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> Apple supporters don't seem to understand RCS is supposed to replace SMS/MMS - not replace iMessage. There may be some people who (wrongly) think that but I

> Apple supporters don't seem to understand RCS is supposed to replace SMS/MMS - not replace iMessage. There may be some people who (wrongly) think that but I don't, my objection to RCS is because it's carrier-dependent and Google pretty much owns the "standard", I don't want a new messaging system with either of those things. SMS is fine for 2FA (for sites that refuse to let me use my 2FA app) and for all other chat there are a ton of other great alternatives. We don't need RCS, it's a solution in search of a problem and it has some very bad flaws IMHO. If I want "google messaging" I'll install their app, I don't want a new messaging platform forced on me that will stagnate and fall behind what will become the new "table stakes" for chat apps in a few years time.

Wowfunhappy 4y ago
> and for all other chat there are a ton of other great alternatives. If Apple allowed me to replace the default messaging app, or allowed other services to provide "plugins" which integrate into the default app, I'd be fine with it not supporting RCS. As things stand, any cross-platform messaging app which isn't SMS is a second-class citizen on the iPhone. Which I'm sure is exactly as intended.
- joshstrange 4y ago
  > As things stand, any cross-platform messaging app which isn't SMS is a second-class citizen on the iPhone 100% bullshit. I use Discord and Slack on my phone every single day, neither of them are at a disadvantage to something like iMessage. They support the same things I do with iMessage. Having all your chats in 1 app is just a game of "find the lowest common denominator" which is not a game I want to play.
  - Alupis 4y ago
    > 100% bullshit. I use Discord and Slack on my phone every single day, neither of them are at a disadvantage to something like iMessage What does Discord and Slack require that SMS doesn't? Hint... an account for a proprietary service that may terminate or delete your account and/or history whenever they feel like it. Seriously... everyone agrees SMS/MMS is terrible. Smoke signals might have higher resolution images these days... we need a replacement. Just because Apple has decided to make their own proprietary thing does not bar them from getting in line with the industry and supporting RCS for non-iDevices.
    - Jtsummers 4y ago
      > What does Discord and Slack require that SMS doesn't? Hint... an account for a proprietary service that may terminate or delete your account and/or history whenever they feel like it. Right, instead SMS requires you to pay a monthly subscription fee, and if you change providers and phone numbers you have to update all your contacts. Phone number tied messaging should be made a thing of the past, it's not something to champion anymore.
      - Alupis 4y ago
        If you have a phone, you have a phone number. You can send a SMS to any mobile phone number on the planet and are (basically) guaranteed delivery. You cannot say the same for some proprietary system like Slack...
        Jtsummers 4y ago
        Try moving internationally, see how well being tied to that US number for SMS/MMS/RCS will work for you. Or move to the US from another country, and see if any carrier will take that foreign number, or if any carrier from your home country will provide an affordable international roaming plan in the US for the longterm.
        Wowfunhappy 4y ago
        That's a fair point—if you move internationally, you can't keep your phone number. I'd argue that's a fairly niche edge case, however, which still leaves us in a better situation than most digital identifiers. Google could relinquish my email address at any time for any reason and I'd have no recourse.
      - Wowfunhappy 4y ago
        > and if you change providers and phone numbers you have to update all your contacts. At least in the United States, mobile carriers are legally required to allow you to port your phone number. Your phone number belongs to you forever (unless you choose to discard it). By contrast, most personal email addresses (which are what most people use to sign up for other services like Whatsapp) belong to for-profit companies, who can and do hold them hostage.
Alupis 4y ago
> and for all other chat there are a ton of other great alternatives. We don't need RCS, it's a solution in search of a problem If you need to install a proprietary app to communicate with some subset of your contacts list... then that is not a good solution. SMS lets you send a message to any mobile phone number in the world... it just works. Why would someone want 3+ apps just to communicate with different circles of contacts? Who governs these apps and protocols? Some fly-by-night company that gets bought by Facebook and turned into an Ad Platform, or a company that doesn't take security seriously and leaks private messages everywhere? These are awful solutions. iMessage is gated for only iDevices. That makes it a bad solution. While it may work great for Apple users, it was literally designed not to work with anything else. Guess what... Apple devices are the extreme minority of devices out there in the wild. Perhaps RCS isn't the best replacement of SMS as it could be - but it is a huge improvement for majority of the world, and Apple not playing along makes them a bad actor - not Google. After all, RCS benefits Apple users too. So the argument that RCS isn't as great as it could be, and it's driven by Google (the largest maker of mobile operating systems in the world!) falls very short. If anything, Apple should collaborate on the RCS spec, if they feel it's lacking for some reason.
- joshstrange 4y ago
  > If you need to install a proprietary app to communicate with some subset of your contacts list... then that is not a good solution. RCS is effectively proprietary and will absolutely lag in features. I don't understand why people seem to think it's the end-all-be-all. > SMS lets you send a message to any mobile phone number in the world... it just works. And it hasn't changed since launch. RCS will similarly fall behind quickly. Why would we adopt a new languishing "standard", it makes no sense, everyone is going to have 3rd party chat apps anyways, why not use them? > Why would someone want 3+ apps just to communicate with different circles of contacts? Who governs these apps and protocols? Some fly-by-night company that gets bought by Facebook and turned into an Ad Platform, or a company that doesn't take security seriously and leaks private messages everywhere? These are awful solutions. And you think Google+carriers is the answer to this? Google is an ad platform, carriers are going to try to use this to extract more money/control. > iMessage is gated for only iDevices. That makes it a bad solution. While it may work great for Apple users, it was literally designed not to work with anything else. Guess what... Apple devices are the extreme minority of devices out there in the wild. Literally not part of this discussion. I do not care. Don't use it, use something else. iMessage being amazing or terrible has nothing to do with RCS being a waste of time. > Perhaps RCS isn't the best replacement of SMS as it could be - but it is a huge improvement for majority of the world, and Apple not playing along makes them a bad actor - not Google. After all, RCS benefits Apple users too. Bullshit. The carriers haven't even gotten their shit together when it comes to RCS and again Google effectively owns/controls RCS. It's not an improvement over what's a simple download away (other chat apps). > So the argument that RCS isn't as great as it could be, and it's driven by Google (the largest maker of mobile operating systems in the world!) falls very short. I'm not sure why you think being the largest makers of mobile operating systems is positive or matters in this discussion? Google is also the company that has an embarrassing number failed chat platforms in it's history. Google Talk used to be build on XMPP but they abandoned that even though it was extendable. They will either abandon RCS or continue to make it more proprietary than it already is. They are not good stewards of chat.

