5 ms·

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 a

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
    > 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 4y ago
      What's stopping you from having group chats with your Android-using friends? I have plenty of them on my iPhone.
      - woojoo666 4y ago
        I believe GP was talking about sms group chats. And if you have sms group chats with android users, it sucks for them, especially how reactions and replies show up on their side. iMessage group chats degrade the experience of your android friends for the convenience of iPhone users. It's not a great way to treat friends imo. 3rd party apps are the same amount of convenience for everybody.
    - danaris 4y ago
      > 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 4y ago
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.
- throw0101a 4y ago
  > 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.
- Jleagle 4y ago
  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 4y ago
    > 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.
pornel 4y ago
It gives power back to mobile operators, and that's a step back for net neutrality. My experience with mobile operators is that they are universally horrible, both on technical and business level. MMS has been a dumpster fire since the beginning. They haven't improved it in all these years, but still price it as if they hand deliver the messages on a golden plate (my operator's cheapest MMS price is 20x more expensive than the same bandwidth on their data plan, and the regular price is closer to 300x markup). These are the operators that put uninstallable crapware on phones they're able to touch (Apple has won a hard battle here; phones used to be sold on operators' terms before the iPhone). These are the operators that are unwilling to secure caller ID. These are the operators that sell their user's traffic. These are the operators charge fuck-you prices for roaming. I don't want them to be in control of anything. RCS will be just an extra item to upsell, and the technology — which is already worse than every competitor — will be left to languish forever.
- webmobdev 4y ago
  > It gives power back to mobile operators, and that's a step back for net neutrality. I see that as a huge positive - I'd rather that my personal communication never be under the control and mercy of foreign BigTechs, and would prefer that it be under the telecom companies who are obliged to follow certain laws and regulations on pricing and QoS. I don't see it as having anything to do with net neutrality.
  - pornel 4y ago
    Looking at pricing of MMS, roaming charges, and lack of security in interchange that allows spam and fake caller IDs, these laws are insufficient. A technical solution that makes operators "dumb pipes" solves it better. It's a Net Neutrality issue, because it allows operators to charge for bytes of RCS messages differently than bytes of Signal messages or Matrix messages or any other packet. Ideally messaging shouldn't be controlled by either BigTech or BigTelecom, but RCS being a Google-telecom cooperation fails on both counts at the same time.
    - webmobdev 4y ago

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
  > 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 4y ago
    What's stopping you from having group chats with your Android-using friends? I have plenty of them on my iPhone.
    - woojoo666 4y ago
      I believe GP was talking about sms group chats. And if you have sms group chats with android users, it sucks for them, especially how reactions and replies show up on their side. iMessage group chats degrade the experience of your android friends for the convenience of iPhone users. It's not a great way to treat friends imo. 3rd party apps are the same amount of convenience for everybody.
  - danaris 4y ago
    > 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 4y ago

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.

throw0101a 4y ago
> 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.
Jleagle 4y ago
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 4y ago
  > 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.

pornel 4y ago

It gives power back to mobile operators, and that's a step back for net neutrality. My experience with mobile operators is that they are universally horrible, both on technical and business level. MMS has been a dumpster fire since the beginning. They haven't improved it in all these years, but still price it as if they hand deliver the messages on a golden plate (my operator's cheapest MMS price is 20x more expensive than the same bandwidth on their data plan, and the regular price is closer to 300x markup). These are the operators that put uninstallable crapware on phones they're able to touch (Apple has won a hard battle here; phones used to be sold on operators' terms before the iPhone). These are the operators that are unwilling to secure caller ID. These are the operators that sell their user's traffic. These are the operators charge fuck-you prices for roaming. I don't want them to be in control of anything. RCS will be just an extra item to upsell, and the technology — which is already worse than every competitor — will be left to languish forever.

webmobdev 4y ago
> It gives power back to mobile operators, and that's a step back for net neutrality. I see that as a huge positive - I'd rather that my personal communication never be under the control and mercy of foreign BigTechs, and would prefer that it be under the telecom companies who are obliged to follow certain laws and regulations on pricing and QoS. I don't see it as having anything to do with net neutrality.
- pornel 4y ago
  Looking at pricing of MMS, roaming charges, and lack of security in interchange that allows spam and fake caller IDs, these laws are insufficient. A technical solution that makes operators "dumb pipes" solves it better. It's a Net Neutrality issue, because it allows operators to charge for bytes of RCS messages differently than bytes of Signal messages or Matrix messages or any other packet. Ideally messaging shouldn't be controlled by either BigTech or BigTelecom, but RCS being a Google-telecom cooperation fails on both counts at the same time.
  - webmobdev 4y ago