IIRC, it’s controlled by the carrier and not encrypted. If that’s the case, it’s bad. We’ve been moving away from carriers and internet providers, and got some privacy back by various means. Why would be roll that back?
Because everyone is too distracted by “Apple bad” to realise how truly awful RCS is.
Except RCS isn’t awful at all. It’s also end to end encrypted on androids. If Apple’s participation isn’t encrypted, that’s on Apple.
Only Google’s proprietary extension has encryption. The actual industry standard specification of RCS has no encryption defined at all.
Edit: It turns out Apple have refused to use Google’s proprietary encryption implementation and are instead working with GSMA to update the RCS Universal Profile specification to finally have encryption defined and standardised so that any RCS client can handle encrypted payloads (whereas only Google Messages today can do encrypted RCS and requires other users to be exclusively using Google Messages otherwise messages are sent unencrypted).
So….Apple good?
More awful than sms?
No, but that doesn’t make it good.
The whole world except a minority moved away from SMS a long time ago.
This makes no sense. Apple is bad, and also I want encrypted messaging. It’s called Signal. It’s free for iOS and Android both.
I love Signal and use it with my family which is the majority of my messaging. But I was surprised to find out the rest of my family on iPhone are missing features I have on Android. This doesn’t help bring the iPhone users.
What android application supports RCS except Google Messages? So, for me it is not about “allowing iOS users communicate with Android users”, but about allowing communications between iMessage users and Google Messages users.
Bingo. RCS is yet another proprietary protocol, one controlled by Google (GSMA who originally designed it have practically forgotten about it for a decade) and without an open specification. RCS also doesn’t have a standardised approach to encryption as it’s designed for lawful interception.
So unless Apple have licensed Google’s implementation and extended version of RCS, this will be a shitty, insecure way to communicate between the Apple Messages and Google Messages apps and nothing more.
Google did an impressive job applying pressure and suggesting RCS was a perfect solution when in fact it’s just putting more control in Google’s hands. RCS is not an open “industry” standard. You nor I as individuals can implement it without paying license fees to see the specification and fees to have our implementations tested and accredited.
And Google have extended GSMA’s RCS with their own features (such as encryption) which is not part of the official standard and they haven’t made open either.
If Apple had been pressuring Google to implement the iMessage protocol or whatever, we’d have been up in arms (and rightfully so).
But instead of us all collectively hounding Apple and Google to ditch proprietary protocols and move to open ones such as Matrix, Signal, XMPP, etc (ones where we could all implement, use open source software clients, etc) we’ve got this shit:
Proprietary, insecure, non-private communication protocols baked into the heart of hundreds of millions of devices that everyone is now going to use by default instead of switching to something safer, private, public, open, auditable, etc etc.
If Apple had been pressuring Google to implement the iMessage protocol
Lololol
Yes and if christians had been pressuring congregations to worship Satan that woulda been super upsetting too.
Edit: funny so many people are mad when you point out how absurd an argument is when it posits that a company might do the polar opposite of everything they stand for
Nobody said Apple would do that. I don’t know where you got that from.
They said that if Apple were to use their clout to pressure others into using an Apple-controlled ecosystem, people would be angry about it.
Yet, because it’s Google not Apple, people are celebrating Google’s RCS as a good thing and them being the good guys.
Aw poor wittle apple twied to make a text standawd but big bad google refused! uWu!
Samsung messages was using RCS since 2012… Years before Google messages adopted it.
There are others out there that use it but call it by different names like “advanced messaging”, “SMS+” etc
Google was the first to add e2e encryption and push it hard though, but if you send a RCS message from Google messages to Samsungs messages app, it won’t have e2e, and most likely will be the same with messaging Apple.
But given how much Apple have fought to make it hard (or at least inconvenient) to message between them, and shut down any apps that made messaging between Apple and Android better, this is a big step for Apple
That’s the Apple way. Apple hasn’t compared the iPhone to another phone since the first phone announcement. They pretend other phones don’t exist (this is the fastest iPhone yet!). So it makes sense that a feature to communicate with other phones isn’t given much importance.
They compare platforms from time to time, mostly indirectly. Android gets a mention concerning OS version fragmentation.
