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People should try to keep in mind the original purpose of bubble colors.

SMS is green, because it (used to) cost money. Green is the color of money. Carrier plans would include a small number of texts with pay-per-message billing after that number was exceeded. It was a thing. It was horrible.

iMessage is blue, because it is freeeee. Any data plan - and postpaid data plans in the US at the time universally included unlimited data - can easily absorb the amount of data used by text only messaging. Apple wanted to make it clear that these messages are different, even though you use the same app to send them. These messages don't cost you money.

These days, the bubbles work for Apple in encouraging young people to harass their friends into getting iPhones, so Apple will leave things the way they are.
It’s true! Everytime I receive a green text, it mean I’ll make money 😅
 
Don’t see how this would ever work unless every rcs message storage provider suddenly updates to offer encryption. Otherwise the sender would have to indicate that they want to send the message encrypted and hope everyone in the group has a provider that supports encryption.
 
So what people (in the US) care about is the green bubble versus blue bubble, not the RCS versus SMS technology, right?

Naa, other than some elitist snobs (some of which post on here), people in the US don't care.

My teen, and the majority of her high school, uses Snapchat. They get annoyed when having to use regular texts. According my SIL, who is a high-school calculus teacher in another state, it's the same there.

Unfortunately, that is not true. There are a number of posters right on this board, that have stated they will not interact using messages with friends and family who use an Android because of the green bubbles. They consider it beneath them. Imagine valuing your self worth based on what phone type your friends/family uses.

I try to not interact with such people, personally or professionally. Luckily, I don't know anyone like that.

Glad to see Apple is continuing to update RCS! Wife is a Pixel user, so it's nice to have.
 
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Don’t see how this would ever work unless every rcs message storage provider suddenly updates to offer encryption. Otherwise the sender would have to indicate that they want to send the message encrypted and hope everyone in the group has a provider that supports encryption.
No one provides any RCS service other than Google via Jibe. Carriers merely forward traffic. This is a non-issue.

This will instantly work over night once it ships via software updates, if Apple does not require carriers to opt into this via updated carrier profiles (highly unlikely).
 
No one cares.
You say "no one cares" but you mean "I don't care and I only care about my own opinion".

Kids care about it a lot, that's why Apple uses this to get them peer-pressured into buying iPhones and not Android.
They're very precious customers: they last longer, change their phone more often, spend a lot on microtransactions and accessories, develop an emotional bond to the product.
 
You say "no one cares" but you mean "I don't care and I only care about my own opinion".

Kids care about it a lot, that's why Apple uses this to get them peer-pressured into buying iPhones and not Android.
They're very precious customers: they last longer, change their phone more often, spend a lot on microtransactions and accessories, develop an emotional bond to the product.

As I posted before, I have kids (teens) and they don't use iMessage, or SMS. Their entire school avoids regular texting/imessage and prefers Snapchat. My sis-in-law, a teacher, has observed the same thing at her school a few states over.

I'm repeating what I've been told by kids and teens.
 
So, this is a fight back from the UK Gov demanding access to to iMessage??
No, it’ll be part of your backups that Apple can decrypt if presented with a warrant from a law enforcement body. The UK government want access to the optional encrypted backup service that not even Apple themselves can access, this is what was removed by Apple.

Unless you opt into the extra security feature, your stuff can be accessed by Apple and given to law enforcement agencies.

A pity only EE and BT use RCS in the UK. A lot of providers still don't do Visual Voicemail
I’m on Three and I have RCS, had it on Android years ago too.
 
So now how do iPhone users know when their carrier supports it? Will we see some encryption notification when we start a chat with an Android user?
 
Apple also doesn't support RCS Universal Profile 2.7, which ads tap backs and editing and a bunch of other nice stuff. I guess we'll get those features with E2EE, since that is part of profile 3.0. Honestly, editing and reactions are a bigger deal than E2EE for most people.
Good info thank you, I knew apple used an outdated version but hadn't realised it was that old.

You've hit the nail on the head though, they were for sure waiting for the standard to be improved. I guess the initial RCS support was them pushing it out before it was ready, which is unusual for Apple.
 
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This is false information.

Since 18.2 the likes of O2 have supported it.

Most of the issues are on Apple's side of things, not the carriers. It was apple who also insisted that carriers run their own RCS servers for it to work on iPhone, after they'd all decommissioned their previous RCS servers in favour of Google's.

It isn't even a privacy issue, as it's all encrypted. It's just Apple being Apple and forcing others into complying with their draconic ways.
Encrypted in transit does not equate to encrypted at rest. And metadata is still gathered at rest, Meta makes a killing on that fact. So, there are privacy issues still… it’s just a question of how much of one.
 
RCS is superior as it's built in and cross platform.

The whole green Vs blue bubble thing is very much an American thing and only helps solidify the poor opinion the rest of the world has of that country. It's the epitome of American culture and it's toxic AF.

The rest of the world uses WhatsApp anyway.
The “rest of the world” uses WhatsCrap because their cell carriers continued to insist on charging heavily for SMS, while American carriers largely made that free in the 00s.

It’s also why Euros continued to use Crackberries years after they had any relevance.
 
As I posted before, I have kids (teens) and they don't use iMessage, or SMS. Their entire school avoids regular texting/imessage and prefers Snapchat. My sis-in-law, a teacher, has observed the same thing at her school a few states over.

I'm repeating what I've been told by kids and teens.
The phenomenon is pretty well documented and the much Apple care about it seems to confirm it exists. Not everywhere, but somewhere, likely diminishing.
(And, let's be clear, I'm very glad someone doesn't care, of course!)
 
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There is an inaccuracy in this article. iOS 18 does not replace SMS with RCS. Depending upon one’s mobile network RCS is available, but most networks don’t support it, which apparently is Apple’s fault in part due to the way that they prevent customisation of network profiles for MVNO’s.
 
The phenomenon is pretty well documented and the much Apple care about it seems to confirm it exists. Not everywhere, but somewhere, likely diminishing.
(And, let's be clear, I'm very glad someone doesn't care, of course!)

I have hard that, and I hope that the stigma is changing too!
 
So, this is a fight back from the UK Gov demanding access to to iMessage??
no the UK gov requires apple to provide information if apple have the data in the cloud, so if you use iMessage the data is encrypted as long as you don't stored them in iCloud.
 
That's right, folks, it's time to get excited for end-to-end encrypted RCS! This is the biggest advancement to RCS since Apple integrated RCS into their industry-leading, best-in-class Messages app. As only Apple can do, this takes privacy to a whole new level. Apple can't wait to see the incredible things customers are able to do now that they can be confident their information is protected. Messages is truly the app for privacy pros. Apple thinks you're gonna love it.
 
RCS is a plain win over SMS and improves the experience of messaging an Android phone, so it's a plain win for everyone not involved in degrading experience quality to sell iPhones. Because of that push, messaging got better.
When it works.. I find that very often(more than half the time) messages fail and it has to be sent as SMS..
 
So now how do iPhone users know when their carrier supports it? Will we see some encryption notification when we start a chat with an Android user?

I never got a notification from Apple when RCS went live for iPhone, I eventually got a text from my carrier about it. I’d expect about the same this time around.
 
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