[HN Gopher] I hope Apple never adopts RCS
___________________________________________________________________
I hope Apple never adopts RCS
Author : mogery
Score : 58 points
Date : 2022-08-23 10:02 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.mogery.me)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.mogery.me)
| gertrunde wrote:
| I'm not sure why this is being framed as an XOR situation? Why
| would RCS support imply removal of iMessage?
|
| Surely RCS raises the lowest common denominator up a bit from
| SMS, and people are still free to use whatever 3rd party data-
| based messaging service they want to, be it iMessage, WhatsApp,
| Signal, Facebook Messenger, or whatever else, even ICQ if that
| still exists.
|
| I don't think I've ever intentionally/deliberately chosen to use
| RCS, but (on my (Android) phone at least) it does seem to
| transparently turn itself on the very rare occasion when I send
| SMS messages (usually in reply to a received SMS), if supported
| by both phones.
| jaywalk wrote:
| I don't think it's being framed as an XOR situation. I think
| the article is trying to say that RCS is a shit standard (it
| is) and that Apple shouldn't adopt it because that would
| essentially solidify it as the replacement for SMS. Apple and
| Google should come together and make something better.
| threeseed wrote:
| And SMS is slowly but surely dying.
|
| So why throw it a lifeline with RCS when there can be a
| better standard.
| joshstrange wrote:
| > I'm not sure why this is being framed as an XOR situation?
| Why would RCS support imply removal of iMessage?
|
| I'm not aware of anyone making that argument, it would replace
| and/or compliment SMS (since even if Apple adopts RCS, SMS is
| going to around for a long time).
|
| > Surely RCS raises the lowest common denominator up a bit from
| SMS, and people are still free to use whatever 3rd party data-
| based messaging service they want to, be it iMessage, WhatsApp,
| Signal, Facebook Messenger, or whatever else, even ICQ if that
| still exists.
|
| Is it better than SMS? Yes but that's a low bar to clear and as
| a chat protocol it has many failings, not least of which are
| it's weak E2E when it supports it at all. Also RCS is
| practically owned by Google, operated by carriers, I literally
| cannot think of a worse combo of 2 companies/industries that I
| do not trust.
|
| Bottom line is SMS is going to be around for the foreseeable
| future (so much is built on it, similar to email for better or
| worse) and we will have to support a SMS fallback even with RCS
| support in iOS. Because of that and the lack of compelling
| reasons to move to RCS, I feel like it's best just to leave SMS
| as-is and work on pushing people to your preferred third-party
| chat app.
| fbanon wrote:
| RCS is inferior to iMessage simply because it doesn't work on
| tablets and desktop computers. Since RCS is tied to mobile
| carriers, who don't want to give up control over those juicy
| messages, the problem will persist forever.
| [deleted]
| advisedwang wrote:
| EDIT: wrong
|
| iMessage is device centered - your messages are just relayed to
| desktop by the mobile messaging app. Android messages can do
| this too [1], So can Samsung [2]
|
| [1] https://support.google.com/messages/answer/7611075
|
| [2] https://www.samsung.com/us/support/answer/ANS00087322/
| vineyardmike wrote:
| No. SMS is proxied to your phone from your desktop but
| iMessage to iMessage communications don't need an iPhone at
| all.
| advisedwang wrote:
| Ah thanks for the correction
| [deleted]
| nikanj wrote:
| iMessages are tied to Apple serial numbers, making spamming a lot
| harder. RCS would bring the spam protection to sms levels, i.e.
| absolutely non-existant
| capableweb wrote:
| SMS spam can be solved on the operator level instead of forcing
| devices/software to protect against it. Just because your
| country has poor telecom operators doesn't mean that applies to
| the rest of the world. My main phone number is a western Europe
| number that is added to all my outgoing emails + visible on my
| public website (and lots of other places) and I almost never
| receive spam SMSes. Last one was pretty much exactly one year
| ago.
| preisschild wrote:
| Funfact: The only spam I got was by my phone operator
| (Magenta / T-Mobile Austria, the same guys that save
| passwords in plaintext). Never by someone else though, but im
| wary where I publish the number.
| bastawhiz wrote:
| RCS improves SMS, it doesn't replace iMessage.
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _iMessages are tied to Apple serial numbers, making spamming
| a lot harder._
|
| Except that you can already get spam "in iMessage" because the
| _iMessage app_ is also the (default) SMS app on iPhones, and so
| anyone can send an SMS to your phone number and you 'll receive
| it.
|
| > _RCS would bring the spam protection to sms levels, i.e.
| absolutely non-existant_
|
| You already have no protection against SMS on your iMessage
| app, so not having protection against RCS spam is _no worse_
| than the current situation in that regard, but at least RCS has
| extra things like group chat which would be nice for cross-
| platform interoperability.
| jaywalk wrote:
| > Except that you can already get spam "in iMessage" because
| the iMessage app is also the (default) SMS app on iPhones
|
| The app is Messages, the protocol is iMessage. Don't confuse
| the two, it's an important distinction. There is practically
| zero iMessage spam.
| throw0101a wrote:
| Nothing you have said invalidates my point:
|
| * You can get spam in the app because it displays SMS.
|
| * If it implemented RCS you could also get spam in the app
| too.
|
| * But RCS also gives you extra capabilities.
|
| How is this a worse situation?
| jaywalk wrote:
| The point is that if we're going to finally replace SMS
| (which we should) then we should replace it with a
| protocol that's better. Saying "you can get spam on SMS,
| so who cares if RCS can spam you too?" is ridiculous.
| Maybe 20 years ago RCS would have been a nice protocol.
| Nowadays, it's utter trash. We need a proper,
| interoperable standard that doesn't involve carriers. RCS
| is not even remotely it.