Right, but they don’t even condizer iphone a “smartphone”. The iPhone is an iPhone.
There always will be a divide between those who use technology as a means to an end and those whose end is technology.
If you think I’m taking a “side” with that statement you’re the latter.
If you think that’s a dig at anyone it’s probably because you think people care what phone you have, or that I’m trying to sneakily insinuate that you’re not doing anything by installing another flavor of Linux so you can get your dock to line up perfectly the way you want it to.
If you think people care what phone you have it’s probably because you know people who do.
If you think you have to be around those people I’m here to tell you I don’t know anyone who cares about what phone I have.
Honestly surprised at the amount of arguing over iPhones and Androids here, its 2024. It’s not that deep.
Seriously, of all things tech news related nowadays, green and blue bubbles are a non-issue. If someone has an issue with it, it’s probably worth not making it your issue as well and just walking/swiping away to find someone else to talk to.
I consistently talk to iPhone users using SMS. Besides from the occasional picture compressed into oblivion, nobody cares enough to even make jokes about the phones we are using. At the end of the day, it’s just a phone.
Some people think their phone is a status symbol. I just love tech for what it does. Personal phone is on Android, work phone is an iPhone. They’re both good.
lol this author. Android users are they ones who need to celebrate.
Why?
So long as the green bubble still exist there’s no reason for Android users to celebrate either. I had to change to iPhone because it was costing me job opportunities. And I won’t be able to switch back until the green bundle is gone. Apple knows this so without legal action they’re never going to end that.
I highly doubt that. I’ve never had to text during the interview process, everything was over calls, email, or wherever hiring platform they used. Texting in an interview process is kinda weird…
Are you applying to work for petulant teenagers?
I was about to say the same, but then I remembered that I’m ignoring any business that use WhatsApp or Instagram as their sole means of communication. Fuck yeah I’m a petulant teenager, it’s their loss, not mine.
I assume you’re in the US? Are you saying your iPhone customers were so prejudiced against green messages that they’d go with a different supplier/partner/whatever? Was it the friction of not having all the messaging features, or just that they thought all serious businesspeople used iPhones?
From what I understand they wanted their group chat to keep working properly. I would have been issued a work iPhone since it’s what I had working as a contingent worker with them so I do not understand.
What is a green bubble?
More proof that people below the age of 16 should never have been given smart phones.
Do you feel offended the color is green?
No, it’s a status symbol. iPhone users look down upon the green bubbles, or so they say.
No, it’s a status symbol. Children with iPhones look down upon the green bubbles, or so they say.
ftfy
What status? The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is $220 more than the Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max.
The low end iPhone is $429. Yes the low end Samsung is $199, but its performance is far below the SE. The closest match is the S23 FE, starting at $629.
Any feelings the blue bubbles have about the green bubbles is purely the humor of the angry green bubble making themselves feel inferior… because the blue bubbles don’t ever think about it.
Why celebrate a feature that was added for non-customers? Why celebrate a feature they were forced to add rather than chose to? Don’t get me wrong, I think this should have been done long ago, but what’s in it for Apple to waste some of their precious announcement time? The fallback mode of iMessages doesn’t fall back as far? Yay?
What do you mean added for non customers? The entire purpose of not adding RCS or supporting iMessage for Android devices is to create a worse experience for their customers if they interact with non-customers. Sure it likely drew more people to buy iPhones, but it’s also arguably pretty awful for any society that plays apple’s game rather than just downloading a cross platform app.
Or it’s great for society because they support text for every phone, even feature phones (do those still exist?) and it’s a good business choice for Apple to support more features for their paying customers
The detriment to society came when the standard for text messaging between all phones was updated to support more features and a major manufacturer intentionally didn’t update to drive sales. The US used to heavily punish that sort of behaviour, but in this case it took
EUChinese action to reign in a US company.Samsung, Google, Sony, and a million other manufacturers could have implemented their own messaging system, but instead they chose to facilitate the use of devices however customers want without punishing them based on the personal preferences of their friends. In some circles people may even choose not to communicate with people who don’t have iPhones or exclude them from group chats which is bad in just about any way you spin it.
