13 ms·

I hope Apple never adopts RCS

83 points by mogery 4y ago

threeseed 4y ago
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.
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nikanj 4y ago
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 4y ago
  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 4y ago
    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.
  - Gigachad 4y ago
    The less the network operator does, the better imo. Just let them be dumb data types. Apple and Google will always be vastly superior at keeping out spam.
- bastawhiz 4y ago
  RCS improves SMS, it doesn't replace iMessage.
- throw0101a 4y ago
  > 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 4y ago
    > 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 4y ago
      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 4y ago
        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 4y ago
        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?
delta_p_delta_x 4y ago
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.
- elashri 4y ago
  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.
  - dailykoder 4y ago
    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
    - Semaphor 4y ago
      > Even the cheapest prepaid plan. My 3.99€/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.
    - preisschild 4y ago
      Not in austria
  - angio 4y ago
daneel_w 4y ago
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 4y ago
  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 4y ago
Who ever need carrier based messaging in the modern world? SMS moved to 2 factor mechanisms and other b2c needs.
- fbanon 4y ago
  Yep. I don't want mobile carriers to be anything but dumb pipes.
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drawfloat 4y ago
Still find it incredible the green/blue bubble thing in the US isn’t a joke.
- dailykoder 4y ago
  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 4y ago
  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-teens-dread-the-green-text-bubble-11641618009 https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-apples-imessage-is-winning-... (paywalled)
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    I am under the impression teens should be expected to be immature and vapid…because they are teens.
  - daneel_w 4y ago
    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".
  - sss111 4y ago
    paywall bypass for chrome & firefox : https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome
  - projektfu 4y ago
    When I was growing up it was mostly about where you bought your clothes.
throw0101a 4y ago
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 4y ago
  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 4y ago
    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 4y ago
      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 4y ago
        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 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - throw0101a 4y ago
bastawhiz 4y ago
> 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 4y ago
  How is Adoption a chicken and egg argument? RCS is, by its design, slower to update than iMessage.
  - bastawhiz 4y ago
    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?"
chrismorgan 4y ago
> 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.
- jaywalk 4y ago
  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.
  - chrismorgan 4y ago
    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 4y ago
      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.
      - 4y ago
hpaavola 4y ago
"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 4y ago
  RCS is a step backward. At least SMS is a standard where as Google has their own proprietary version.
  - hpaavola 4y ago
    No it is not. RCS provides valuable features for users which are not present in SMS.
    - threeseed 4y ago
      But Google RCS is proprietary. So then why not use another proprietary client like WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram etc.
      - hpaavola 4y ago
        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 4y ago
      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 4y ago
perryizgr8 4y ago
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 4y ago
  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 4y ago
They won’t adopt RCS
gertrunde 4y ago
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 4y ago
  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 4y ago
    And SMS is slowly but surely dying. So why throw it a lifeline with RCS when there can be a better standard.
- joshstrange 4y ago
  > 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 4y ago
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 4y ago
  [deleted]
- advisedwang 4y ago
  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 https://support.google.com/messages/answer/7611075 [2] https://www.samsung.com/us/support/answer/ANS00087322/ https://www.samsung.com/us/support/answer/ANS00087322/
  - vineyardmike 4y ago
    No. SMS is proxied to your phone from your desktop but iMessage to iMessage communications don’t need an iPhone at all.
    - advisedwang 4y ago
      Ah thanks for the correction
  - fbanon 4y ago
    Wildly wrong.
Gualdrapo 4y ago
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 4y ago
  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.
  - skinnymuch 4y ago
    We have Matrix bridging and Mattermost nowadays so we have https://Beeper.com https://Beeper.com and https://Texts.com https://Texts.com and similar open source matrix installs. All in one app is amazing.
    - poisonborz 4y ago
      With how complex messaging became, I'm not even sure this is the best method for everyone. Sure, having basic chat functionality and interoperability is great and should be even mandatory. But there are a lot of platform-specific feats that break or are impossible this way. Until the utopia that everyone unites in a common protocol, webapps and these kind of switching apps are a great alternative, not just a stopgap.
      - skinnymuch 4y ago
        I think this stuff is too much for most people to use, but Beeper is not missing anything deal breaking. I use it daily and besides being bulky, it has nearly everything one would expect. For most apps, it has their reactions functionality for example. What’s missing: The reply mechanism doesn’t work as well as it does for specific apps that are better with this. It does basic reply quoting but that’s all. Notifications could be better. There’s no customization per type of app. They do all keyword notifications which almost no app does. However since notifications are all or nothing it is just okay. — Overall, the app is super solid and works well. I agree I don’t think it’s perfect and has plenty of bugs or lacks specific nuanced features. I don’t think we will ever get a common uniting protocol. We never had it. Even when jabber was the common protocol, FBM didn’t support group chats with it. I am assuming Matrix is the best we will get. Or some other sleeker app building off Matrix will come out. We do have MatterMost too but it seems Matrix “won”
rickdeckard 4y ago
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.
alexshendi 4y ago
Oh, I thought RCS, as in OpenRCS.
- jhbadger 4y ago
  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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revision_Control_System
mxuribe 4y ago
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 4y ago
  This is what the new EU DMA regulations are hoping for too.
  - mxuribe 4y ago
    I sure hope they succeed!
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_23sd 4y ago
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.
Kab1r 4y ago
As an avid Matrix user on Android and Linux, I don't see how Apple couldn't adopt both RCS and Matrix.
hnburnsy 4y ago
>iMessage uses end-to-end encryption, and Apple has, on multiple occasions, refused to add a backdoor to its systems. The backdoor is that you cannot exclude iMessage from your enabled by default iCloud backup.
- webmobdev 4y ago
  Apple’s iMessage Is Secure … Unless You Have iCloud Enabled - https://www.howtogeek.com/710509/apples-imessage-is-secure...-unless-you-have-icloud-enabled/ https://www.howtogeek.com/710509/apples-imessage-is-secure.....
  - tinus_hn 4y ago
    Unless you have iCloud backup enabled, actually.
hendersoon 4y ago
All the problems this article are addressed by using Google's own Messages app. Carrier support is not needed, it supports E2E encryption, it's a Google app so it's available on every Android device, etc. You do need a phone number, that is an accurate criticism. Of course Google's app isn't straight RCS, but it _is_ what everybody actually uses, because RCS failed to gain cross-platform, carrier, and manufacturer acceptance. So Google basically followed Apple's lead and created their own centralized messaging. So this isn't about "Apple should support the open-standard known as RCS", it's "Apple should natively integrate Google's messaging app".