| throw0101a wrote:
| And in the meantime, I--an iPhone owner--should not be
| able to have group chats with my Android-using friends?
|
| "The perfect is the enemy of the good."
|
| RCS may not be perfect, but it seems to have nice things
| over and above SMS. I have no objections to adding more
| nice things to RCS (or whatever comes after it), but why
| shouldn't we implement the nice things of RCS in the
| meantime?
| jaywalk wrote:
| For all intents and purposes, progress stopped with
| carriers after MMS came around. Hey, you can send pics
| and videos now! And group messages! It's good!
|
| RCS requires carriers to implement it. We don't need RCS,
| we need something better. I'm not opposed to stopgaps,
| but the complexity involved with RCS makes it much more
| than just a stopgap. Which is why it needs to die.
| throw0101a wrote:
| And should RCS die we're stuck with SMS/MMS. Awesome.
| danaris wrote:
| If we globally adopt RCS now, we're likely to be stuck
| with it for the _next_ 20 years.
|
| I'd rather hold out for something that's more than a tiny
| incremental improvement over SMS.
| throw0101a wrote:
| As opposed to the current situation of being stuck with
| SMS/MMS?
|
| I'd rather move the ball forward with RCS _and_ try to
| get something better, rather than _just_ trying get
| something better--with no guarantee that it actually will
| happen, in which case we lost even the "incremental"
| opportunity of RCS.
| danaris wrote:
| If I thought that was likely to work, I'd agree in a
| second.
|
| I've seen the way these things go too often for that,
| though. Once there's something "good enough" in place the
| carriers and others who have the power to change things
| will just ignore all the calls for anything better. After
| all, we _just_ got them to change to RCS! If that wasn 't
| good enough, why were we pushing for it??! No, we have to
| take another 15, 20, 25 years to amortize the costs of
| switching to that.
| delta_p_delta_x wrote:
| The SMS/RCS/iMessage/blue bubble-green bubble debate is almost
| entirely exclusive to the strange market of the US.
|
| Almost _everywhere else_ in the world, users have simply adopted
| a variety of 3rd-party messaging apps that use the phone 's
| Internet rather than GSM connection, like WhatsApp, Telegram,
| Messenger, Signal, WeChat, etc.
|
| EDIT: While I understand the need for a 'universal E2EE messaging
| standard', we don't have one _right now_ , and all three (SMS,
| RCS, iMessage) are poor stop-gaps. People need to send their
| texts, images, videos, and files to people without pain; that's
| all the average layperson cares about. What _does_ fill this need
| are said 3rd-party apps, which claim to have E2EE messaging.
| Whether this is really true remains to be seen.
| riggsdk wrote:
| I get the feeling that it is highly subjective how widely
| adopted people seem to believe these are. It would be
| interesting to see some actual research on this. While many may
| have a whole bunch of those apps installed it says nothing
| about their actual usage.
|
| My own personal view (Denmark based, age: mid thirties): In my
| group of extended friends and family almost everyone uses
| SMS/iMessage. SMS has been (basically) free to use here for
| many many years (or so many included in your basic plan you
| would never reach the limit). I believe this has slowed the
| adoption of the various chat apps here significantly - at least
| for people my age. Most of my friends share the same habit of
| calling each other if you want to know something that is time
| sensitive. If you don't need an answer right away you can text.
|
| New acquaintances are first added on Facebook/Messenger since
| you can find people by their name and then if you actually
| communicate with them on a regular basis you eventually get
| their phone number to make it easier if you for example need to
| call them. Almost nobody I know use Messenger's voice calls. My
| family (and some friends) has resorted to sending SnapChat
| images instead. Sharing something without it ending up in a
| "permanent" chat history seems to be getting more common as it
| is somewhat informal. I never watch people's "stories/reels" in
| whatever format they might take as they are not sent directly
| to me and they seem to expire after a short while. I hate that
| pressure to constantly check in not to miss anything so now I
| ignore it completely and I'm happier for it. If anything I have
| a lot more to talk about with people when I finally meet them
| than if I already knew everything they had been doing.
|
| I have a few WhatsApp groups going with my international
| friends and various local volunteer-based organizations.
| amyjess wrote:
| I use Messenger and Discord to talk to all of my friends.
|
| The only people I use SMS to talk to are my parents, who are
| too non-technical to install any apps that didn't come with
| their phones.
| elashri wrote:
| Part of reason in for many places outside US. There are no
| unlimited messages plan.
|
| edit: people seems to miss that I said that this is only part
| of the reason not the reason. I also said many places outside
| the US (not all). So do people down vote because they think
| that there are only US and EU in the world? I am missing that
| point.
| minimaul wrote:
| FWIW, most monthly contract plans in the UK have unlimited
| calls & SMS. The main differentiator is the size of the data
| cap. There are charges for MMS etc though.
|
| Even the cheapest of plans from the main networks (3,
| vodafone, EE, o2) - as low as PS4/mo have unlimited calls &
| SMS now.
|
| edit: this has been the case for quite a few years now, too.
| candiodari wrote:
| RCS is the successor/replacement of MMS. Carriers will
| charge for it and that will be the end of the protocol.
|
| It is explicitly designed to give carriers back control of
| messaging.
|
| Why am I even saying this? We all remember how much fun
| carriers control over SMS was. It killed sms. There were
| never any new features. Cost made lots of stuff, such as
| multi party chats effectively impossible for teenagers ...
| It was always very unclear how much everything cost. There
| were "traps" with premium services, often not advertised as
| such. Now there's fraud with international SMSes. And
| things have gotten worse' several states made clear they
| use phones to find abortions ... And RCS is designed to
| bring this back. No.