The US used to heavily punish that sort of behaviour, but in this case it took EU action to reign in a US company
FWIW in this case it was Chinese action - China is requiring all phones sold domestically to support RCS. The EU DMA would have forced Apple to open up access to iMessage, not implement RCS, but they found that in the EU, iMessage market share is too small for the DMA to kick in (probably due to the overwhelming popularity of WhatsApp).
Thanks for the correction. Now that you mention it I do remember that issue from the EU. I just defaulted to thinking it was EU since they managed to get Apple to change to USB-C and this is pretty minor compared to that.
Now we need to wait for Android to get support too 🙃.
Android already has support*
*assuming you want to use Google messages, and don’t root
Just Google’s proprietary app connecting to Google’s proprietary servers that just happened to be preinstalled. There is nothing RCS being build to Android itself.
Hell, the only other messaging app that supports RCS is Samsung Messages. And it’s not even the default anymore.
And not even Google’s own Google voice supports RCS yet
Yeah. I used Textra for years, and was confused why it was taking so long to get RCS. Finally decided to look it up and learning that it wasn’t an open protocol yet. It’s frustrating.
I have switched to Google messages, and it’s been nice to text people who don’t know enough about messaging to use a different app. It’s only nice because Google’s Messaging app is so commonly the default though.
It needs to be open and available in all apps that support SMS.
Even worse, I’m migrating to an all-Voip solution because my carrier refuses to support VoWifi/VoLTE and it solves my coverage issues.
The only disadvantage is I’m forced to fall back all the way to SMS. No MMS even, and what about RCS, the new texting system that works through your data connection well there’s no support for that aside from using Google Messages and the SIM that’s in the phone!
Worst “open standard” ever
I’m very confused about your setup tbh. Can you get a data plan that doesn’t come with a phone number for your phone? Is that what’s going on?
I do believe I’ve heard that Google messages (and therefor RCS) doesn’t support dual Sim, which is absolutely bullshit. It’s currently the same as a closed standard with empty promises for being open.
It’s complicated. The main issue is, I live on a remote farm without cell coverage, except in the tiny zone under my 50’ tower with booster.
However I now have Starlink, and wired and wireless APs covering a large area with high speed, low latency data.
So, port my number to VoIP.ms, which supports SMS, and make all my calls/texts through Wifi using SIP. On the road, use a basic cell plan with unlimited slow data that is still fast enough for voice. Tested, working, so far fairly simple.
Now the issues. RCS won’t work with my now VoIP provisioned number, because there’s no SIM for it. The SIM in the phone has a different number, that of the new plan which will be unreachable at the farm by voice/SMS just like the old number used to be.
This would all be a non-issue if my provider supported VoWifi on anything other than iPhones, but sadly this is not an option. So I’ve got service everywhere now, but am stuck with voice and SMS, no RCS or MMS.
Google Messages definitely supports dual SIM, I have a physical SIM and an eSIM in my device and you can choose which one it sends from on a message by message basis
I find it funny how transparent everyone’s pro apple bias is in threads like this. I’m proud to say fuck apple every chance I get because they say fuck users every chance they get. And yes I know because I have them probably $8000 over the course of 10 years or so. I was all in until the iPhone came out and they returned to the “proprietary is the business model” Apple roots.
They don’t even try to embrace standards except in cases where it makes them money. Their entire mo is to erase the existence of standards if a buck can be made off of it. Apple being such anti consumer monopolistic pieces of shit being uncommonly recognized is pathetic and sad, and the perfect example of corporations being a negative influence on society.
There probably are people who died because they couldn’t charge their phone and couldn’t call an ambulance. And no I don’t care about Apple’s security theater or other talking points. All of it is bullshit
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RCS is a proprietary standard, but it is not owned or controlled by Google. They just happen to be one of the first major corporations to embrace and implement the standard.
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I’m glad they’re adding support, but I also feel like this is a hard one to sell to the general public. If it creates a better experience, word will get around about it, but going on stage and talking at length about how there’s a new messaging protocol would have been a challenge for non-technical viewers
Apple pretending RCS doesn’t exist would be like Google acting like RCS isn’t a 15 year old protocol without e2e encryption
Oh wait…
