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iMessage will be left behind. The world is embracing RCS. iMessage will become another FireWire
It will be interesting to see what will happen after EU legislation comes into effect and somebody using imessage can just send something(text, file) to somebody that has an Android phone and uses Whatsapp and it will work. How will apple explain the fact that they don't want to enable this feature in North America for example, especially in the context that it will be supported by other messaging apps universally.
 
Because iMessage gives Apple a strategic advantage and RCS would level the playing field with non Apple devices. So this has everything to do with iMessage and green bubbles.
The carriers will eventually drop SMS support. Then Apple will have no choice but to support RCS.
 
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I actually think this is a reason for Apple to support RCS.

In Europe we use WhatsApp because we know it’s free to message someone. With iMessage there’s a risk of green bubbles and having to pay for picture or video message at a stupidly high price per message.

If I knew it would be free even if I sent a picture to an android user from the messages app it would mean I didn’t need to use WhatsApp at all.

The benefits that brings are worthwhile to me and Apple - WhatsApp doesn’t let me control things like messages - for example I can stop unknown numbers messaging my daughter with messages but can’t with WhatsApp.
The problem is the people charging for pics.
 
They have killed functional services with hundreds of thousand of users. Classic was Google Reader - just to kill RSS. And they managed to do that, thanks.
In their defence, while the rest of us miss RSS it may be the first time Google killed something according to a strategy and it actually worked.

I'm not saying that was a good thing, just nearly every other thing they've done has been to shoot themselves in the foot. At least they avoided foot injury that time.
 
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iMessage is vastly better than RCS. Why would they want to go backwards?

And the RCS standard is very different from the google proprietary flavor. If Apple does anything, it'll be the standard, not the competitive product.
Because it wouldn't be going backwards. It would be an upgrade to SMS when texting between Android and iPhone people. The experience currently is inferior and makes no sense.

I don't care about green and blue bubbles. Im proud to be a green bubble, keep you exclusivity I don't care. I just want to see multimedia files that don't look like ass.
 
Pretty much everyone outside the US has been using external apps as the de facto messaging standard for years, mainly WhatsApp. There's no particular reason to rely on your phone manufacturer or your telco for this kind of service.
Nope
 
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We had texting in the 1990s? Wouldn’t that involve a flip phone and hitting the same key over and over again for one letter? I highly doubt it’s the same as the 1990s. 🤣
Apple's fallback method for sending messages in the messages app when the receiver doesn't have iMessage is SMS. SMS is the texting standard that has been around since 1992. Yes phones in the 90s were basic and didn't have full keyboards but the communication protocol is still the same one used by Apple today. The telecom industry has moved onto RCS, and Apple needs to get with the program here. Some of us would like to be able to send high resolution photos to our friends and relatives with Android phones without having to resort to emailing it to them or otherwise.
 
Because iMessage gives Apple a strategic advantage and RCS would level the playing field with non Apple devices. So this has everything to do with iMessage and green bubbles.
iMessage is going no where anytime soon. What Google is effectively asking Apple to do is to do away with SMS functionality in the Messages app and replace it with RCS. I won't pretend to know the technical details in what that would take to accomplish. RCS messages would still be Green... You can take that to the bank!
 


Google is continuing on with its attempt to convince Apple to adopt the RCS messaging standard, publishing a new "it's time for RCS" blog post. Promoted heavily by Google, RCS or Rich Communication Services is a messaging standard that is designed to replace the current SMS messaging standard.

android-apple-fix-rcs.jpg

It provides support for higher resolution photos and videos, audio messages, and bigger file sizes, plus it adds improved encryption, cross-platform emoji reactions, and more reliable group chats across different devices. Google has been pushing Apple to adopt RCS for well over a year now, but so far, Apple is not budging.

Google's new blog post points out that this week marks the 30th anniversary of the SMS messaging standard, as the first SMS message was sent on December 3, 1992. Google argues that it's time for an update, calling out Apple for "dragging its heels."

Google points out that with RCS, cross-platform end-to-end encrypted messaging would be available. Features like real-time typing indicators, read receipts, higher-quality photos and videos, and more control over group chats would be standard on both iPhones and Android phones.

All major mobile carriers and manufacturers have implemented RCS support, including AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Motorola, Nokia, OnePlus, Samsung, Sony, and others. Apple continues to be the lone holdout, and the company has so far hardly acknowledged Google's attempts to push RCS adoption.

There is no word on if Apple has considered supporting RCS, nor when such support might be implemented. In a September interview, Apple CEO Tim Cook said that it is not a priority. "I don't hear our users asking that we put a lot of energy in on that at this point," said Cook.

Cook further suggested an iPhone upgrade to a reporter who mentioned having trouble texting photos to his mother who uses an Android phone. "Buy your mom an iPhone," he said.

Google has gone as far as publishing an entire "Get the Message" website on RCS and Apple's lack of adoption for the feature, encouraging Apple customers to ask Apple to "fix what's broken" by switching from SMS to RCS. Google has also published anti-Apple ads promoting RCS, but nothing so far has caught Apple's attention.

Article Link: Google Again Criticizes Apple for Not Adopting RCS for Messages App: 'Their Texting is Stuck in the 1990s'
Nobody cares
 
Apple should just allow the Google Messages app, which has RCS capability built in, onto the App Store and let the people decide for themselves if the want RCS support or not!
 
Apple could implement RCS, but why should they? They'd be swapping one technology that their customer base don't use very often (because the people they text are using iPhones, so it goes through iMessage) for a different one that every phone manufacturer would have to implement.

Each time a change is introduced, iOS has to be updated, Android has to be updated etc. Samsung has to wait for the GM/RC build of Android in order to implement and test their own software.

What if Phone A cannot be updated anymore, and Phone B sends them a message using the latest format of RCS? What happens then?

It's a bag of hurt to support new standards. Apple created their own standard: iMessage. It works.
Except many of us with iPhones do have friends and family that have Android phones, and we'd like to at least have a method to send them a photo that isn't tiny and pixelated without having to email it with them (as most Canadians do not use 3rd party messaging apps such as Whatsapp). To be clear, this isn't to replace iMessage, which will continue to be the standard for iPhone to iPhone communication, but to replace SMS as the fallback when messaging someone who doesn't have iMessage.
 
I actually think this is a reason for Apple to support RCS.

In Europe we use WhatsApp because we know it’s free to message someone. With iMessage there’s a risk of green bubbles and having to pay for picture or video message at a stupidly high price per message.

If I knew it would be free even if I sent a picture to an android user from the messages app it would mean I didn’t need to use WhatsApp at all.

The benefits that brings are worthwhile to me and Apple - WhatsApp doesn’t let me control things like messages - for example I can stop unknown numbers messaging my daughter with messages but can’t with WhatsApp.
Where in Europe do you live? In the Nordic countries it’s “free” in almost all cell plans? I have one of the cheapest plans, I pay about 20 euro a month for free calls, free texts and mms but rather limited data (only 2gb). It’s almost exclusively the amount of data that drives up the price here…
 
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Pretty much everyone outside the US has been using external apps as the de facto messaging standard for years, mainly WhatsApp. There's no particular reason to rely on your phone manufacturer or your telco for this kind of service.
No one in Canada uses 3rd party apps either, and most wouldn't trust an app made by Facebook (Meta).
 
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