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I know people with WhatsApp or WeChat, but I literally don't know even a single person with Telegram or Signal even installed. But I don't have either WhatsApp and WeChat installed because I don't want to have to load 5 different messaging applications. Therein lies the problem.
WhatsApp and WeChat are so commonly used that they have become kind of de facto standards for messaging, since both can run under iOS and Android. Especially WhatsApp, which is very popular worldwide except for parts of Asia where WeChat dominates.
 
My response was to someone who claimed it was "the same damn thing". My iPad, Apple Watch, and Macs should not be relying on my iPhone to be on and connected for my messaging app to work. I don't consider that good, I consider that a functional alternative to good...until I need to do something when my phone is dead.

Ideally, everyone would migrate to Signal tomorrow or some other cross platform messaging service that is better than SMS or RCS or iMessage, but until that happens we have to meet users where they are with the best experience possible.

Apple could port iMessage to Android
 
That sort of makes sense. But what about bad signal scenarios? I mean the remote places where your internet is basically non-working and all you get is just the basic calls and SMS? It should be there as a backup in my opinion. And also what about older phones without RCS support? Should we just cut them off? I mean I get it, the future is clear, but still I'm not sure about about forceful SMS ban.
I was thinking about that as I typed it lol. Maybe keep that around as a very limited function similar to the way satellite SOS works on iOS. Or, create a new Emergency Signal System or something. Everything should obviously work in phases, but if they're not starting now, we might never see it in our lifetimes.

I mean, look how quickly we adopted and abandoned pagers. Phone providers don't care at all.
 
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Ideally, everyone would migrate to Signal tomorrow or some other cross platform messaging service that is better than SMS or RCS or iMessage, but until that happens we have to meet users where they are with the best experience possible.
Yes, but that's going off the topic of what I responded to completely. Which was that Apple should abandon iMessage and use ONLY RCS.
 
WhatsApp and WeChat are so commonly used that they have become kind of de facto standards for messaging, since both can run under iOS and Android. Especially WhatsApp, which is very popular worldwide except for parts of Asia where WeChat dominates.
Should any one platform hold the future of all text messaging for the entire world? That needs to be opened up, and if RCS has to be built upon to become the standard, so be it.
 
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Not a single person I interact with uses the google messages app or RCS with other Android users. Everyone just uses WhatsApp, telegram, WeChat, signal, etc. not sure who thos feature will benefit except give the journalists one less thing to write about?
Sounds like the range of people you interact with is quite narrow. When I switched to Samsung recently I was surprised how many friends and family had RCS already enabled. Even my grandmother.

I also love that I can message from any web browser now and not tied to using Messages on my Mac. Would love to see Apple introduce the same.
 
I'm curious. Are teens still actually getting FaceBook accounts? I had been under the impression that FaceBook was in gradual decline, being seen as more of an "old people" form of social media.
 
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I didn't need Google to tell me the obvious conclusion that RCS would be coming with iOS 18 😅



No, it will be full RCS functionality. The RCS standard doesn't include encryption; Google has added it to messages sent through its messaging app du jour by routing everything through its servers.

For people following the RCS saga; Originally RCS was implemented by carriers who all had their own profiles which were incompatible... which was... terrible. The standards body controlling RCS started trying to get everyone on a "universal profile", which went through many revisions and interoperability between servers and clients is still half-broken.

RCS users are still stuck in this hell. e.g. Tmobile has some customers on their old broken RCS servers and half routed directly through Google's servers.
Governments can dictate what RCS servers you are allowed to use on networks... which I think is the main reason RCS has no encryption in the spec(Google uses an extension to RCS that only works with one of their RCS clients).

So even if you have two Android phones on the same carrier using the same Google Messages RCS client.. you can still get routed through different backends and have incompatibilities.
 
Ideally, everyone would migrate to Signal tomorrow or some other cross platform messaging service that is better than SMS or RCS or iMessage, but until that happens we have to meet users where they are with the best experience possible.

Apple could port iMessage to Android

Signal is a pain in the ass that doesn't support backing up messages.
 
In settings, turn on Reduce Motion, that will remove the animations. Otherwise, I'm not getting in the middle of these pointless platform arguments.
If course I've tried that and unfortunately it did not make these animations faster. I'm talking about sliding animations between - in example - settings app pages/sections.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/is-reduce-motion-slower-than-normal-animations-now.2001123/ (I know it's about older iOS, but I experience the same in the latest iOS)
 
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on.

