And have had to lay off 6% of their employees. With them having to cut like that, it’s only a matter of time before Google RCS, which can’t be making too much money for them, is also on the chopping block.
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Google Urges Apple Not to 'Drop the Ball' on Fixing Messaging in New Billboard Pushing RCS
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Yeah... considering that google is at it's like... 15th iteration of "revolutionary IM solution!" I'll give it a pass...
One of the big german providers (Vodafone) shut down their MMS service this month: https://www.marketscreener.com/quot.../news/Vodafone-switches-off-the-MMS-42661616/
Phones with that provider can no longer send or receive MMS (if someone sends you a MMS, you get a generic link to a MMS page provider that allows you to enter a code to view the content of the MMS on a website). The other 2 say they continue to provide MMS services this year but will probably shut down in 2024 (Telekom wanted to already but pushed the date back to EOY).
This means that iPhones can no longer take part in any group chats or send media in germany. How about providing RCS now, Apple? Your app literally ceases to work for a big part of your userbase (people communicating with non-Apple users).
Phones with that provider can no longer send or receive MMS (if someone sends you a MMS, you get a generic link to a MMS page provider that allows you to enter a code to view the content of the MMS on a website). The other 2 say they continue to provide MMS services this year but will probably shut down in 2024 (Telekom wanted to already but pushed the date back to EOY).
This means that iPhones can no longer take part in any group chats or send media in germany. How about providing RCS now, Apple? Your app literally ceases to work for a big part of your userbase (people communicating with non-Apple users).
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Is WhatsApp not available in Germany for group chats or sending media? Oh wait it is and it has 48 million users. What’s the population of Germany? 83 million. How many of those are smartphone users? As of 2019 57.7 Hm, seems like, with the vast majority of smartphone owners having WhatsApp installed, they’re not interested in SMS OR MMS. And businesses, which around the world pay for sending the most messages, aren’t sending media when they send a doctor’s appointment reminder or a note that their delivery is on the way. They’re essentially turning off a service very few, if any, are using. And they’re turning it off NOT in a situation where users are left high and dry, the users have ALREADY moved on to the next thing. RCS is not required.
Doesn‘t change the fact that Apple is losing a big feature set of their texting app. If they want Messages to compete with other apps, they‘ll need to think of something to offset the loss of MMS.
They don’t want Messages to compete. They provide Messages as a free service for iPhone to iPhone communication. If folks use it, fine. If they don’t, fine. An iPhone user using Messages and an iPhone user using WhatsApp are much alike in one important way.
They both bought that iPhone. German users are likely well aware of the shutdown and have moved to WhatsApp or any of the other messaging apps available. “Not being able to send media on my phone” is a problem ONLY for US users. But, according to the numbers I found looking into this, that won’t be a problem for long. The US is currently the number 3 country in terms of active WhatsApp users at over 75 million, and appears to have a growth rate of 10 percent. So, likely another 7.5 million users added since those numbers were reported.
lol most people in europe use whatsapp, telegram or something else they dont use sms or rcs, vodafone charged €0.79 per mms message so anyone using that was silly
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Yeah... I think the whole RCS debacle is very US-centric, where the text/sms is still popular and iPhone with iMessage are still very populare hence green/blue bubbles...
As w Pole living in Chile I don't remember last time I used sms (save for auth from bank)... virtually noone is using it!
As for MMS (@TimFL1) - it's even less popular and quite often doesn't even work properly because of some eff-up with "network configuration"... people simply moved to other things (WA/Telegram/Messager) that JustWorksTM and are not brittle like MMS... Google should just give up pushing their stupid agenda...
I know that MMS is crap, just saying that Apple is now no longer providing a cross-platform texting solution for group chats and media attachments for a pretty big userbase in Germany. Whether said people use MMS or not doesn‘t matter. Their Messages app simply stops working as advertised.
It‘s a sign of things to come, in a year the other major providers pull the plug on MMS too. Other countries will more or less follow suit in the coming years with no acceptable replacement provided by Apple. There‘s no saying how long until US carriers turn off MMS too, which is probably when Apple will start thinking about how to salvage their cross-platform messaging mess.
correction Vodafone is not providing a service, stop blaming Apple for that isn't anything to do with them no one uses MMS for group chats why even post that
Apple’s not providing a solution because no solution is needed from their level. Apple provides hardware and an operating system that has a way for developers to provide solutions, solutions like WhatsApp, Signal, etc. So, Apple’s done what they need to do to enable their users access to group chat. Group chat at the carrier level requires MMS or some other solution and if the carriers don’t support that, there’s nothing Apple can do to force them to support that. Those customers have determined that this is not valuable for them, so Vodafone is making adjustments to their feature set based on their customers.
If WhatsApp gains sufficient traction in the US (it’s growing in usage by millions every year), I wouldn’t doubt that US carriers would do the same.