I’m just sitting here frustrated because I’m wanting my family to move away from messaging me over SMS (they mainly use iOS), but they refuse to download any extra apps. But Google’s RCS really doesn’t look like a solution either since it mainly just seems to be a way of enforcing Android as an ecosystem, and they don’t even make RCS available for 3rd party apps to use either.
Bad take. The problem isn’t RCS, it’s Apple.
I think it’s complex and the problem have been many things. When Apple pitched an open version of iMessage to the carriers long ago they refused because the didn’t like the E2EE. They were surprised when Apple later introduced a proprietary version (and subsequently discovered it was a competitive advantage).
Now there’s a Client-server encrypted version of RCS in GSMA but the E2EE version is Google’s and running on Google’s service. It was only recently that two carriers in the US agreed to use Google’s messaging app for interoperability but is E2EE in GSMA?
Interoperability have been a problem as at one point carriers weren’t even interoperable while using Universal Profile (I think they are now). Apple surely wont use it unless forced (it makes business sense not to) but between GSMA Universal Profile (which Apple would have to use) and Google’s much better version based on the Signal protocol the current situation is also a mess.
Seriously. We can’t just let Apple off the hook for their anti-competitive walled garden.
Users should continue to demand that they support the more open standard.
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Since when is rcs dead? More and more of the people I use texting with come “online” all the time.
Weird takes.
The sooner everyone accepts that AndroidPolice has turned into an Apple propaganda and sponsored content website, the sooner we can choose another website for Android News.
They’ve been terrible for years, I switched to 9to5Google a long time ago
the same company that runs 9to5mac? hmm…
At least they’re a targetable demographic.
Cries in Windows Phone
Not sure if joke or serious
“I’m playing both sides…”
It started turning shit a few months before the original owner sold it and went downhill since.
they mainly use iOS
Well that’s not a RCS problem, is it?
it’s not interested, and if you want to send your mom high-res videos, you’re better off buying her — or yourself — an iPhone
The article is basically repeating “fuck standardisation because a company is not playing fair, so let’s give them more money”
The EU should force apple to support RCS.
RCS is too little, too late
RCS is pretty much implemented by all the major EU carriers.
We still use WhatsApp and Telegram though. We are not as backward as the US folks in that regards.
Those apps are already proven insecure, you might as well use SMS and take advantage of the interopabily.
“Backwards” yawn. You still pay for SMS. That’s pretty backward.
Save the jingoism please.
No idea what you are talking about.
Both SMS and RCS are free.
Also, when data is so cheap it makes no sense to use SMS. It’s 30 euros per months for unlimited data where I am currently located at.
You guys also have that green/blue bubble mania thingy, where you pretty much dehumanize anyone using non apple device in chats.
Sounds pretty backwards to me.
SMS is free everywhere in Europe? Is that why we get people here saying they have to pay extra for it all the time?
What kind of crap article is this? It’s paragraphs and paragraphs of words saying that we should just accept the previous status-quo of a bajillion different apps. The headline might as well be “RCS sucks, just give up.” which is such a defeatist way to say absolutely nothing.
AI. Sponsored by shills. Welcome to the future
But Google’s RCS really doesn’t look like a solution either since it mainly just seems to be a way of enforcing Android as an ecosystem
Not really. It’s not even tied to Google, it just happens that most carriers don’t care because they can’t monetize it like they did with SMS, and Google was getting fed up with slow adoption so they started becoming the defacto provider for RCS. But it’s always been a hack.
Anyway, it’s an open standard that anyone can implement if they want, and it even reuses a lot of the signaling from existing SMS technology. In fact the first release of RCS was in 2008.
The problem is not technological, it’s that a whole bunch of companies like Apple and carriers and even Google to some extent would rather keep all the control. Apple doesn’t want to implement RCS nor open iMessage because then they can’t weaponize their users against Android users and peer pressure you into getting an iPhone. None of those companies want to implement an open standard because then they’ll kill off the era of proprietary messaging apps.
And to top it off, a lot of users also just don’t care. They already use Snapchat and Discord, and standard SMS have been free and unlimited for a good decade so it’s not even inconvenient to fallback to SMS. Works well enough to exchange Instagram or Twitter handles or whatever. Without users demanding a standard interoperable protocol like RCS, it won’t happen.
I don’t even think email as we know it today would have a chance to exist if they hadn’t made it interoperable from the start thanks to the young Internet being more academic and interoperable focused, before companies got interested in heavily commercializing it and enshittifying it all for profits.
There’s practically negative profit to be had by implementing RCS or any other sort of interoperable federated protocol. Even Signal, despite being open-source essentially forces you to use their servers for some reason.
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Either Apple takes its head out of its ass, or it’s always going to be fragmented, RCS or otherwise.
The ONLY way to fix the wider world of messaging is mandatory adversarial interoperability.
No matter how clever your new standard is, it will not work.
Adversarial interoperability – even if it is gated to only be required of sufficiently large businesses/platforms – will be the end of all this bullshit once implemented. Messaging should be about the people and the messages, not the platforms.
I’m just sitting here frustrated because I’m wanting my family to move away from messaging me over SMS (they mainly use iOS), but they refuse to download any extra apps.
Weird family. Pretty much all my family and friends happily installed WhatsApp except for the odd ancient mad auntie and that’s probably for the best because it’d get racist quick.
The main issue would be trying to wean them off WhatsApp onto another system (XMPP? Matrix?).
Hah, meanwhile, the younger ones use Telegram here because the weird old people are on WhatsApp and can’t stop sending boomer messages. xD
Now I’m wondering if that’s what’s happening with me and I’m the one sending Boomer messages…
- Do you like to send greetings and images like these on special days, or even just the mornings: https://www.asiaone.com/digital/have-some-boomer-friendly-hygiene-tips-share-family-group-chats-courtesy-lifebuoy
- Do you feel compelled to spread news on alarming incidents without verification? Especially related to health and safety? Like someone said that eating blueberries can lead to increased cancaer risk, so OMG my kids and their friends like blueberry muffins, I need to spread the word!
- Do you feel a need to report on anything that has happened to you, or people around you (especially bad things that happened to people around you)?
If you answer yes to them, congrats, you’re a boomer!
They’d annoy me, sounds like I can stick with Gen X for now…
I just ignore those who send such messages. Eventually they stop sending.
The primary form of text communication in Australia is sms. I do a bit of regional travel in Australia and after adopting “chat features” (RCS) in the Google sms app I started having critical messages failing to go through (without notifying me) because of poor (data) reception and it wasn’t falling back to sms.
I love the features RCS brings to messaging and would love to use it, but it’s just not reliable without an uninterrupted data connection.
We already have a lot of next messaging platforms already that don’t rely on phone numbers and ones which do (like Whatsapp).
Also, in this case it’s really Apple’s fault
- Google creates a cross platform iMessage competitor
- Only nerds know about it because Google didn’t market it
- Google gets upset that no one is using their cross platform iMessage competitor
- Google cancels their cross platform iMessage competitor
- repeat
For me, Allo was the last straw. Hangouts before it. Google Voice before it. Google talk before it.
fool me once, shame on – shame on you. Fool me – you can’t get fooled again
This (year old) article is funnier in hindsight/context of AP’s own article.
we need fediverse of instant messaging, where big boys like whatsapp etc are forced to become interoperable with the likes of signal etc
