messaging services.
This is why you see entire countries where everyone has WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger or Telegram, depending on what other people in the country are using.
In most of Europe, nobody uses an apple phone, so the pressure to get them to use a different protocol is fairly low.
I’d love to see an open, secure, universal rich messaging standard adopted by everyone but we know that’s not gonna happen.
Carriers have literally no incentive to improve on SMS, I doubt they’ll lose any customers because of a lack of RCS adoption.
Do I like the locked in nature of iMessage? Not really, but it’s honestly not that big of a deal here (UK).
I just don’t like how Google talks about their proprietary messaging service as though it’s an industry standard. It’s not. Google RCS is not RCS.
Citation needed on the Google RCS not being RCS
RCS was meant to be a SMS replacement spec for carriers to implement but it never reached ubiquity like SMS did.
And of the carriers that rolled it out, not all of them rolled it out to the same spec either so they’re not even completely interoperable.
Then there’s the fact that many of the Google Messages features such as E2E encryption aren’t a part of the RCS Spec. They were built on top of it by Google.
And unless you’re Samsung, good luck on building a messaging app that’s interoperable with the Google version of RCS they use in messages.
In short, Google RCS runs through Google’s servers, not the carriers like it was designed for. As far as I see it, it’s just the Google version of iMessage.
arstechnica.com/…/google-enables-end-to-end-encry…
If you want to download the actual RCS universal profile spec as defined by GSMA you can find it here, missing quite a few things from the Google version you see in Messages:
www.gsma.com/futurenetworks/…/universal-profile/
Apple has a better solution. Why should they adopt an inferior one?
Do people forget about SMS? Apple’s solution uses that too. It’s shit. This is about replacing SMS with RCS. It’s hard to argue that Apple’s solution is better if you can only use it within Apple’s ecosystem.
No it is not. SMS was provided by the cell phone carriers.
RCS is Google junk.
Don’t conflate SMS and RCS.
The GSMA is not Google. Nice try though.
The GSMA is Google’s front man.
Not frequently do I roll my eyes at reading a post.
;)
You are an ignorant fool, clearly
You may educate yourself here:
en.m.wikipedia.org/…/Rich_Communication_Services
As any college professor will tell you, do not use Wikipedia as a source.
Ok then where is the source of your information which has nothing backing it? At least wikipedia is something
Sorry, I am an ignorant fool. Therefore you get no source from me.
Not ignorant. I know that RCS is doomed.
A fool, sure.
David Meyer put a lot of effort into this story and it shows.
Who is he again?
Yeah fuck apple but seriously, RCS is fucking stupid. We have so many nice open protocols and RCS is the best we can get?
There is exactly one app that can use rcs. No better than apple
RCS seems to be pretty openly licensed out to other OEMs, definitely a lot better than iMessage.
It’s still proprietary though, a far cry from something like Matrix.
Confidently incorrect but ok.
The whole point of RCS is that it’s a protocol so there demonstrably would be other apps. It’s like saying there’s only one app for SMS, it isn’t true.
What non Google sms app that has implemented RCS?
Never looked into it, what’s so bad about RCS besides it being proprietary? Way better than SMS in my experience.
Being proprietary
I would love if they would just roll out an iMessage app to android. Ideally free.
I could realistically see them roll out an apple subscription pack to android eventually. Give users a way to access Apple Music, Fitness, etc. May even allow android users make use of Apple Watch.
I’m not an Apple fan boy, but this seems like a decent compromise from a business perspective. This meets a need and I don’t think there’s a decent enough argument that it would cannibalize iPhone sales (flagship models anyway)
You can use Apple Music and an Apple Watch from android.
You can’t use an Apple watch on Android because it requires the Apple watch app to sync with the phone and that won’t work on Android.
That’s pretty stupid. I doubt many Android users would switch to Iphone you for a smartwatch, but a few would absolutely buy apple watches if they could.
I guess the point is that they don’t want iphone users to switch to android since that would make their watch practically useless.
Yes because iPhones have ✨magic chips✨ inside which only Apple has… I’m pretty sure the apple watch communicates with Bluetooth. Apple just deliberately shuts Android out.
Apple originally looked into it but decided not to because they wanted to maintain their ecosystem. Same story as usual.
