That doesn't explain why they didn't open source it. It's application layer, it's got nothing to do with network providers.
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All Three Major U.S. Carriers and Google Adopt Rich Communication Services, But No Sign of Apple Interest
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Never said it was the same thing just that there are or ar least were privacy concerns within the Apple ecosystem. Though they’ve tightened that up a lot in iOS 14, you’ve already given up a lot of data prior to iOS 14 with Siri and third party apps that were collecting data.
From the linked Verge Article. "Still, RCS is closely tied to Google in many people’s minds and Google offers RCS services to carriers and will even allow consumers to directly use RCS via its services if their carrier doesn’t offer it. Google began pushing RCS as the new texting experience on Android after its own messaging attempts (notably Hangouts and Allo) floundered."
Notice how no specific information of how/why RCS is more secure is conveniently left out? How would RCS change iMessages?
cough - resolved in 14.7.* cough *
Report: Pegasus Spyware Sold to Governments Uses Zero-Click iMessage Exploit to Infect iPhones Running iOS 14.6
Journalists, lawyers, and human rights activists around the world have been targeted by authoritarian governments using phone malware made by Israeli...www.macrumors.com
Apple isn't about industrie standards, it's about ecocreation, locking in customers, locking out competitors. It only cooperates when otherwise it needs to pay licensing fees.. e.g. IFTTT
It would be great to use imessage with whatsap and lots of other messaging services, apple the needs to invest to make imessage a preferred platform, but that's expensive, ecococooning is way cheaper.. don't like facebook, but until apple changes policy, whatsapp is/stays the norm..
You do realize that if the OS is written by Google they can technically access the decrypted messages on device right? If the guy sitting in the decryption room calls his best friend (Google) and says hey you won't believe this then does it really matter that is was encrypted in transit?
Apple already has iMessage. There is literally no need at all for them to adopt a new standard which is most definitely subpar to iMessage.
RCS supports end-to-end encryption, SMS does not. Falling back to an encrypted standard as opposed to an unencrypted one would be a good thing.
Apple has been doubling down on security and privacy. Defaulting to falling back to an unencrypted protocol when an encrypted one is available contradicts that stance.
Nope, it's all backdoored with backups.
How To Stop Apple Reading Your iMessages
Here's the simple setting you need to change on your iPhone...
www.forbes.com
And before you say turn off icloud backups, we've already seen testimony that apple can remotely turn backups on and trigger a backup. They do it all the time for active investigations.
Really, they HAVE to do it that way because people would probably be annoyed if they got a new device and couldn't get their old messages.
Edit; and if they did actually make it secure Apple would be blocked in places like China and Iran etc. Just like Signal is blocked there.
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RCS is a suite of services that one can pick and choose from to deploy ones own service and has existed since 2009. Which is why Verizon Messages+ couldn’t send an RCS to joyn. Or to Chat, Advanced Messaging and a litany of other garbage names.
While the Universal Profile has existed and continues to be updated, it wasn’t until Google created the Jibe platform and made it available in 2019. 10 years after this universal profile was laid out. So… I digress… if Apple wants to be in this user group… on Jibe… they need Google’s API. They won’t be using the Google Messages app.
iMessage is most likely fine. But the fail over to SMS is definitely not fine.
Must of been thinking about the original introduction. It's been almost a decade and a half since it came out, I can't keep it straight anymore 🤪
Actually there is higher chance of this happening on ios because it is a closed source operating system.
Edit.
Also why would google make such backdoor? It's a straight road to huge reputational, legal and financial loss.
The only way I see it happening is government regulations. But that would make a requirement for every OS, not just google.
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And using RCS makes it impossible for Apple to read your messages on your devices?Nope, it's all backdoored with backups.
How To Stop Apple Reading Your iMessages
Here's the simple setting you need to change on your iPhone...
And before you say turn off icloud backups, we've already seen testimony that apple can remotely turn backups on and trigger a backup. They do it all the time for active investigations.
Really, they HAVE to do it that way because people would probably be annoyed if they got a new device and couldn't get their old messages.
Edit; and if they did actually make it secure Apple would be blocked in places like China and Iran etc. Just like Signal is blocked there.
The argument is that Apple have the keys to decrypt encrypted iMessages. And I’m saying that it’s not true because it’s not possible with how it’s implemented.
Whether Apple can trigger a backup remotely, I don’t know. But that’s not the argument.
iMessage may not be open source or require anything from the carrier, but RCS and SMS does require adoption from network providers, otherwise why would the article and other things care about three major US carriers adopting it?
They only pivoted to iMessage after the fact as far as I'm aware (I could very much be remembering things incorrectly). At that point, it became a selling point for them, so why would they open source it? They were no longer looking to get on every device, like WhatsApp, they were using iMessage to get people to move to iPhone.
I don't see Apple every open-sourcing iMessage, and maybe at most a 1% chance of them making an Android/Windows app for iMessage. My two cents.
Indeed, that was my point. Apple’s objection to this has nothing to do with them trying to get their own system to become a standard, it has to do with them not wanting the systems to be standardised.
Personaly I don’t believe Apple can be profiting from iMessage being exclusive. Who’s choosing iPhone specifically for iMessage when they could just use a cross platform service? I think all Apple are doing by keeping iMessage off other platforms is forcing people to use other services.
It’s also a fact that SMS is and has been the standard for decades. Literally nothing Apple is doing is making things LESS secure.
RCS might, emphasis on MIGHT, someday create a more secure solution. But it’s not inherently more secure NOW. The E2E encryption is Google specific and in beta. iMessage is more secure now and has been for years.
You LITERALLY said Apple got caught doing the “same thing”
Now you are trying to change your argument, aka move the goal posts. But even then it’s still flawed. Apple has never claimed to prevent tracking 100% or to never collect ANY user information. It’s not black and white. It’s a question of which company is better and has been better when it comes to user privacy. And it’s inarguable that Apple has a far better track record and current set of policies and actions regarding user privacy than Google, by miles! To suggest otherwise is simply not supported by the facts.
Apple was the first or one of the first to adopt and actively promote a wide array of standards. The mouse, 3.5” floppies, PostScript fonts, Ethernet, CD drives, USB, BlueTooth, and WiFi among others.
iMessage was introduced as an improvement over SMS/MMS for iOS devices, i.e. a selling point feature to generate more device sales. No need for downloading of apps to have enhanced messaging capability between iOS devices.
It has since been enhanced to integrate very well with macOS, which I find to be extremely useful for me, as I can get at my messages when I'm using my Macs, working seamlessly.
There's no benefit to Apple making iMessage available to other platforms, as it can't be monetised easily and it'll add a lot more load to their iMessage servers. So it'll be a whole load of cost for no apparent benefit to them.