Sarcastic Android 'Lyric Explainer Video' Urges Apple to Adopt RCS in Messages

[bsolar]

You don't know what you are talking about. I use RCS everyday and its encrypted. RCS has been encrypted by default since June of last year with group chat encryption rolling out soon.

Google Messages end-to-end encryption for RCS Chat is rolling out to everyone

For one-on-one conversations, not group chats

www.androidpolice.com

That's only for Google's extension of RCS as far as I understand and not a feature of the standard RCS protocol itself.

 

[fourthtunz]

In the real world, people have a mix of iPhones and Android phones. Apple is intentionally degrading the user experience for it's own users when they need to interact with others with Android phones because they feel they can make more money keeping their system incompatible with other systems and hopefully strong arming Android users into changing.

Their marketing has worked on US teenagers in high school. People in the real world just switch to WhatsApp, Telegram, or Signal. Nobody has time to deal with Apple and the nonsense they're trying to pull.

Well, jMO but some of us in the real world don't notice or care.
We just text people and move on.
I know what you mean though, tried to send a PDF to an android and it wouldn't go through.
I think I had to use messenger. but life goes on regardless

 

[God of Biscuits]

What’s actually the complaint / proposal / demand?
That RCS is supported as a fallback to iMessage?

My simple thought is that having the basic SMS fallback (and be identified as such) is particularly beneficial, so I wouldn’t want to see that go if RCS has to be a replacement.
Replace iMessage with RCS? Not sure if Apple would want to (and I don’t know enough to conclude if one is better than the other).
Have RCS as an alternative for non- iPhone/iMessage users? Fine, as long as there’s still the SMS fallback, but I can’t see Apple wanting to add a competing option to iMessage.

pretty sure they’re suggesting Apple *replace* the iMessage end to end encrypted protocol with RCS across the board so that it’s blue bubbles all the way down.

 

[Martyimac]

Do iPhone users really have android friends?

Yes they do, I have some.

 

[XXPP]

In the real world, people have a mix of iPhones and Android phones. Apple is intentionally degrading the user experience for it's own users when they need to interact with others with Android phones because they feel they can make more money keeping their system incompatible with other systems and hopefully strong arming Android users into changing.

Their marketing has worked on US teenagers in high school. People in the real world just switch to WhatsApp, Telegram, or Signal. Nobody has time to deal with Apple and the nonsense they're trying to pull.

Degrading? How?

 

[God of Biscuits]

If Apple adopted RCS, they could still force messages from Android users to be green so they should just do it. The iPhone would still have its snob appeal.

except that’s not the reason. It’s a side effect. See that lock up in the location bar of the page? Same purpose.

 

[nicolas_s]

Let me explain it to you. RCS would NOT replace your "precious" imessage. It would just replace the fallback from SMS to RCS when you text your android friends. This would give you end to end encrypted messaging (as opposed to the wide open texts running throught the carriers servers righr now), full size file transfer (think full size videos and photos as opposed to the totally wrecked and small photos you can only send right now), and lastly, typing indicators and delivered and read indicators (similar to how imessage works). It would greatly enhance your experience texting with Android friends.

So this would mean that when we text someone, the phone has to check if the recipient has iMessage, then fallback to RCS and check if their phone has RCS, then fallback to SMS.

What a mess it would be. Especially considering that Android phones all have different versions of everything, different messaging apps (some phones can come with 2 different apps called "Messages"), and no updates after 2 years. So you also have to take compatibility into account.

And what if another phone company comes and decides their standard is the one that should be adopted? We also add theirs to the list?

The universal standard for messages already exist, it's called SMS.

 

[XXPP]

Maybe it's just my experience but apart from the US, no-one uses iMessage or SMS. Everyone I know in Europe uses Whatsapp or/and Telegram, everyone in Africa uses Whatsapp and everyone in China uses WeChat.
I also think that operator support for RCS outside the US is low (but I might be wrong) and that certain Android vendors do not implement it, or implement it without encryption features, so it's not a "standard" in the sense that SME is one. Plus RCS has already been abused in India to send spam

Most importantly, if Apple supported RCS, it would certainly keep RCS bubbles green!

I’m from Europe and I use only iMessage or SMS. OR JUST MAIL.

 

[Derekuda]

That's only for Google's extension of RCS as far as I understand and not a feature of the standard RCS protocol itself.