|
| Just. NO.
| dailykoder wrote:
| Atleast in germany (almost?) every plan has unlimited
| messages nowadays. Even the cheapest prepaid plan. People
| still use WhatsApp, Signal, etc., because of media sharing
| and easy group conversations
| preisschild wrote:
| Not in austria
| Semaphor wrote:
| > Even the cheapest prepaid plan.
|
| My 3.99EUR/month plan includes 100 SMS. Not that I ever use
| all of those, all of my 100 minutes, or all of my 1 GB of
| data.
| angio wrote:
| That's not true, unlimited SMS have been a thing for at least
| 15 years in Europe, well before WhatsApp became popular. In
| my experience, people switched to WhatsApp because of group
| chats and images (MMS were expensive).
| The_Colonel wrote:
| Depends on the country. In Czechia, unlimited SMS plans
| used to be expensive.
|
| That changed, but e.g. with my pre-paid plan I still pay 12
| cents per SMS.
|
| Historically there was also a problem that unlimited SMS
| plans worked only within a country. Now it's a bit better
| being EU-wide, but still not worry free.
| elashri wrote:
| So you don't think that there no other places outside
| except Europe?
| donkeyd wrote:
| This may have caused WhatsApp to get big in much of the EU,
| but by now many European countries also have unlimited text,
| so it's not the case any longer.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I thought high costs for international SMS and MMS is what
| caused WhatsApp to explode. I remember it being the first
| app with great UX for sending and receiving
| pics/video/contacts, and then they added group messaging
| which worked great as well.
|
| No spam because you needed SMS text verification, no ads,
| no login to remember, just all around amazing app at the
| right place at the right time.
| maw wrote:
| Yep, all this.
|
| The only thing I'll add is that, ca 2012 which is when
| whatsapp started really taking off where I live,
| intercarrier SMS was slow and unreliable. WhatsApp was
| fast and reliable.
| agluszak wrote:
| Now, the question is: is that a good thing? SMS is like e-mail
| - you can have many clients for the same protocol. Don't like
| your built-in SMS app? Install another one. You can't do that
| with 3rd-party proprietary siloed communication platforms.
| delta_p_delta_x wrote:
| > You can't do that with 3rd-party proprietary siloed
| communication platforms
|
| I agree, and this is unfortunate. However, they're not going
| away at all, and the free alternatives (IRC?) are relegated
| to niche developer groups. For work communications, we have
| Slack, Discord, Teams, Zoom; for normal messaging, the apps I
| mentioned above (and more; Instagram/TikTok/etc have their
| _own_ DM platforms).
|
| It will take real concerted effort to fix this, and somehow I
| don't see it happening.
| ale42 wrote:
| I really hope that interoperability between (some of) these
| platforms, mandated by EU, will actually come true. Thing is,
| SMS is ancient technology, but it does work everywhere, on any
| kind of device, even on the dumbest one. All the other 3-rd
| party apps are (a) requiring an Internet connection to work,
| which most people have, but some don't, having limited data
| plans or prepaid accounts where data is way too expensive to
| use, and (b) they can only communicate with their own users,
| exactly like iMessage.
| threeseed wrote:
| > but some don't
|
| The proportion of people with phone-only plans is very small
| and getting smaller by the year.
|
| Let's just have an interoperability standard that is data
| based, encrypted and independent of carriers.
| klabb3 wrote:
| > SMS is ancient technology, but it does work everywhere
|
| Nowhere near true. As soon as you cross a geo boundary (ie
| travel) SMS is Russian roulette. It often doesn't go through
| at all. In the US, I've also seen carriers remove non-ascii
| characters.
| minimaul wrote:
| The fragmentation of these third party apps gets frustrating
| very fast though.
|
| I'm in the UK and my work uses Slack and also wants me to use
| WhatsApp for OOH contact. My friends are mostly on Discord. My
| family is mostly only available via iMessage. A few of the more
| privacy conscious use Telegram or Signal. A few of the more OSS
| conscious use Matrix. Some chat is still on IRC (actually I
| like that...).
|
| Users relying on third party apps over the top has strong
| network effects for keeping people using services from Facebook
| et al, and I'm not too fond of that.
|
| I'm vaguely optimistic about the EU's idea of forcing these
| apps to be able to federate in at least a basic sense, but
| we'll see.
| Semaphor wrote:
| > A few of the more privacy conscious use Telegram or Signal.
|
| Here in Germany, almost everyone I know is on Signal. That is
| not privacy conscious people or even tech-affine ones, almost
| everyone uses it in addition to WhatsApp. WA is mainly used
| when it works better (in bad connection situations, something
| that is embarrassingly relevant in Germany, Signal messages
| sometimes don't work without an indication of it happening,
| WA messages just work) or a special feature is needed (live
| location sharing).
| kbelder wrote:
| I'll ask this here...
|
| I haven't touched any 3rd party messaging app, and I'd like
| to have my family start using one. But I'd like one that
| works on desktop as well... windows and linux. Does Signal,
| Telegram, or the others let you do that without jumping
| through hoops?
| duskwuff wrote:
| Telegram works pretty smoothly in that regard. The
| desktop apps are fully featured; the only thing you have
| to use a phone for is the initial signup.
| londons_explore wrote:
| > forcing these apps to be able to federate
|
| I predict it'll 'work' so that the companies aren't fined by
| the EU, but the service will be atrocious.
|
| You'll probably have to jump through a lot of hoops to make
| it work, and even then you'll probably have to wait 5 minutes
| for messages to be delivered, have to deal with bugs galore,
| and have most of the features not work.
|
| "Warning: Sending an animated emoji will eject all non-
| iMessage users out of this group conversation".