I have no idea why the above guy seems to think that Apple watches work on androids
It doesn’t work on Android, I know that. But I’ll bet you 1000€ that Apple could enabled cross-platform compatibility with an OTA update.
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I ain’t paying a one time or subscription to get fucking blue or green bubbles. Hell with that.
You can do apple music on android
Apple Music on android is shit
I’ll just carry on using whatapps and people on iPhones can either download it or put up with my different coloured bubbles if they don’t want too. Luckily people in the UK are all mostly on WhatsApp anyway, this who text message colours is a very yank centric problem.
Signal or at least Telegram or Viber. Fuck WhatsApp, I’d like at least my messenger app to not belong to Facebook of all companies.
While it’s all still E2E encrypted I don’t really care what servers it goes though. If the UK/EU manage to get encryption blocked then I’ll worry.
Do you use E2EE for all your chats? I think nearly nobody does.
It’s on by default with every convo in WA.
they still collect the messages’ metadata and create a profile based on that.
Whatsapp is actually better than Telegram lol. You fell for Telegrams marketing lol
At least Telegram doesn’t show your fucking phone number
They can literally read your messages by default lol
Any FSB agent can connect any whatsapp message to person who wrote it.
That’s just plain wrong.
Whatsapp is using the Signal Protocol.
To read your messages they need to get your phone. And now even your Backups are encrypted, so they can’t read your Messages from there.
What encryption will do against someone who is in same group chat?
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For now. Facebook has said that they plan to disable end-to-end encryption in WhatsApp at some point, so that you can receive messages from people using Facebook Messenger.
This gets even better: WA listened to Putin and did not enable channels because it is popular among 40+ and teachers.
I tried to use it a few months ago. It would not let me use it unless I gave it access to all my contacts’ information. I denied the permission request and it wouldn’t work.
How in the hell are you okay with that?
Because that’s how phones work, it links your account to your phone number and uses your contacts to tell you who’s on the app too using their numbers.
Yeah, that is also how computer viruses work. I was very thankful for permission control. That app is cancer.
Meh, I think some people are just paranoid on Lemmy when it comes to stuff like this. There’s plenty of laws in the UK around storage and use of information that protect users of apps like this.
If it’s so benign, why make it necessary to give all the information about all your contacts to the app?
To paraphrase Zuckerberg, “people are dumbfucks for giving me so much information.”
How else do you think a messaging app that replaces your phones messaging functionality is supposed to work if not on phone numbers?
So you’re saying that the only way a messaging app can work is to access all the information from all your contacts? If it doesn’t have all that information, it can’t work? If Whatsapp can’t have all that information, it would be impossible to function?
No, it’s fully possible to have its own account and log in system, but that adds a layer of abstraction that makes it harder to sell to people as a replacement for their inbuilt messaging apps which just require a phone number.
If you give Facebook any benefit of the doubt in relation to privacy concerns, I guess I can only believe Zuckerberg to be correct.
And all thieves pay close attention to laws, and make sure their apps have “nothing” hidden in the folds.
How do you think phone number based chat apps works bro?
Give me the option to add contacts individually?
That app is cancer, better just to nope out of the installation.
I’m pretty sure the stock SMS app that comes with your phone also needs access to the contacts permissions, but is enabled by default, so the app doesn’t even ask for it.
So in addition to that, why give the information to Facebook too?
Remember, Zuckerberg thinks people are dumbfucks for giving information to him.
Why do they go out of their way to disable the app if I deny access to contacts? Surely it would be less work to just add a couple of warnings telling me it may not work properly. But to disable the whole app? That is absolutely ridiculous.
FaceTime would be nice to have on Android as well, I know it technically works via a browser, if you get an invite from an iPhone user, but it’s such a bad experience for everyone. And I’m sure they do that because it’s easy peer pressure “advertising” from Apple users who want to video call with Android users, but can’t be bothered to put any work into using a compatible app, and instead blame Android users for the incompatibility.
That would make the problem worse, it would be just another centralized chat app you need to install. We would get from “what about people not using iOS” to “what about people not using iOS or Google Android”.