And what "OTHER" RCS would we be using? OF course we are using google's RCS. It's built into Android, a google product.

 

[Derekuda]

So this would mean that when we text someone, the phone has to check if the recipient has iMessage, then fallback to RCS and check if their phone has RCS, then fallback to SMS.

What a mess it would be. Especially considering that Android phones all have different versions of everything, different messaging apps (some phones can come with 2 different apps called "Messages"), and no updates after 2 years. So you also have to take compatibility into account.

And what if another phone company comes and decides their standard is the one that should be adopted? We also add theirs to the list?

The universal standard for messages already exist, it's called SMS.

Awe.... cry me a river. It's NOT like you have to code it yourself. If you knew how many checks and balances your web browser did everytime you punched a website URL into the browser, would you stop surfing the web? Of course not. It will "just worK" and you wont know the difference. Stop being overly dramatic.

 

[Bustycat]

Eh everyone besides the US uses WhatsApp anyway

I use neither WhatsApp nor iMessage.

 

[ThisBougieLife]

As an iPhone user, I would like to be able to send full-size videos and photos to Android friends and stop with the “X liked Y” texts and actually just see the thumbs up on the text like with iMessage. Would this fix that problem? If not, then I guess I don’t care.

 

[TimFL1]

And let me explain to you. RCS is not encrypted. If you’re using an iPhone and you fallback to RCS it’s unencrypted just as SMS/MMS is.

RCS is encrypted in transit, so only you, the carrier and your recipient can access the content as opposed to SMS, where you can just snoop in on texts sent as they‘re being transmitted.

That alone is tenfold more secure than SMS/MMS. Apple could also offer e2ee capabilities to further encrypt messages for other clients that support it (like Google Messages, the only dominant RCS client out there).

 

[MasterControlProgram]

Well if Google wants it... then I absolutely don't. I can't imagine a situation where they'd be agitating for something that doesn't benefit their intrusive advertising business model.

 

[ApplesAreSweet&Sour]

The sad thing about Android's post is that Drake's song is without a doubt not about being an Android user who is frustrated with texting iMessage users.

It's a metaphor for a breakup where he uses the fact that iMessages "turn green" if the iPhone-user you are sending an iMessage to has blocked you. It's an overtly simple metaphor that's smart enough to be understood even by the youngest of minds but complex enough to impress them to.

But the main point here is that the lyrics don't mention anything about Android. It's unmistakably a story about two iPhone users.

If Drake wasn't writing this from the perspective of an iPhone user then there wouldn't have been a change from blue to green when his love interest blocked him.

Incredible that Android's Twitter team didn't take the time to read out the lyrics just one time.

Furthermore, Drake is beyond loaded and his image has always been about "champagne" and excess. There's no way you'd ever see him with an Android phone out in public or have him rapping about them in his songs.

Self-owning is surely not going to do anything but make Apple laugh.

Then again, mainly failing this obviously is a covert way to get the media talking about the difference. Businesses have certainly done similar stuff before.

 

[TechieGeek]

At the end of the day Apple is choosing to do the profitable thing rather than the right thing.

We’d all be better-off if Apple supported RCS so that the old SMS standard could go away, but Apple chooses not to because they fear it would make it easier for folks to switch to Android, since the benefits of iMessage wouldn’t be exclusive to iPhones.

Really wish they’d make the right choice instead of the profitable choice here.

 

[TechieGeek]

My iMessages go over WiFi and my text messages go over WiFi now. Why do we need a new protocol when it already works just fine as is?

Because your text messages would be more secure if they were sent over RCS instead of SMS, you could have typing indicators, read indicators, the ability to add or remove people from group messages after a group has been created, and the ability to send high-quality photo and video instead of dealing with the compression applied to SMS and MMS messages

 

[ousboui]

The article says RCS has support for “improved encryption”.

This is simply not true. Standard text messages have no encryption to improve upon and the RCS standard does not include any end to end encryption at all.

Google built its own end to end encryption on top of RCS but it only works between Pixel devices.

RCS was designed by phone carriers at the time Apple were fighting about encryption with the FBI. The carriers all sided with the FBI and publicly boasted that RCS would include a backdoor for law enforcement.

Other than having zero end to end encryption the big problem with RCS is that is requires a phone number and puts phone carriers in control and forces users to buy devices with cellular.

Modern systems like iMessage do not require a phone number so it works on Macs and iPads without cellular.