| WastingMyTime89 wrote:
| > You'll probably have to jump through a lot of hoops to
| make it work, and even then you'll probably have to wait 5
| minutes for messages to be delivered, have to deal with
| bugs galore, and have most of the features not work.
|
| Traditionally the EU is not amused by companies trying to
| cleverly work around its competition laws. I fully expect
| long trials with significant fines following the
| introduction of this law and hopefully things should settle
| for the better in a couple of years.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| Traditionally, the EU is eroding their market and
| terrible at writing laws. You can't legislate product
| decisions. That's not what people actually want.
|
| As Facebook and their suits illustrate, you can't always
| run an international and feature-full service with their
| laws. The requirements for federation will probably
| devolve to an email or SMS fallback or just a lack of
| service offered. Big companies that don't want to retreat
| at the risk of market share will totally provide lip
| service to the rules and implement the exact letter of
| the law and nothing more.
|
| I expect that the EU taking this and other action will be
| a lot like the GDPR: solving a problem and providing a
| few solutions but basically none of the vision. The GDPR
| mandates data-exporting out of a service with the idea of
| portability. Except no one offers imports so there's no
| real portability gained, just auditability (which is
| nice).
|
| I do agree that I expect long trials and significant
| fines. The EU will look good politically for taking a
| stand to those big American companies. Those big American
| companies will maybe write a big check but certainly
| appeal for a decade.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Maybe it won't come down to legislation, but rather the
| threat of legislation. Maybe this is the sort of threat
| that will force companies to talk to one another and
| preemptively seek some sort of federation. Maybe they
| will be incentivized to do the right thing before it goes
| to court. At the very least, this is disruption of the
| status quo.
| delta_p_delta_x wrote:
| > The fragmentation of these third party apps gets
| frustrating very fast though.
|
| Agreed, although where I live, most people have consolidated
| on Telegram. WhatsApp was popular about 5 years ago, but its
| popularity has quickly waned because of how difficult inter-
| device use is.
| Semaphor wrote:
| > because of how difficult inter-device use is.
|
| Huh? What is difficult there?
| tmottabr wrote:
| several.. truth is that whatsapp was made to be used in
| one device only and is not frindly to be used in multiple
| devices at the same time.
|
| Until recently (like days ago) you still needed the main
| device to be online and connected to their server to use
| the both the web or desktop apps, although for some time
| there was a beta going for the feature they released a
| few days ago where that is "no longer required".
|
| Even so, i was on the beta of the new feature where you
| could use the web or desktop app without the phone since
| it started and it has its quirks.. Often it fail to load
| either the history or even new messages, messages sent on
| the main device often do not show in the web\desktop app
| and performance is overall terrible.
|
| Also there is still no official way to have the same
| whatsapp across multiple phone\tablets devices.
| Semaphor wrote:
| Never had issues with the beta (before it, I simply did
| not use WA), but then I also never used it heavily.
|
| > Also there is still no official way to have the same
| whatsapp across multiple phone\tablets devices.
|
| That seems dumb. Luckily not an issue for me.
| WastingMyTime89 wrote:
| WhatsApp was a pain to use on multiple devices. For a
| long time you needed the main phone to be connected
| nearby. I also lost my whole history when I went from
| Android to iOS for a silly technical reason. Really
| annoying.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Nitpick - iMessage is also Internet-based. The phone number is
| only checked once when you first install the phone (by Apple
| sending an SMS that the OS intercepts) and is then registered
| with Apple so that other Apple phones with iMessage enabled
| know that this number can receive iMessage. The carrier is no
| longer involved beyond the initial verification step.
|
| You can also use iMessage with an Apple ID, including to
| contact those who only have a phone number (and the reverse
| also works). This works on non-cellular devices as well such as
| iPod/iPad/Mac.
| quitit wrote:
| The blue bubble/green bubble thing is Google's iPhone is just
| "round corner" argument. They're very good at pushing the "our
| competitor is evil" style messages rather than being honest
| about the genuine reasons why others aren't embracing their
| various platforms. Google have repeatedly failed at making
| legitimate competitors to popular chat services such as
| Whatsapp, so Google is trying to sneak around the competition
| in their attempt to force Apple to bundle their technology with
| every device.
|
| The real hesitation by Apple is obvious, RCS is half baked:
| it's not a true E2EE solution and in some scenarios encryption
| is simply not available at all. It is demonstrably worse than
| other chat technologies, doesn't solve the problems it sets out
| to fix and the only benefit to its existence is that it gives
| Google a way to control a competitor's platform.
|
| Apple have already made the right kinds of concessions for chat
| apps on their platforms. All apps are able to hook into the
| native video/voice call, Contacts and instant-notification
| reply interfaces. Not only does this make each 3rd party app
| have the same feeling and level footing as Messages. It has the
| run on benefit of extending support for these services into
| devices where there isn't even an app available. E.g. one can
| reply to chat messages from their car or apple watch, even if
| there is no app on those platforms - this really goes a long
| way to helping 3rd parties establish themselves without having
| to build an app for every single one of Apple's hardware
| endeavours. Google could go this route with an RCS app, but
| it's clear that there is no end-user benefit here, especially
| when Whatsapp and others did the hard work in carving out the
| critical mass needed to exist as a standalone chat app.
| threeseed wrote:
| I hope there is an interoperable standard but it needs to be (a)
| end to end encrypted and (b) controlled by some standards
| organisation. RCS is neither.
|
| And worst of all Google implemented encryption by layering it on
| top i.e. creating their own proprietary version.
| daneel_w wrote:
| We initially tried getting on-board the RCS train about 3 or 4
| years ago, to be able to do "rich content delivery" to customers.
