You are in the wrong ball park.
Dump iMessage? Why would they? Just add RCS compatibility in place of SMS/MMS.
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'It's Time for Apple to Fix Texting' Says New Android Website Pushing RCS Messaging Technology
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You are in the wrong ball park.
Dump iMessage? Why would they? Just add RCS compatibility in place of SMS/MMS.
True. The SMS "problem" has been solved many moons ago with Whatsapp, Telegram, Singal, you name it. In most countries, it's no longer an issue. Many institutions in my country have even used whatsapp for OTPs. Only a country with backward weird carriers like the US are still thinking they have a solution for a problem.
Are we forgetting how RCS users in India were getting spammed with ads?
Google Messages RCS Being Abused for Spam in India
Link to: https://9to5google.com/2022/05/17/google-messages-rcs-ads-india/daringfireball.net
Seems like nothing good ever comes of standards that Google tries to push.
There is a bit more to it than DFB reported.
Google Messages disables RCS ads in India as it attempts to stop abuse
Google has officially stopped "Verified Business" companies from abusing RCS for ads in India, but the end solution is unclear for now.
9to5google.com
Problem is iMessage will never be a global basic and Apple is doing all it can to push iOS users to iMessage.
Apple could try to help develop the next gen SMS/MMS leveraging "privacy" and "security" but the currently refuse.
Apple should adopt RCS and keep it as green bubbles, then use iMessage as blue bubble. iMessage still has edits and replies and encryption
Eh, you’d still have the green bubble problem. Since RCS, even Google’s proprietary layer on top of it, can never have absolute feature parity with iMessage (unless Apple is legally prevented from updating iMessage or forcibly required to get all of its iMessage features backported to standard RCS), you’re going to have an issue where the sorts of chat features you might want to use aren’t available with all your contacts, so you’ll need a visual indication of that. And RCS fallback would probably remain green bubble (perhaps a slightly different shade of green) because “green bubble” means “not all features are supported”. I can’t stress this enough because some people (even on this thread) do push for RCS, thinking that it’ll somehow end the stigma against being a “green bubble person”. It won’t, even if group chat is a lot less painful. If your friend group heavily uses, say, iMessage applications, RCS isn’t going to prevent you from being left out of the loop.
(As an aside, of course, original SMS messages on the iPhone were green. Back then, green was just the branding color they used for Messages. Heck, the app icon is still green, even if the UI branding color is blue these days. So really, it’s not that green means you get less features but that blue means you get more features.)
I saw a great video on YouTube by TWiT and an article by Ars Technica about Google and RCS. The main point was that since iMessage was released Google has released 13 different messaging apps! The TWiT was titled "How Has Google FAILED at Messaging So Badly?"
Alternatively, I suppose you could split iMessage from SMS, but part of Message’s value for me is that it supports both.
For non-Americans, really, iPhones and iMessages (well, and Facebook Messenger) is largely how we solved the sucky-SMS problem. It’s just that Android and iPhone users are stuck with SMS when they want to interconnect via the respective stock messaging apps. Now, if Google had had a solid multiplatform OOT messaging solution (I suppose they could have named it Hangouts
) that they supported for an extended period of time and clearly signaled would be their equivalent to iMessage (and FaceTime, for that matter), we probably wouldn’t be having this conversation. But Google seriously dropped the ball on it, and I really don’t understand why they’re pushing RCS so hard or why they picked it up out of the trash can and dusted it off (well, other than to justify their purchase of Jibe, who were heavily invested into RCS despite it being a go-nowhere technology at the time). Why exactly is stock messaging the way to go instead of Hangouts or even Allo? Is it just because Google needs to kowtow to the carriers for some reason? Like seriously, it seems as though the reason for pushing. RCS is to avoid pissing off the carriers by launching an OTT messaging platform, but why is a company as big and powerful as Google so beholden to the carriers? For that matter, why is YouTube so beholden to mainstream media outlets and to mainstream advertisers, despite its absolute monopoly on online video?Edit: Google is a company with tremendous power in the ad space and in search, and a lot of market power in general. Apple lacks all that and didn’t even have much of a moat back when they introduced iMessages (maybe iTunes?), yet they were able to tell the carriers to pound sand. Is it just because Apple sold a device that people wanted? (If so, that shows a major flaw in the OEM strategy, one Microsoft knows oh so well. You can’t build hype around a true flagship offering because that eclipses your OEM partners’ flagship offering. But that means that your messaging will always be confused, because you’re effectively giving your OEMs a heckler’s veto. It cost Microsoft mobile, even pre-iPhone. Remember, it was third place to Nokia’s Symbian and BlackBerry.) But I doubt it was the popularity of the iPhone alone that empowered Apple to play hardball with the carriers, and I don’t see why Google has to pretend to be chums with them.
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I don't think Google is that beholden to the carriers. They launched RCS using Jibe to bypass the carriers. The problem is RCS' advantage is it being a default protocol when using carrier messaging--the same way SMS and MMS are universal. If everyone sending a carrier based message gets upgraded to RCS that's a win. The problem is Google decided to bypass the carriers and give everyone RCS via the Messages app in Android. That's no different than a proprietary Google messaging service like Allo.
Now they want Apple to play ball and open up to RCS--but the problem is carrier only Universal Profile RCS is a mess. Prior to the 2019 Jibe rollout I remember you couldn't cross-carrier message reliably. Verizon and AT&T were dragging their feet. Is this what we want?
Or it sounds like Google wants Apple to implement RCS via Jibe too which means sending messages through Google servers. To me that's not reasonable either and obviously Apple's not going to roll over for that.