The idea that people should need a phone number to send and receive messages, suits only cell service providers and should be emphatically rejected!

 

[bobone]

What’s actually the complaint / proposal / demand?
That RCS is supported as a fallback to iMessage?

My simple thought is that having the basic SMS fallback (and be identified as such) is particularly beneficial, so I wouldn’t want to see that go if RCS has to be a replacement.
Replace iMessage with RCS? Not sure if Apple would want to (and I don’t know enough to conclude if one is better than the other).
Have RCS as an alternative for non- iPhone/iMessage users? Fine, as long as there’s still the SMS fallback, but I can’t see Apple wanting to add a competing option to iMessage.

RCS would only be supported at the same level of fallback SMS, since iMessage is so much more than SMS. IIRC phone vendors don't really support RCS, Google went the same route as Apple to create a client only supported RCS. So basically Google is asking Apple to adopt Google's solution, and since that solution only appeared recently, like in the past 12 months, I am sure Apple sees no reason to hurry up support for their competitor's solution.

Technically neither are iMessages: if you have iCloud Backup active it contains a copy of the iMessages encryption key and the backup itself is not end-to-end encrypted.

That key is encrypted and can only be decrypted by you at your end device, short of cracking the encryption.

 

[FindingAvalon]

You don't know what you are talking about. I use RCS everyday and its encrypted. RCS has been encrypted by default since June of last year with group chat encryption rolling out soon.

Google Messages end-to-end encryption for RCS Chat is rolling out to everyone

For one-on-one conversations, not group chats

www.androidpolice.com

No, you don’t know what you’re talking about because you don’t know the difference between telephony based messaging vs IP based messaging. What you’re calling encrypted RCS is simply IP based messaging traveling over Google’s servers via the Android/Google Message app. If the users aren’t using that app (or an OEM default app using Google’s API), then it defaults to actual RCS which is transmitted over the carriers equipment. Most countries (including the U.S.) mandate that the phone system be tappable thus prohibiting the use of end to end encryption. So unless Universal Profile has some type of encryption that the carrier has keys for it couldn’t be encrypted nor would it be end to end encrypted. Additionally, unless the sender and recipient knew what App one anther were using you wouldn’t know whether it was end to end or not.

 

[infiniteentropy]

Did you write this on a smartphone?

For what it's worth, no. I don't own a smartphone.

 

[PatrickCocoa]

I haven't read the story. Nor any of the comments. As soon as I read "Google urged. . . " I stopped reading and was immediately against whatever "Google urged".

 

[TechieGeek]

I haven't read the story. Nor any of the comments. As soon as I read "Google urged. . . " I stopped reading and was immediately against whatever "Google urged".

I haven’t read your entire comment. As soon as I read “Patrick” in your username I stopped reading and was immediately against whatever someone named Patrick thought.

 

[jlc1978]

I’m from Europe and I use only iMessage or SMS. OR JUST MAIL.

I use this service called a phone call.

At the end of the day Apple is choosing to do the profitable thing rather than the right thing.

Limiting the user experience to a lowest common denominator experience isn't the right thing.

We’d all be better-off if Apple supported RCS so that the old SMS standard could go away,

Right. Eliminate the ability text someone without an iPhone or Android phone; or a universal telephony based messaging service as a backup if an IP based one fails.

but Apple chooses not to because they fear it would make it easier for folks to switch to Android, since the benefits of iMessage wouldn’t be exclusive to iPhones.

Apple choses to add features their users find useful, to sell phones. If Android users want features available only on an iPhone they should switch, and vice versa.

Android based companies can do the same thing if they chose.

If an identical expereince was the right thing we'd still be stuck with only SMS.

Really wish they’d make the right choice instead of the profitable choice here.

They made the right, and profitable choice.

 

[ian87w]

Wait, Apple is the “last RCS holdout”? Since when Apple is a carrier? And how about all the Chinese Android OEMs? None of them support RCS with their default stock SMS app. Also, barely any international carriers around the world support RCS.

RCS is a sht!show. Too little too late. WhatsApp has become the standard is most countries. If Google wanted RCS to be standard, then force all Android OEMs to use Google messages as the default stock SMS app, and force all carriers around the world to support it. Pointing out Apple is weaksauce. No Android users in my country even use RCS. SMS is outdated, solutions like WhatsApp and telegram have supplanted the need of RCS long time ago. Nobody wants to pay for SMS anymore.