| Specifications and feature-sets were hazy and seemed to be poorly
| agreed upon, and service providers offering RCS termination to
| the mobile grid were few. Besides only Android having support for
| it, it turned out that in all of Europe we found just 4 cellular
| operators that supported it. Consequently the reach of RCS was
| extremely limited, so we abandoned the idea.
|
| In the beginning of this year we had another look at the
| situation, and somewhat surprisingly there has been very little
| progress in terms of operator support. As we would say in Sweden:
| it appears to be moving slower than a snail on vacation.
| rickdeckard wrote:
| It might be that you looked in the wrong place. I didn't check
| the RCS-situation in a while, but last time I checked (~1.5y
| ago) the Europe operators who haven't deployed RCS already (3-4
| operators) dropped investment plans and decided to support RCS
| via Google's RCS cloud-service instead, mandating the use of
| Google Messaging as device-client.
|
| (Google acquired jibe, a major company developing RCS
| clients/servers, and started rolling their own RCS-server and
| moving almost all vendors to the same client)
|
| My expectation would be that by 2022 the majority of Europe
| carriers support RCS, not as an in-house service but by using
| either Google's cloud-based RCS or Samsung's RCS and their
| respective device-clients (with Samsung on steady decline).
|
| The situation is a bit opaque, but if you look deeper on the
| device-side, RCS is no longer a carrier-controlled service.
| Google and Samsung combined control >90% of the client/server
| development and operations. They surely both align via the
| GSMA, but I doubt that the GSMA has actual control over the
| roadmap of RCS any more today than it had control over it ~2
| years ago (which was close to zero)
| rmrfchik wrote:
| Who ever need carrier based messaging in the modern world? SMS
| moved to 2 factor mechanisms and other b2c needs.
| fbanon wrote:
| Yep. I don't want mobile carriers to be anything but dumb
| pipes.
| [deleted]
| drawfloat wrote:
| Still find it incredible the green/blue bubble thing in the US
| isn't a joke.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| It's real. Part of it is teens being judgy because teenagers do
| that. _her bubbles are green because she's poor and her parents
| can't afford an iphone_ etc.
|
| But also there is a real experience difference between
| iMessages and SMS and especially mixed group chats. Social
| people -even adults- who have lots of group chats via default
| messaging inadvertently punish android users for using SMS and
| that worse experience is represented in green. It's just a
| symbol for that worse experience.
|
| In fact, it's getting worse not better. I have every messaging
| app imaginable on my iPhone (because it's just an app why not).
| If I group chat mixed iPhone and android - I get the expected
| bad experience. But a lot of android users have now set up
| Signal to be their SMS app. So my iPhone will mix SMS iMessage
| going out, only for an android user to mix SMS signal messages
| coming back. So now the conversation is smeared across three
| apps and ruined.
|
| Hence why I just install every app. So i can increase the odds
| of finding an alternative common ground.
|
| PS. Everyone blames the android guy not the iPhone guy. "Stop
| being poor" or whatever. People are cruel.
| dailykoder wrote:
| I always thought it was a Joke/Meme. I saw it come up years ago
| on 4chan, but now it's everywhere.
| delta_p_delta_x wrote:
| Apparently teens in the US _judge_ each other by the colour of
| their message bubbles [0].
|
| I don't know if this is merely immaturity, or sheer vapidness.
|
| [0]: https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-apples-imessage-is-
| winning-... (paywalled)
| projektfu wrote:
| When I was growing up it was mostly about where you bought
| your clothes.
| sss111 wrote:
| paywall bypass for chrome & firefox :
| https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I am under the impression teens should be expected to be
| immature and vapid...because they are teens.
| daneel_w wrote:
| It's immaturity, if you will. Wanting to set oneself aside as
| a bit better than others, and the harsh group mechanics of
| building constellations with a select few through exclusions
| of others, is a social behavior of growing up. Almost every
| kid and teenager will partake in it or at the least
| experience it.
|
| I don't know child psychology, but if I were to guess it's a
| manifestation of "survival of the fittest".
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| It is for 80% of people. I am already mid 30s, but I assume the
| only people who care are young people who use it as an in group
| vs out group signifier. Which, if not green and blue chats,
| would be something else.
|
| Everyone else simply uses WhatsApp if everyone does not have
| iMessage.
| meragrin_ wrote:
| It is also an issue for Android users in general. In large
| group chat instantiated by an iPhone user, Android users may
| be unable to respond. My mother has encountered that on
| numerous occasions.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| That might be a temporary technical issue, but I presume
| adults would just call each other and switch to Whatsapp so
| as to not make it a social issue like teens might by
| continuing to exclude someone.
| meragrin_ wrote:
| > That might be a temporary technical issue,
|
| It's temporary technical issue if Apple were to support
| RCS; otherwise, it is a long term issue. It is due SMS
| limits. This is why Google is trying to pressure Apple
| into supporting RCS. Apple certainly won't loosen control
| of iMessage.
|
| > I presume adults would just call each other
|
| We are talking about a large group chat. Easily 15+
| people. Calling is not really an option for replying
| there.
|
| > switch to Whatsapp
|
| Not going to happen. We are talking about people who only
| recently became comfortable with messaging. Trying to
| throw them into a new application would take too long and
| cause too much frustration. The better answer is for
| Apple to support RCS.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| Nah. I'm a "real adult" (in a wealthy American city) who
| makes plans like an adult and isn't driven by childish
| cliques and in-group behavior but I have 100% excluded
| android users or asked someone to manually relay messages
| to them when they got dropped from an iPhone group chat.
