They definitely have the technical skills and resources. But I doubt that they have the inclination to do anything that would weaken their precious blue bubbles.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
RCS Messaging in iOS 18: What iPhone Users Need to Know
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
This. Plus even with the extension providing E2EE between clients on Google Messages they are still following the standard because the universal profile explicitly allows for extensions. Now adding E2EE to the profile would be ideal, but I don't expect that for some time. Regardless, RCS is a HUGE improvement in functionality and security over SMS/MMS even without E2EE. I've heard it referred to as sort of an SMS 2.0. I think it's more like an SMS 10.0.
RCS is unencrypted on iPhone because the Universal Profile (which is the only formal and recognized way to implement RCS) doesn’t include encryption. Further, it likely doesn’t include encryption because China doesn’t WANT it to include encryption, and the three Chinese carriers are members on the leadership committee for the GSMA.
Whether or not anyone has heard of this personally, by this point, really depends on the person’s disposition. If they’ve said anything in the past would mean “That whole green bubble thing is stupid, who is that petty?”, then the people around them who think that way, most certainly aren’t going to say anything to them about it. Or, because it’s something they believe but don’t feel they need to let everyone know about, they’ll falsely exclaim “I KNOW RIGHT?? Folks can be so shallow.”Unfortunately, considering what I have read is far more spread than high-schoolers.
There are a lot of articles discussing the same impact in dating life.
View attachment 2395680
'Green bubble shaming' at play in DOJ suit against Apple
Android users have long complained that texting someone with an iPhone on iMessage is an unpleasant experience. The Justice Department argues it is also an example of anti-competitive behavior.www.npr.org
View attachment 2395681
Why Apple’s iMessage Is Winning: Teens Dread the Green Text Bubble
The iPhone maker cultivated iMessage as a must-have blue-bubble texting tool for teens. Android users trigger a just-a-little-less-cool green bubble: “Ew, that’s gross.”www.wsj.com
View attachment 2395682
View attachment 2395683
Green ‘bubble-shaming’ can lead to school alienation, missed romances
Apple will make changes early next year to improve texting. It may be time for iPhone users to stop shaming green-bubble texters (aka Android owners).www.kcrw.com
There are a lot of folks that people just tell stuff to, that just feel open and comfortable to the person talking. THOSE folks are definitely hearing about it more than those folks that may have let it be known they hold those kinds of folks in contempt.
According to the Chinese med students I often work with, no one in China uses SMS, RCS or iMessage, at all, so I don't know why the carriers would care. Everyone is on WeChat.
Even their dumb phones have WeChat.
Last edited:
Messages? It's been said here already but let me repeat it:
The whole world has moved on and uses WhatsApp or other cross platform chat apps that are popular in their region. Except the US who cares about the colour of bubbles.
You can't have international sms if your service doesn't include international sms (unless it's enabled but you pay $2 per text or something). And this is a kind of sms so you can't have it either.
You can have a chat on any other kind of messaging app that does not use the carrier sms/rcs support though but goes directly through your internet connection. iMessage (though you're limited to other iOS users), WhatsApp, WeChat, Telegram, whatever.
iMessage is not SMS with different coloured bubbles, it's a totally different protocol.
I was going to congratulate the photo on a well deserved stanley cup after a nice 3 year try-
then saw the massage and had to post this graphic i designed back in 1990
then say the user name who looked familiar, a friendly old mac user,
so all is good, except 5 is better than 1!
You mean the 30,0018 other posts we get in any RCS thread were not enough? We get it, non US users don't use iMessage. MR can we get a sticky/banner at the top of the forum just in case anyone is left who doesn't know?
Ok I'm just poking fun at you /s. Anyway really happy to have come this far as a US user who didn't want to convince hundreds of contacts to switch to, and use/monitor that app, with my contact. Now excuse me, I have to finally disconnect the Mac Mini I use as a Bluebubbles server and the iPhone 6 I use to hack my phone number into iMessage.
Yeah, RCS is for the olds, it’s the Facebook of the future
It doesn't, but China made a law that requires all 5G capable phones sold there to have it.
China enforces all devices utilizing 5G to also support RCS (minimum UP 2.4) to be sold over there.
It’s not. RCS was the result of the GSMA carriers looking at WhatsApp saying, “WE SHOULD DO THAT, LOOK AT THE MONIES!” And, because making money was the goal and not “being useful” carriers did things like roll out RCS solutions that would only work when communicating to devices on their own networks! They didn’t see that as “we did something stupid, let’s do it right” though, they saw it as “RCS sucks because we can’t make money on it so why even bother?” which is why the carriers in the US had no problem handing over the keys to Google.
Heh. It was in jest, in light of the previous post about bullying. I'm Canadian, and didn't actually cheer for Panthers. Mind you, I didn't cheer for the Oilers either.
They’ll do it if and when China mandates it and not a moment before. And, considering the government in China, I doubt China’s carriers will agree to will mandate it.
I’m looking for any documentation regarding that being a part of the Universal Profile and NOT Google’s proprietary extensions, but not finding anything.
I’m expecting some security researcher already has their article ready about how RCS messages on Apple devices are no more secure than SMS!!
SMS can send to pretty much any phone and/or SMS enabled device in the world, RCS can’t. At best, RCS is SMS 1.5. Wait, I forgot, RCS has to fallback to SMS when there’s no data signal, so more like SMS 1.0.1.
Maybe if Whatsapp was installed and the default for text messaging this might have made sense. Things unfolded differently outside of the US where text messaging was expensive so consumers were forced to seek alternatives. In the US consumers typically just use the messaging app included on their phone, and since text messaging is unlimited and included in your cellular plan many, if not most, just don't seek out an alternative. In the US a standard was needed which was universal, similar to SMS but modernized. Sure the original GSMA RCS failed because the carriers were greedy and let it languish, and Google's implementation gives them too much control for Apple to want it. But it still doesn't change the fact that, at least in the US, this is where we are.
That's the issue with Whatsapp in the US, try convincing all your contacts (for myself that's literally hundreds) to download an app, trust Meta/Facebook for privacy, and monitor that app for communication with you. Not to mention the dozens of other text apps users might be using. It just ain't going to work very well and what we needed was something that was a standard and worked out of the box, voila RCS. Consumers purchase their phone, turn iMessage/Android messaging on and it all just works.