I don’t think that works, since why would people want yet another chat app to deal with. I tried several but usually gave them up because iMessage does what I need it to and I don’t want to check many
Having everyone support RCS, as an update from SMS, gives that interoperability, along with improving the SMS experience
I was a huge fan of what Pigeon tried to do, but I’m Apple-centric these days and have no idea what the state of that is
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This is where the EU could really make it a reality.
…or even better: end iMsg
IMessage isn’t really used in Europe, so it doesn’t get covered by the DMA-DSA-Duo sadly
Sure it does. It’s the interoperability of all of them from iMessage to Whatsapp, signal, Google message, etc.
computerworld.com/…/eu-lists-gatekeepers-to-be-re…
…europa.eu/commission-designates-six-gatekeepers-…
I read the legislation. What’s your point with URL?
i read the Legislation as well. Only Gatekeepers need to open up. The EU hasn’t designated IMessage as a Gatekeeper yet.
The URL is the official EU Announcement to the designation of the Gatekeepers. Check it out. IMessage isn’t on it.
I don’t think Europeans even use it
Yep, EU is whatsapp territory. Nobody cares about Apple software.
India is WhatsApp territory, EU uses multiple media
Who fucking cares, it’s a private company they’ll do what they want more power to em
What happended with forcing interoperability with different services like WhatsApp and Messenger? Would be great if we could just have one app for all messages like on Windows Phone back in the day 🙏
Matrix has good interop, you can use it.
I’ve looked into using Matrix bridge to be able to communicate with iMessage groups from Android. There’s a repo / company called Beeper that seems to maintain some bridges.
But tbh haven’t spent enough time with it. Looks like a lot of setup and maintenance. Would LOVE to be able to talk to iMessage from android
I use Beeper. There is a bit of a setup process adding the different chat networks but there’s next to no maintenance in my experience. It pretty much just works.
the downside is that it decrypts your messages on their server before sending them in either direction. so even if you use an e2e encrypted messenger like Whatsapp or Signal with it, Beeper could still read your messages.
I miss the old days of Trillian, a single pane of glass UI for all the major IM networks, cross-service meta contacts, and the messaage history was kept client side.
I don’t get why people like RCS in this context. It has the same problem as iMessage.
On Android you have to use Google Messages to get it. Third party apps don’t work with it because Google never opened it up to them. How common is RCS without Google Messages? Even on Samsung phones it goes via Google.
How common is iMessage without an Apple product?
Why does Google want them to use iMessage? Probably since the data would flow through them.
Same shiz, different company.
RCS is just a standard, much like how SMS is just a standard. Google’s Messaging app is just one implementation of it, though it probably is the most popular in the US it is not the only one, nor is Google able to decide who cannot use it. Carriers typically have their own, though you may have recently heard that T-Mobile decided to switch over to Google’s.
As someone else said RCS is just the new global standard replacing SMS that apple does not want to support because it weakens their walled garden.
Because most people don’t really understand the specifics of what they are railing against and/or arguing for. They just read “big bad Apple is being eViL” and get on the complaint train without really understanding what they are advocating for.
In my opinion Google should really being trying to push Chat as the default for Android instead. It is no more walled off than Googles RCS implementation, and unlike RCS they don’t need Apple to bake it into their messaging app to attract users.
The fact that they care more about their RCS implementation for this purpose instead of Chat or just the basic RCS protocol as the standard tells me Google is more interested in the easy road to being the technical foundation of texting for reasons other than the universal convince of customers or the proliferation of standards.
In reality they probably want this so bad because if they were to get it it would make it effectively impossible for the average person to avoid Google services on some level, which is good for their data mining empire.
You used a lot of words, just too say that you don’t know what you are talking about.
Well then go on, why am I wrong? Or do you just not like my opinion and are grasping at straws to make youself feel better?
RCS is an open standard created by GSMA. That’s why you’re wrong.
Googles implementation of the RCS standard has extra things not included in the base standard. The encryption for example is something Google added that is not part of the standard.
Additionally, Google does not allow any other implementation of RCS to talk to their jibe servers to pass messages without them explicitly approving it.
So what Google has functionally created is a proprietary messaging service built on top of an open standard. This is what most people miss about all of the coverage of Google pushing for RCS.
I didn’t know that Google built encryption on top of the standard, I thought it was part of it.
Besides that though, Google would be making the dumbest business move if they didn’t let Apple’s potential RCS implementation talk to theirs.