83 points by mogery 4y ago

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.

deleted 4y ago

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nikanj 4y ago

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 4y ago
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 4y ago
  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.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  The less the network operator does, the better imo. Just let them be dumb data types. Apple and Google will always be vastly superior at keeping out spam.
bastawhiz 4y ago
RCS improves SMS, it doesn't replace iMessage.
throw0101a 4y ago
> 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 4y ago
  > 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 4y ago
    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 4y ago
      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 4y ago
        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?

delta_p_delta_x 4y ago

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.

elashri 4y ago
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.
- dailykoder 4y ago
  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
  - Semaphor 4y ago
    > Even the cheapest prepaid plan. My 3.99€/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.
  - preisschild 4y ago
    Not in austria
- angio 4y ago

daneel_w 4y ago

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 4y ago
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 4y ago

Who ever need carrier based messaging in the modern world? SMS moved to 2 factor mechanisms and other b2c needs.

fbanon 4y ago
Yep. I don't want mobile carriers to be anything but dumb pipes.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

drawfloat 4y ago

Still find it incredible the green/blue bubble thing in the US isn’t a joke.

dailykoder 4y ago
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 4y ago
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-teens-dread-the-green-text-bubble-11641618009 https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-apples-imessage-is-winning-... (paywalled)
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  I am under the impression teens should be expected to be immature and vapid…because they are teens.
- daneel_w 4y ago
  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".
- sss111 4y ago
  paywall bypass for chrome & firefox : https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome
- projektfu 4y ago
  When I was growing up it was mostly about where you bought your clothes.

throw0101a 4y ago

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 4y ago
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 4y ago
  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 4y ago
    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 4y ago
      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 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - throw0101a 4y ago

bastawhiz 4y ago

> 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 4y ago
How is Adoption a chicken and egg argument? RCS is, by its design, slower to update than iMessage.
- bastawhiz 4y ago
  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?"

chrismorgan 4y ago

> 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.