Wowfunhappy 4y ago

> and for all other chat there are a ton of other great alternatives. If Apple allowed me to replace the default messaging app, or allowed other services to provide "plugins" which integrate into the default app, I'd be fine with it not supporting RCS. As things stand, any cross-platform messaging app which isn't SMS is a second-class citizen on the iPhone. Which I'm sure is exactly as intended.

joshstrange 4y ago
> As things stand, any cross-platform messaging app which isn't SMS is a second-class citizen on the iPhone 100% bullshit. I use Discord and Slack on my phone every single day, neither of them are at a disadvantage to something like iMessage. They support the same things I do with iMessage. Having all your chats in 1 app is just a game of "find the lowest common denominator" which is not a game I want to play.
- Alupis 4y ago
  > 100% bullshit. I use Discord and Slack on my phone every single day, neither of them are at a disadvantage to something like iMessage What does Discord and Slack require that SMS doesn't? Hint... an account for a proprietary service that may terminate or delete your account and/or history whenever they feel like it. Seriously... everyone agrees SMS/MMS is terrible. Smoke signals might have higher resolution images these days... we need a replacement. Just because Apple has decided to make their own proprietary thing does not bar them from getting in line with the industry and supporting RCS for non-iDevices.
  - Jtsummers 4y ago
    > What does Discord and Slack require that SMS doesn't? Hint... an account for a proprietary service that may terminate or delete your account and/or history whenever they feel like it. Right, instead SMS requires you to pay a monthly subscription fee, and if you change providers and phone numbers you have to update all your contacts. Phone number tied messaging should be made a thing of the past, it's not something to champion anymore.
    - Alupis 4y ago
      If you have a phone, you have a phone number. You can send a SMS to any mobile phone number on the planet and are (basically) guaranteed delivery. You cannot say the same for some proprietary system like Slack...
      - Jtsummers 4y ago
        Try moving internationally, see how well being tied to that US number for SMS/MMS/RCS will work for you. Or move to the US from another country, and see if any carrier will take that foreign number, or if any carrier from your home country will provide an affordable international roaming plan in the US for the longterm.
        Wowfunhappy 4y ago
        That's a fair point—if you move internationally, you can't keep your phone number. I'd argue that's a fairly niche edge case, however, which still leaves us in a better situation than most digital identifiers. Google could relinquish my email address at any time for any reason and I'd have no recourse.
    - Wowfunhappy 4y ago
      > and if you change providers and phone numbers you have to update all your contacts. At least in the United States, mobile carriers are legally required to allow you to port your phone number. Your phone number belongs to you forever (unless you choose to discard it). By contrast, most personal email addresses (which are what most people use to sign up for other services like Whatsapp) belong to for-profit companies, who can and do hold them hostage.