|
| SMS is botched and finding an overlapping app across 15
| people is impossible. How are you supposed to coordinate
| that if you can't even use SMS groups? How do you find a
| common app? You'd need one or two people doing person to
| person investigation to figure it out. At that point,
| it's easier just to find the one person who's phone
| doesn't work and relay messages to them. Half the people
| don't want to download a new app. Another half don't
| trust Facebook apps. Another half think email is too slow
| (and too easy to exclude someone).
|
| The general social sentiment is that the android users
| did this to themselves by choosing a cheap phone or
| choosing to care more about "not letting apple be in
| control".
| throw0101a wrote:
| So those of us who happen to own iPhones, and have friend who
| have Android devices, and would like to have (e.g.) group chats
| can go pound sand? Or try to get all of our friends/family to
| install yet another app?
|
| What is the main argument(s?) against implementing RCS? That it
| doesn't have E2EE? Neither does SMS, so RCS is no worse in that
| regard, but seems to have some extra nice things.
| izacus wrote:
| I keep being surprised how utterly selfish can brand fans be
| when it comes to their electronics toys. This doesn't affect
| pure Apple fanboys at all and yet they still want to mess it
| up.
| jaywalk wrote:
| So we (Apple brand fans) must adopt a garbage standard (RCS)
| just because the brand you're a fan of (Google/Android)
| created and adopted it?
|
| RCS is crap and needs to die. Apple and Google should work
| together on a better standard.
| vidanay wrote:
| If Apple were really interested in a standard, they would
| be promoting iMessage as a standard. Instead, when Google
| proposes RCS, they just sit and shake their head and say
| "no, not good enough."
| jaywalk wrote:
| That's a totally separate issue, and I generally agree
| with you. Apple should put in some work on this as well,
| and they have not.
|
| But that still doesn't mean RCS is good.
| [deleted]
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _RCS is crap and needs to die. Apple and Google should
| work together on a better standard._
|
| And in the meantime, I--an iPhone owner--should not be able
| to have group chats with my Android-using friends?
|
| "The perfect is the enemy of the good."
|
| RCS may not be perfect, but it seems to have nice things
| over and above SMS. I have no objections to adding more
| nice things to RCS (or whatever comes after it), but why
| shouldn't we implement the nice things of RCS?
| jaywalk wrote:
| What's stopping you from having group chats with your
| Android-using friends? I have plenty of them on my
| iPhone.
| danaris wrote:
| > And in the meantime, I--an iPhone owner--should not be
| able to have group chats with my Android-using friends?
|
| There are _how many_ different cross-platform messaging
| apps?
| threeseed wrote:
| The reason is that SMS is dying and being replaced by better
| encrypted clients.
|
| There is no point moving to RCS which just prolongs this death
| and makes the current situation worse since Google has their
| own proprietary version of RCS.
| Jleagle wrote:
| Except SMS isn't being replaced, the new protocols work along
| side SMS. That's like saying WhatsApp is replacing iMessage.
|
| RCS Only has advantages over regular SMS.
| joshstrange wrote:
| > RCS Only has advantages over regular SMS.
|
| Only if you don't count building/support/maintenance of
| RCS. SMS works well enough for it's main jobs: fallback for
| people that won't install a 3rd party app, an insecure
| channel for TOTP (something RCS doesn't improve on), and
| the one near-guaranteed messaging channel for a whole range
| of services that can't or won't write an app with push
| notifications.
|
| Adding RCS is not free/easy and it continues to make us
| dependent on the carriers and Google, two groups I trust
| about as far as I can throw them. RCS is a crap "standard",
| this isn't a case of good being the enemy of great, it's a
| case of Google trying to force their latest messaging
| platform on everyone.
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _The reason is that SMS is dying and being replaced by
| better encrypted clients._
|
| Each of which is a wall gardened onto itself. So instead of
| having one app where I can chat, I have App A to talk with
| Group-of-Friends 1, App B to talk with Group-of-
| Family/Friends 2, App C...
|
| Thanks, but I'll happily give up E2EE to not have to deal
| with the above hassle.
|
| At that point I might as well give up on SMS/RCS and go back
| to only sending e-mails which is an open, federated standard.
|
| > [...] _and makes the current situation worse since Google
| has their own proprietary version of RCS._
|
| AFAICT, the only thing "proprietary" about Google's
| implementation is E2EE: otherwise it's a fairly standard RCS
| client that can talk to any other RCS client. I'd be happy if
| Apple did the same thing with iMessage (app): standard
| SMS/RCS client when sending to non-iMessage people, and
| 'fancy' client (blue bubbles) between iMesssage users.
| bastawhiz wrote:
| > Adoption
|
| This is a chicken and egg argument.
|
| > Security > Prerequisites
|
| Both of these arguments rest on the assumption that RCS replaces
| iMessage. That's not the point. The data is already unencrypted.
| You already need a paid phone number. The benefit is that two
| large groups of users' devices that interact poorly today
| interact better with RCS. Google isn't asking Whatsapp or Signal
| to implement RCS, it doesn't make sense that they'd expect Apple
| to shut down their proprietary service to use a less-featurefull
| option instead.
| mogery wrote:
| How is Adoption a chicken and egg argument? RCS is, by its
| design, slower to update than iMessage.
| bastawhiz wrote:
| Because iOS has a large enough market share that carriers
| don't prioritize adoption ("It doesn't benefit our
| customers"), but a lack of adoption means Apple can say "Why
| would we waste our time on something that's not well
| supported?"
| Gualdrapo wrote:
| As a not-that-techy person I just sorely miss the glorious days
| of multi-service IM apps which made your messaging transparent,
| reliable and fully integrated to whatever you were using. I find
| utterly ridiculous to have multiple half-baked apps in both
| desktop and mobile for each service because _reasons_.
