Then hopefully there will be a toggle to completely disable it. I’m sure there will be as there is one for SMS now.
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Apple to Adopt RCS Messaging Standard for Better Interoperability With Android Devices
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It's called the network effect.
If nobody else is using it, then it doesn't ever get off the ground. The only reason "the rest of the world" uses it is because of the network effect.
How is doing exactly what the EU asked for "cross-platform interoperability for messaging" a defensive move against "cross-platform messaging"? Sometimes you can avoid getting in trouble with the law by just following the law.
It is not a one and done solution, it is various solutions all supported. The client devices negotiates with each other what encryption they want to use and then the message gets encrypted using that method. Google supports opensource signal protocol and they also want to add MLS protocol as well. The Universal profile will adopt those as every major carrier in the US supports Google's implementation. Apple just likes being dragged along prolonging the inevitable.
Personally, I wish more people would get on telegram, not least because it feels better designed than WhatsApp, and there is at least an iPad app for it. So my phone can be in my room and I can in the living room with my iPad and still get notified when somebody iMessages or telegrams me. But with WhatsApp, it's either I bring my phone around everywhere with me, or I keep my Apple Watch on at home for notifications.
And maybe that's the point. People aren't so much interested in there being a standard as much as they are interested in a standard that they use. People cry "unfair" when they really mean "not to my advantage".
E2EE is available using googles extension. ALL 3 major carriers support this. Apple will have to support this whether intentionally or when it gets adopted to the Universal Profile.
Nowhere did i state Apple must use Jibe. They however must communicate with Jibe to send RCS messages to all 3 major US carriers. They can implement google E2EE extension on iOS. That has nothing to do with Jibe, all Jibe does is serve as a relay to connect Apple RCS.
You clearly do not understand how this works. At no point does Google control messages written in iMessage. All messages you send from iMessage goes through Apple servers then it gets relayed to Google RCS network.
When iMessage sends a picture to, say, Android phone, it uses MMS. It's impossible to do it with SMS. SMS and MMS in this case are referred as two parts of the same protocol (or same family of protocols). The max file size allowed by MMS is 500kb whereas RCS can handle file sizes as large as 105MB. This alone make enabling RCS a good reason but there are other reasons too.
You're muddling your own message, probably because you're still confused about what this actually means. iMessage isn't going away. You'll still be able iMessage all your iOS friends. All this will do is make messaging between iOS and Android devices better. Regardless of if Apple was forced to implement this or not (and we can definitely debate what counts as "forcing" Apple to do anything) this is either neutral or an improvement as far as the end-user experience goes, which is what matters IMO.
And what does that have to do with RCS? Unless I can set Whatsapp as my default messaging app, I don't care what features it does or doesn't have.
Given that the majority of the world uses Android devices, I think having a decent, modern messaging standard that works between iOS and Android is pretty important to iOS users. If it's not important to you, that's fine, it won't affect your life in any way.
"The European Union, for example, has been working on legislation that would have required Apple to make changes to iMessage to make it available on other platforms. With RCS, iMessage will no longer have as many benefits that are unavailable cross-platform."
Good luck. Apple-only features like iMessage and FaceTime were originally going to be cross-platform per Steve Jobs, but they were blocked by PATENT TROLLS, who then extorted hundreds of millions of dollars from Apple for BS patents. Ugh, it's frustrating!
Good luck. Apple-only features like iMessage and FaceTime were originally going to be cross-platform per Steve Jobs, but they were blocked by PATENT TROLLS, who then extorted hundreds of millions of dollars from Apple for BS patents. Ugh, it's frustrating!
Yeah I think it's good to have more choice. I just think for consumers it's less confusing to have yet another color for the bubble. I'd say it's a better experience to transparently support more features from RCS while still keeping the bubble green.
Ideally there would be just one color of course... no need for green/blue to distinguish between iMessage and SMS/MMS/RCS.
The different colors do have a function. They indicate at quick glance what functions are available for which contacts. iMessage has unique functions.
And I think there are much deeper things responsible for toxicity in society than chat bubble colors. If anything, brand alliance is a symptom, not the cause.
Whatsapp kinda sucks. It looks like trash, it's tainted by its Facebook ties, not to mention that I can't even set it as my default messaging app either (yes, this is an iOS problem, but still annoying nonetheless). I'm not American and I've been using Whatsapp for years (probably over a decade), but it's just not a nice app.
It didn't start that way, it evolved that way and apple realized along the way that it was a benefit to them. There's zero technical reason in 2023 technology that an entire group chat needs to be handicapped because a single user doesn't support all the features. That's a conscious decision by apple development to continue to enforce that restriction.
Your description sounds like every big company to me.
More colors is just a mess. There really should be only one color - having a "special color" for iMessage is just annoying - I understand why it might have been needed since SMS had significantly less functionality than iMessage, but if RCS brings enough parity, ideally it should be just one color and they can have some kind of sender-visible warning if they try to use iMessage-exclusive features when sending a message.
A lot of people in US do use WhatsApp. In fact, it is often the only way to communicate with people abroad or across the platforms. One can get wrong impression about the attitudes towards WhatApp on this and some other tech-centric forums (like Arstechnica, for example) because they are frequented by Apple afficionados who are very hostile towards Meta (Facebook) because of their perception (carefully cultivated by Apple, I guess, but that's not the only reason) towards privacy. If anything, in the US, outside of iMessage, WhatsApp is probably much more popular (compared to other countries) than other messengers (like Signal and Telegram) which are familiar to very few. In part, this may also be explained by the fact that iPhones are way more prevalent in US than in most countries (especially among the youth who use IM the most) and in many cases entire families and groups only have iPhones so they have no need for anything but iMessage. As a results, many people are also not familiar with WhatsApp and can't really have an educated opinion about it.
On a side note, many people in the US will be afraid of using Telegram because it was designed (and is still owned?) by the Russian(s). With current political climate, this would be a no go for many Americans despite the fact that, as I understand (I am not using telegram myself), feature-wise Telegram is a much better tool. Just for comparison, file size limit in iMessage is 100MB vs 2GB in Telegram. More importantly, with features like "Telegram channels" Telegram serves as a social media platform. That's, for example, how many people follow the events on the Middle East. iMessage is a much narrower focused tool.
They only held out due to spite. It's really quite shameful how they acted about it. Purely anti-competitive.
"Features that were available to only iOS users are now being made available to Android users."
What??? No they're not! What are you talking about?
I would think the answer is none. iOS malware protection is at a much more fundamental level than messaging apps.