Besides that, the point that RCS is still an open standard stands and should replace SMS just because of how archaic and old it is. Heck, there’s still a character limit.
That’s why Apple has been cagey about the whole thing. It’s Google’s tech. Their patents. Their way. Of course they are going to weaponize it because that’s where we are with software these days.
The answer isn’t RCS and Apple knows it. It’s trading iMessage for a merger with gMessage, a hybrid of the two with Apple losing half of its control. For a pretty meek gain.
The answer is to come up with an open standard that all messaging apps adopt and build on. So we can eventually move away from shitty SMS. Neither Google, or Apple should control the framework.
It works on Textra just fine
Wait, since when does Textra have RCS support?
Beats me someone liked a text I sent them a few days ago and I realized I could give their’s emoji responses too.
That does not mean that Textra supports RCS at all. It does not. It just supports text reactions with other Textra users.
old.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/…/iensamw/
The other user isn’t using Textra though which is why I thought it was rcs.
Samsung Messages supports RCS if carrier enables it: androidcentral.com/how-set-rcs-chat-samsung-phone…
RCS is an open standard created by GSMA, not a Google product. Google and Samsung just have the most popular “flavours” of RCS
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Ever think the US based company is trying to do something for it’s American user’s? Makes sense to me. Almost nobody in America uses WhatsApp or other messaging apps, at least in my experience so far.
I care. The majority of countries are heavily dependent on WhatsApp and that’s not good!
Uh oh class!
I have zero interest in using any Apple service. I’ve never needed to, and I never will.
They can keep their imessage thing, I hadn’t even heard of it until just now. I’m good.
It’s incompatible with Android on purpose. They want their users shaming non apple users in to getting an iPhone.
Well it kinda works in a weird way
I saw it work in high school, but I haven’t seen adults care much. As an android user, there are times I wish I had iMessage, but I’ve never had anyone bother me about it.
It is not just high school students that care about pureblood iMessage group chats. Also dip shit wife beaters: news.yahoo.com/nba-head-coach-punished-team-16145…
Yeah, there’s always shitty adults. I typically try to avoid them
Apple doesn’t want to that because they make money from iMessage. Android wouldn’t want you to do that if they had iMessage. If you use Android and have RCS then you don’t need iMessage because you already have the features you want. Android only wants iMessage be opened so Apple makes less money. Don’t get caught up in their war. Use your RCS messenger and don’t be worried about what Apple has.
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Surely that’s a people problem, not a technical one?
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Let’s be real: there’s a lot of self-interested whining from Samsung and Google, but there isn’t any pressure.
People actually use that? Everybody I know is using whatsapp and/or signal. Nobody bothers about proprietary crap.
What is your demo? In my world it’s quite different. Isn’t Whatsapp proprietary? And I know few that will bother with signal these days. I’ve started getting obvious spam invites on it as well so…
RCS should just be the standard. There is no reason to argue that… it doesn’t end the apps you use but many of us are tired of multiple apps.
Is RCS encrypted? I still prefer signal above everything else. Whatsapp seems to be passable privacy wise, but it’s Facebook so I don’t trust it one bit.
One way or another, Whatsapp is the standard around the world and it for sure beats SMS.
Whatsapp is using the signal protocol, which is open. So the app itself might be proprietary, but not the implementation.
They’re still all disconnected.
It kills me that after going through the old messaging apps days (ICQ, AIM, MSN, etc), then a small window of hope with XMPP we’re back to disconnected messaging apps on mobile.
Even worse: SMS is distributed. I can send an SMS to anyone in the world, even if they use an old Nokia phone on 2G with a mobile carrier I’ve never heard of. But instead of using its modern version, RCS, people are happy to hop from a proprietary service to another.
I feel you. My Nokia N900 and later N9 were great solutions. All my sms, aim, icq, msn etc was all seamless along with instant load time. Then came things like line, FB messenger, Whatsapp. It was just how to have everything in one place.
RCS is probably the best option at this point if Imessage could use it. Then i wouldn’t need other apps for those friends to get decent quality.
Sad to learn signal wasn’t the standalone service I thought it was. I might sound old but really don’t care about sticker packs. I do care about quality shares without another app.