|
| I reckon RCS tried to circumvent that to a point (but still
| saying 'screw you' to desktop users) but alas it seems this
| horrible too-many-IM-apps won't be ever solved.
| poisonborz wrote:
| At least on desktop you have easy multi-messenger apps
| (Electron apps that have nice tabbed interface for web
| versions) like Ferdium or Hamsket. Sure, it's a bit of a
| resource hog, doesn't work for all services (eg. Signal) but
| you do get universal notifications and a single app window.
| mxuribe wrote:
| Although i'm very much a fanboy of the matrix protocol, i really
| wish Apple and other big players would at least consider
| something like matrix...That is, a protocol that is secure,
| extendible, but still universal enough to be federated; not
| proprietary. I imagine decades ago there might have been similar
| (though maybe lower intensity) debates when email was becoming
| popular. I'm so glad the elders were wise enough (and not money-
| grubbers like nowadays) and came to an agreement around mail
| protocols like smtp, imap, etc. Even if its not matrix that is
| chosen, i really wish we had better choice for a chat/text
| messaging protocol. I get that lay people may not care about open
| protocols, or federation as much, etc...but my goodness in this
| day and age, it astounds me that we have not gotten our
| collective act together to standardize on secure, federatable,
| and straight-forward basic messaging.
| ece wrote:
| This is what the new EU DMA regulations are hoping for too.
| resfirestar wrote:
| Like the author, I hope to see some kind of open system get
| adopted. 3rd party apps are popular in a lot of places but they
| are the wrong solution because you rely on a company offering a
| free service to behave. In Japan, the dominant messaging app LINE
| has been struggling to get spam under control, and has had some
| recent security scandals with personal information being viewed
| by a Chinese affiliate and user payment data being leaked on
| GitHub. Because of these and other issues, some younger users
| want to drop LINE completely and move to alternatives like
| Discord and iMessage, which is bringing fragmentation back.
|
| If a centralized messaging app became dominant in America, it
| would likely attract antitrust attention too. These apps have to
| make money somehow, usually by selling emoticons, charging
| business users, or adding features like payments. I doubt the
| current FTC would be pleased if Meta realized their old ambition
| of creating America's WeChat.
|
| RCS may not be perfect but I would rather see Apple adopt it if
| the alternative is nothing. The messaging experience for America
| would be a lot better for it. Google's rhetoric around this seems
| to indicate there's no current interest in collaborating to build
| a better standard, so it seems to be a far off ambition.
| chrismorgan wrote:
| > _To use iMessage, all you need is an Apple ID, which you can
| create for free. To use RCS, you_ need _to have a phone number,
| which means that you need to have an account with a carrier. You
| also need to have a phone to use RCS: you can 't use it on a
| tablet alone without LTE._
|
| I'm under the impression you need Apple hardware to use iMessage,
| and that even third-party solutions rely upon proxying via real
| Apple hardware which has to be turned on (I get the impression
| some basically offer the hardware as a paid service, and others
| require you to own the hardware?). This tips the balance
| completely the other direction, as a _lot_ more people have phone
| numbers than can use iMessage without further expenditure.
| Jasper_ wrote:
| Technically if you want to get in there without Mac hardware,
| you can just spam create valid serial identifiers for your
| hardware until you find one without a registration date, which
| you can claim and will let you on the iMessage network [0]. I'm
| surprised nobody has packaged this into an app before.
|
| [0] https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Post-
| Install/universal/i...
| jaywalk wrote:
| Yes, you do need Apple hardware to use iMessage. But as your
| quote states, there are no other monthly fees associated with
| it. You don't need a cellular plan, or indeed even a device
| with cellular connectivity at all. And you can still
| send/receive iMessages the same as anyone else.
| Macacity wrote:
| How does that work without internet? And you can only send
| iMessage to a small part of the population, as only people
| who have iMessage can receive it, is that correct?
| chrismorgan wrote:
| "Without cellular connectivity" [?] "without internet".
| chrismorgan wrote:
| I don't own any Apple hardware and no desire to own any, let
| alone keep it turned on. I do already have a mobile phone
| number that works. I believe I am among the majority of
| adults in Australia in this combination (though it's quite
| slim and based on estimation).
|
| If you're already in the Apple ecosystem, fine, and that _is_
| kinda the target of the article; but it's worded in a way
| that I don't like and find _extremely_ misleading, since it's
| also about interactions with others, who have a fair chance
| of not possessing the required hardware.
| jaywalk wrote:
| That's fantastic that you have a mobile number that works.
| How can you use it on a WiFi-only tablet to send messages
| to people using that number?
|
| Yeah, I know, you use third-party apps for that. That's not
| the point.
| chrismorgan wrote:
| Haven't done it on a _tablet_ , but from my laptop I SSH
| into my phone and run sxmo_modemsendsms.sh <contact-name-
| or-number> <message>. :-)
| jaywalk wrote:
| Ah, sorry. I didn't realize this problem was solved for
| the general public already :)
| pedrocr wrote:
| How is a third-party app that's available for both
| Android and iOS worse than iMessage that's iOS only? How
| is a mobile number that can be bought from literally
| hundreds of different carriers all over the world worse
| than an Apple ID that only Apple can provide and can take
| away at any time?
| hpaavola wrote:
| "RCS embraces the flaws of GSM, and Apple using it would be a
| step backwards."
|
| Nope. As RCS is better than SMS, adopting it would be a step
| forward. The whole article can be summed up to "RCS is not
| perfect, so it should not be used". Which is of course silly as
| RCS is better than the current option it replaces, SMS.
| threeseed wrote:
| RCS is a step backward.
|
| At least SMS is a standard where as Google has their own
| proprietary version.
| hpaavola wrote:
| No it is not. RCS provides valuable features for users which
| are not present in SMS.
| threeseed wrote:
| But Google RCS is proprietary.
|
| So then why not use another proprietary client like
| WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram etc.
| hpaavola wrote:
| Because taking any of those services into use requires
| you to take those services into use. RCS requires no
| action from the user. That's why. Before you ask a
| question, please spend 15 minutes thinking about the
| answer.
| out_of_protocol wrote:
| e.g. you can't send rcsmessage if target telcom does not
| support it (fallback to sms exists but that's runis the
| idea). Since adoption is (almost) always s-curved, last gsm
| operator to adopt it will do that ... not anytime soon
| hpaavola wrote:
| Which means that at its worst, RCS is just SMS. Which is
| an argument for RCS replacing SMS.