RCS is just outdated technology. Relying on a phone # as a messaging endpoint is so 2000s. Even WhatsApp/Signal only use them as identifiers and for registration purposes only. You can flush your SIM card down the toilet after you register your phone number and use WiFi only and WhatsApp will continue to work.
Now they want Apple to play ball and open up to RCS--but the problem is carrier only Universal Profile RCS is a mess. Prior to the 2019 Jibe rollout I remember you couldn't cross-carrier message reliably. Verizon and AT&T were dragging their feet. Is this what we want?
Or it sounds like Google wants Apple to implement RCS via Jibe too which means sending messages through Google servers. To me that's not reasonable either and obviously Apple's not going to roll over for that.
RCS is just outdated technology. Relying on a phone # as a messaging endpoint is so 2000s. Even WhatsApp/Signal only use them as identifiers and for registration purposes only. You can flush your SIM card down the toilet after you register your phone number and use WiFi only and WhatsApp will continue to work.
True. Google Messages isn’t really RCS, per se. It’s more like an OTT service that claims not to be OTT. (It kinda technically isn’t OTT, but you lose a bunch of features if you use it that way. In a way, that’s a lot worse than what iMessage does because it masquerades as an open standard, much like how Android masquerades as purely open source but ASOP is basically a joke without Google Play Services.)
That’s probably exactly what it is. Coerce Apple into paying for Jibe (which would be a pretty large contract), be able to keyword scan iPhone users’ messages to Android users, and retain “good” RCS to itself. All in the name of interoperability, instead of using an OTT system or creating some sort of legitimate open standard for OTT messaging (which is what the “Don’t Be Evil” Google probably would have done).
For what it’s worth, Google still hasn’t settled on one consumer chat system. There’s Google Messages and RCS, but they’re trying to make Google Chats (basically a Slack knockoff) into a consumer-y app (or combination consumer-y, enterprise-y, which almost never works). Supposedly, Hangouts isn’t actually retiring, but it’s getting reimplemented on the Google Chats framework and will be migrated to Google Chats.
Like, I remember when Hangouts was gaining popularity. Even as an Apple user who was pretty wary of Google already, I thought (maybe “feared” is the better word) that Google had its answer to iMessage and that it was going to be a major player in the whole phone communication game. Instead, within a couple of years, Google had stripped it of features and brought out yet more incompatible messaging apps (some of which even used the “Hangouts” name).
No thank you. This is just pitiful whining by Google because they can’t get their messaging act together. RCS is a total no starter since it is a dated standard that was never adopted widely and most carriers don’t support it. A better solution would be for Apple to bring iMessage to Android for a subscription fee.
arstechnica.com
New Google site begs Apple for mercy in messaging war
Google is tired of losing so badly to iMessage, so it wants Apple to adopt RCS.
arstechnica.com
You totally ignored that Google’s motives aren’t pure either. And that’s from an Android site.
Google “chat” is whatever currently has their attention until the next shiny thing gets their attention. That’s why I wouldn’t trust them. Google’s RCS implementation is the only one that currently matters and some people here want Apple to help Google? LMAO
Yup, I prefer Ars Technica's angle on this pitch
New Google site begs Apple for mercy in messaging war
Google is tired of losing so badly to iMessage, so it wants Apple to adopt RCS.
arstechnica.com
The problem with that is how do you handle the interconnectivity?
Apple could do that the EU would require, use its own servers like Google does for its RCS, and still not have it work well between different messaging apps. There would need to be a way to bypass google and go directly from Apple's servers to teh device. Apple could release an RCS app for Android that works with Apple servers, and unless other apps provide a way to share messages on device you'd still have a fractured service.
To really make it work, the EU or other agencies would have to define a standard that allows carriers and companies to implement it separate from Google, much as SMS is today. It would need to be a true open standard that doesn't need Google or anyone else. Even then, what subset of Google's implementation should be part of the standard, and what happens as carriers build on top of that. Figuring that out could take years and by the time it's out it will be obsolete. Look at the USB-C requirement - all it does is set minimum PD levels and specifies a connector, while still allowing proprietary protocols and cables; even if the actual connector is USB-C.
Of course, if Apple did that and their app took off and grabbed a large market share, Google no doubt would whine to regulators, despite being hoisted by their own petard.
Email will allow that.
The big benefit to that is I can call my colleagues in the EU, UK, Middle East and Africa for free.
I suspect it is due to iPhone's market share and a general lack of the need to text or call internationally. I also suspect many users don't send large photos or notice any degradation. As long as they can send selfies they're happy.
As a European it's confusing to see people bothered by SMS or iMessage, when over here WhatsApp and to an extent Telegram are dominant as they're cross platform even on desktop and e.g. Telegram has all the emoji / animation features you need if you're into that. Then there's Signal for secure messaging.
I'm not sure what RCS or iMessage could improve.
I'm not sure what RCS or iMessage could improve.
Apple doesn't like standards; USB-C on iPhone?
None of Apples decisions are pro consumer, they're pro profits and for some reason you have discussions like this thread with hundreds of people acting like cheerleaders for Apple.
Pathetic.
None of Apples decisions are pro consumer, they're pro profits and for some reason you have discussions like this thread with hundreds of people acting like cheerleaders for Apple.
Pathetic.
True. But look at where Google has gone with their myriad of messaging services that didn’t catch on. Having by default a service that substitutes SMS and that works in every device by default (like iMessage has for Apple ) is something that has to come with carriers deprecating SMS in favor of RCS. But that is not gonna happen unless Apple bends in. SMS is as of today the only universal method to reach any handset.