Alupis 4y ago

> and for all other chat there are a ton of other great alternatives. We don't need RCS, it's a solution in search of a problem If you need to install a proprietary app to communicate with some subset of your contacts list... then that is not a good solution. SMS lets you send a message to any mobile phone number in the world... it just works. Why would someone want 3+ apps just to communicate with different circles of contacts? Who governs these apps and protocols? Some fly-by-night company that gets bought by Facebook and turned into an Ad Platform, or a company that doesn't take security seriously and leaks private messages everywhere? These are awful solutions. iMessage is gated for only iDevices. That makes it a bad solution. While it may work great for Apple users, it was literally designed not to work with anything else. Guess what... Apple devices are the extreme minority of devices out there in the wild. Perhaps RCS isn't the best replacement of SMS as it could be - but it is a huge improvement for majority of the world, and Apple not playing along makes them a bad actor - not Google. After all, RCS benefits Apple users too. So the argument that RCS isn't as great as it could be, and it's driven by Google (the largest maker of mobile operating systems in the world!) falls very short. If anything, Apple should collaborate on the RCS spec, if they feel it's lacking for some reason.

joshstrange 4y ago
> If you need to install a proprietary app to communicate with some subset of your contacts list... then that is not a good solution. RCS is effectively proprietary and will absolutely lag in features. I don't understand why people seem to think it's the end-all-be-all. > SMS lets you send a message to any mobile phone number in the world... it just works. And it hasn't changed since launch. RCS will similarly fall behind quickly. Why would we adopt a new languishing "standard", it makes no sense, everyone is going to have 3rd party chat apps anyways, why not use them? > Why would someone want 3+ apps just to communicate with different circles of contacts? Who governs these apps and protocols? Some fly-by-night company that gets bought by Facebook and turned into an Ad Platform, or a company that doesn't take security seriously and leaks private messages everywhere? These are awful solutions. And you think Google+carriers is the answer to this? Google is an ad platform, carriers are going to try to use this to extract more money/control. > iMessage is gated for only iDevices. That makes it a bad solution. While it may work great for Apple users, it was literally designed not to work with anything else. Guess what... Apple devices are the extreme minority of devices out there in the wild. Literally not part of this discussion. I do not care. Don't use it, use something else. iMessage being amazing or terrible has nothing to do with RCS being a waste of time. > Perhaps RCS isn't the best replacement of SMS as it could be - but it is a huge improvement for majority of the world, and Apple not playing along makes them a bad actor - not Google. After all, RCS benefits Apple users too. Bullshit. The carriers haven't even gotten their shit together when it comes to RCS and again Google effectively owns/controls RCS. It's not an improvement over what's a simple download away (other chat apps). > So the argument that RCS isn't as great as it could be, and it's driven by Google (the largest maker of mobile operating systems in the world!) falls very short. I'm not sure why you think being the largest makers of mobile operating systems is positive or matters in this discussion? Google is also the company that has an embarrassing number failed chat platforms in it's history. Google Talk used to be build on XMPP but they abandoned that even though it was extendable. They will either abandon RCS or continue to make it more proprietary than it already is. They are not good stewards of chat.