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _At least SMS is a standard where as Google has their own
| proprietary [RCS] version._
|
| AFAICT, the only thing "proprietary" about Google's RCS
| client implementation is E2EE: otherwise it's a fairly
| standard RCS client that can talk to any other RCS client.
|
| I'd be happy if Apple did the same thing with iMessage (app):
| standard SMS/RCS client when sending to non-iMessage people,
| and 'fancy' client (blue bubbles) between iMesssage users.
| threeseed wrote:
| Glad we can agree it's proprietary.
|
| So the question is if Google was willing to deviate from
| the standard for encryption what else will they do in the
| future.
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _Glad we can agree it 's proprietary._
|
| No. If I telnet to tcp/25, do a "EHLO foo", and in
| addition to: 250-ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES
| 250-PIPELINING 250-8BITMIME 250-SIZE
| 27962030 250-DSN 250-ETRN
| 250-DELIVERBY 250 HELP
|
| There is a line: 250-X-GOOGLE-CRYPTO
|
| Or even: 250-X-APPLE-CRYPTO
|
| That does not mean that Google (Apple) is running a
| (completely) proprietary SMTP server. They have a
| proprietary option/capability, but if my Postfix can send
| a regular RFC 821 message then they have a non-
| proprietary base implementation that they have extended.
|
| If I can send SMS messages between iPhones and Androids,
| then I'm content. If I could send (non-extended) RCS
| messages between iPhones and Androids, then I'd be
| content. If either company wants to add 'extra' features
| between their own clients, go right ahead.
|
| And, using the above analogy, it would be best if there
| was a "250-STARTTLS" RCS-equivalent that anyone could
| implement.
| alexshendi wrote:
| Oh, I thought RCS, as in OpenRCS.
| jhbadger wrote:
| I thought of the RCS as in the Revision Control System, which
| was sort of the git of the 1980s, and wondered why anyone still
| cared about that.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revision_Control_System
| [deleted]
| rickdeckard wrote:
| The author lost me on the assumption that RCS is a carrier-
| controlled service. I doubt that carriers have much control over
| the roadmap of RCS, they haven't had real control over it for
| years now. It's basically a service of Google (and to a
| decreasing extend Samsung).
|
| Until 2015 the direction of RCS was for every carrier to setup
| infrastructure to operate a own RCS server. A few companies
| offered such RCS infra, but a key player in the center of the
| whole standardization and interoperability matter was a company
| called jibe. Jibe was selling RCS servers (and clients) to
| network operators, and got a few of the key-carriers as customers
| from the start.
|
| As each device-manufacturer was expected to develop/source his
| own client, and network carriers needed servers to interoperate
| as well, alot of interoperability discussions, testing and
| refinement was needed. As a key server-vendor, jibe was at the
| heart of all those topics and a strong participant in GSMA RCS.
|
| In 2015 Google made a move to enter the RCS space and acquired
| jibe. It started the trajectory which transformed RCS into the
| mostly Google-operated service that it is today. Google
| integrated RCS-client capabilities into their Android Messages
| application and offer RCS as a unified cloud-based service to
| operators.
|
| Within just a few years:
|
| - All network operators who planned to invest into RCS
| infrastructure scrapped those plans, entered an agreement with
| Google to use their cloud-based RCS-service instead and mandated
| towards device-vendors to adopt Android Messages.
|
| - Network operators who had no concrete plans for RCS made the
| same agreement with Google as it promised revenue-share but
| required zero investment from them.
|
| What remains is a handful of network carriers who #1: already
| have RCS-infra and #2: Didn't shut it down yet.
|
| I'd say that 99% of all Android Smartphones today either use a
| Google Messages client or a Samsung Message client, with the
| majority of them connecting either to a Google RCS-server or a
| Samsung RCS-server.
|
| The companies surely still align via GSMA, and the carriers /
| network operators are still involved in discussions about the
| specification, but given the direction of the past 5 years I
| don't see that they have actual control over the roadmap of RCS.
|
| ---
|
| All that said, RCS is the best candidate we have to replace SMS,
| with a majority of carriers chipping in, so it would be
| reasonable for Apple to adopt RCS as a replacement for SMS and
| align with the industry on how this standard should be shaped.
| perryizgr8 wrote:
| Since RCS is a chat standard backed by Google, I wonder which
| company would spend money and time to support it. I guarantee,
| regardless of adoption, in two years, Google will have killed RCS
| or gotten out of it, maybe leaving it to carriers.
|
| Google is not in it for the long haul. Companies whose entire
| modus operandi is providing value to paying customers (e.g.
| Apple) will do well to steer clear.
| daneel_w wrote:
| I was wary about Google pushing AMP to "help the web", and I am
| equally wary about Google pushing RCS to "help
| people/messaging". Because Google.
| imwillofficial wrote:
| They won't adopt RCS
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-08-23 23:02 UTC)