jaywalk 4y ago
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.
- chrismorgan 4y ago
  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 4y ago
    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.
    - 4y ago

hpaavola 4y ago

"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 4y ago
RCS is a step backward. At least SMS is a standard where as Google has their own proprietary version.
- hpaavola 4y ago
  No it is not. RCS provides valuable features for users which are not present in SMS.
  - threeseed 4y ago
    But Google RCS is proprietary. So then why not use another proprietary client like WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram etc.
    - hpaavola 4y ago
      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 4y ago
    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 4y ago

perryizgr8 4y ago

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 4y ago
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 4y ago

They won’t adopt RCS

gertrunde 4y ago

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 4y ago
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 4y ago
  And SMS is slowly but surely dying. So why throw it a lifeline with RCS when there can be a better standard.
joshstrange 4y ago
> 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 4y ago

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 4y ago
[deleted]
advisedwang 4y ago
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 https://support.google.com/messages/answer/7611075 [2] https://www.samsung.com/us/support/answer/ANS00087322/ https://www.samsung.com/us/support/answer/ANS00087322/
- vineyardmike 4y ago
  No. SMS is proxied to your phone from your desktop but iMessage to iMessage communications don’t need an iPhone at all.
  - advisedwang 4y ago
    Ah thanks for the correction
- fbanon 4y ago
  Wildly wrong.

Gualdrapo 4y ago

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 4y ago
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.
- skinnymuch 4y ago
  We have Matrix bridging and Mattermost nowadays so we have https://Beeper.com https://Beeper.com and https://Texts.com https://Texts.com and similar open source matrix installs. All in one app is amazing.
  - poisonborz 4y ago
    With how complex messaging became, I'm not even sure this is the best method for everyone. Sure, having basic chat functionality and interoperability is great and should be even mandatory. But there are a lot of platform-specific feats that break or are impossible this way. Until the utopia that everyone unites in a common protocol, webapps and these kind of switching apps are a great alternative, not just a stopgap.
    - skinnymuch 4y ago
      I think this stuff is too much for most people to use, but Beeper is not missing anything deal breaking. I use it daily and besides being bulky, it has nearly everything one would expect. For most apps, it has their reactions functionality for example. What’s missing: The reply mechanism doesn’t work as well as it does for specific apps that are better with this. It does basic reply quoting but that’s all. Notifications could be better. There’s no customization per type of app. They do all keyword notifications which almost no app does. However since notifications are all or nothing it is just okay. — Overall, the app is super solid and works well. I agree I don’t think it’s perfect and has plenty of bugs or lacks specific nuanced features. I don’t think we will ever get a common uniting protocol. We never had it. Even when jabber was the common protocol, FBM didn’t support group chats with it. I am assuming Matrix is the best we will get. Or some other sleeker app building off Matrix will come out. We do have MatterMost too but it seems Matrix “won”

rickdeckard 4y ago

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.

alexshendi 4y ago

Oh, I thought RCS, as in OpenRCS.

jhbadger 4y ago
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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revision_Control_System

mxuribe 4y ago

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 4y ago
This is what the new EU DMA regulations are hoping for too.
- mxuribe 4y ago
  I sure hope they succeed!

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

_23sd 4y ago

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.

Kab1r 4y ago

As an avid Matrix user on Android and Linux, I don't see how Apple couldn't adopt both RCS and Matrix.

hnburnsy 4y ago

>iMessage uses end-to-end encryption, and Apple has, on multiple occasions, refused to add a backdoor to its systems. The backdoor is that you cannot exclude iMessage from your enabled by default iCloud backup.

webmobdev 4y ago
Apple’s iMessage Is Secure … Unless You Have iCloud Enabled - https://www.howtogeek.com/710509/apples-imessage-is-secure...-unless-you-have-icloud-enabled/ https://www.howtogeek.com/710509/apples-imessage-is-secure.....
- tinus_hn 4y ago
  Unless you have iCloud backup enabled, actually.

hendersoon 4y ago

All the problems this article are addressed by using Google's own Messages app. Carrier support is not needed, it supports E2E encryption, it's a Google app so it's available on every Android device, etc. You do need a phone number, that is an accurate criticism. Of course Google's app isn't straight RCS, but it _is_ what everybody actually uses, because RCS failed to gain cross-platform, carrier, and manufacturer acceptance. So Google basically followed Apple's lead and created their own centralized messaging. So this isn't about "Apple should support the open-standard known as RCS", it's "Apple should natively integrate Google's messaging app".