They don’t even know what RCS is, if you don’t believe me, go ask some non-tech people, like your aunt or grandma.
Why don’t you run a poll on Macrumors forums or start a thread and ask? It’s easy to do.
Well that was my more or less my point. No, my hypothetical aunt or grandma do not know what RCS is, nor are they likely to know or care what iMessage is or that it is end-to-end encrypted.
What they will know and notice is that in one case they will send or receive certain things, like pictures or videos of the family, in good quality, and in other cases they won't. This they will care about.
Sure I could start a poll, but so could everyone before me who claimed this doesn't matter. I'll be frank, I have better things to do than do a survey about whether the average iOS user would like a better messaging experience with 'green bubbles,' but do we really think most people would disagree?
Do we really think that the average user is simultaneously so non-tech that they don't care about a comparably bad user experience over SMS/MMS, while also being so tech savvy that the privacy and security benefits of iMessage would make them reject a potential improvement? Because fundamentally that's what it boils down to.
If I had to guess, I think the answer to "would you like a consistently good messaging experience with everyone regardless of which phone they use?" would generally be yes, and that's why I think it's a bit disingenuous to suggest people don't care about this at all. No they don't care about RCS specifically, but neither do they care about iMessage specifically. Even here, on a tech forum, I have met plenty of people who didn't know the difference between iMessage and SMS. All they knew was that they used the built in messaging app.
BTW, the green bubble tells iMessage users that the messages are not encrypted and some iMessage features are not available. There is a technological reason for Apple to make the distinction, not a social one.
Hah, good one. Yes you are of course technically (in two meanings of the word) correct, but regardless of whether the initial underlying reason was a technical one, I think there's plenty of evidence out there that the impact is a social one and I don't think it's really contentious to say that not only is Apple aware of this, but they are actively using it to sell their hardware.
I'm not saying you or anyone should necessarily have a problem with that, fair to say that's just a successful business tactic, but slightly weird to deny it happens in the first place.
Besides, as I said above, I'm not convinced that the average non-tech user knows and cares that blue bubbles = encryption, green bubbles = non-encrypted.
They'll know about their user experience with each.
No disagreement. Apple is doing what’s in its best interests just like Google. So any attempt to paint Google as the savior of the consumer falls flat.
Yes, and no. I don't think Google's primary motivation is to save the consumer, just as Apple's primary motivation definitely isn't to save the consumers' privacy. They both want to make money and they both seem to have decided that their respective courses of actions make good business sense.
Look at Apple's conduct in China and you'll see that principles very quickly fall by the wayside if it gets in the way of profit. That's not a morally outraged indictment, by the way, just saying. And I'm saying it not specifically to you, because I don't know you, I'm just saying it because there's always a few who put Apple up on a pedestal.
That being said, I do think that actions can have secondary effects regardless of their motivation. I think Apple has done good work for privacy, even if it doesn't go as far as it could.
I think if Google succeeded in getting Apple to improve the messaging experience with users outside of its walled garden, that would be an improvement a lot of people would like to see.