I'm not saying iOS is bad OS by any means (I would not use it if that was the case), but saying Android is laggy and "terrible OS" is nothing far from the truth and it's just saying you have no real experience with recent Android phones - and I'm not talking about budget 299 USD phones, but Android phones in the same price level as iPhones 15

I really wish android users woild come with a better argument. Anytime someone mentions android being bad the default argument is that we have nonn no idea about android except budget.

I own a 22 ultra and flip 4.

But thank you for proving my point that android is terrible unless you are using high end. And even then it is still terrible.

I notice no lag on my 15 pm.
 
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It's too bad Meta can't just consolidate on WhatsApp and scrap Messenger.
Not everyone wants to use WhatsApp. I like messenger. I don’t use WhatsApp.

Messenger is a companion to Facebook. WhatsApp is a replacement for texting. They serve two different purposes.
 
But thank you for proving my point that android is terrible unless you are using high end.
If your point was "Android is bad on budget 299 USD phones" then of course, yes.
But in such case it's pretty unfair and bad comparison to 799+ USD iPhones...

It's like comparing Ford Focus to the Mercedes-Maybach. Of course Ford is going to suck in this comparison.

And even then it is still terrible.
Well, no. As I described pretty precisely and you unfortunately did not counter-argument my claims.
 
If your point was "Android is bad on budget 299 USD phones" then of course, yes.
But then it's pretty unfair and bad comparison to 799+ USD iPhones...

It's like comparing Ford Focus to the Mercedes-Maybach. Of course Ford is going to suck in this comparison.
My brother is using my old iPhone 11 from five years ago with weaker specs than current budget android phones and performs better than they do.

My lumia 950’ i recently found running a buggy windows 10 mobile version performs better than a budget android of today.

Well, no. As I described pretty precisely and you unfortunately did not counter-argument my claims.
I have zero issues with lag on my 15 pm. Even on my flip and my friends pixel android is laggy. Never mind the apps are usually inferior and otherwise the OS is ugly.
 
Conversation today between my wife, her brother, and me a few minutes ago:

She: I want to send XX a birthday message. Where do I send it?
He: XX has SnapChat.
She: I don't have SnapChat. I have Instagram though.
He: Well I'm not sure if he uses that.
Me: Geez, just send him a text.
She: With what? WhatsApp?
He: Yeah I think he may have WhatsApp but I don't have his contact info.
Me: No a text. Just send a text.
She: I don't know his phone number.
Me: Arrgh...



why is it a better messaging? from green bubble to blue? plz just don't change the color. I want my proud blue for iOS only.
RCS is better than SMS. Or at least should be. Nobody is trying to claim it's better than iMessage, other than it's cross platform.

And RCS won't be blue if that matters to you.
 
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Not everyone wants to use WhatsApp. I like messenger. I don’t use WhatsApp.

Messenger is a companion to Facebook. WhatsApp is a replacement for texting. They serve two different purposes.

I'm on the other side, I don't use Messenger but use WhatsApp heavily. If one day WhatsApp implement usernames and hides phone numbers like Signal does now Messenger will become truly irrelevant.
 
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I think RCS should be a third colour really, as the functional difference to SMS is too big.
The color is to let the user know “unlike iMessage, this message may cost you”. RCS sent to folks in certain countries may still cost them, so it’ll still just be green.
 
My brother is using my old iPhone 11 from five years ago with weaker specs than current budget android phones and performs better than they do.

My lumia 950’ i recently found running a buggy windows 10 mobile version performs better than a budget android of today.
As I've already said. If you're talking about budget phones, you may be right. I'm not the one to decide. I have no experience with these. Also Lumia phones with Windows Phone OS were known for their great speed. It was great OS in my opinion and it's a shame it failed.

I have zero issues with lag on my 15 pm. Even on my flip and my friends pixel android is laggy. Never mind the apps are usually inferior and otherwise the OS is ugly.
Well let's agree to disagree. This discussion is going in circles now. My experience is totally different.
Also I'm not saying iOS is laggy. I'm saying iOS is slow. The iOS simply does not react until the animation ends. And it's not just a thing with my iPhone 15 Pro - this is iOS behavior/feature.

Try to click on any item in the Settings, let's say "Wi-Fi" and then start swiping back immediately - or tap in the top left corner in order to get back in the main Settings page. It won't react until the animation ends. And this behavior carries over whole iOS. If you know how to change it, I'm genuinely interested to know it.
 
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