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They could have supported it until SMS was dead and buried. Also, RCS looks to have an upcoming third-party API, so it was absolutely a choice.
by errantmind 4y ago
They could have supported it until SMS was dead and buried. Also, RCS looks to have an upcoming third-party API, so it was absolutely a choice.
- posguy 4y agoRCS has been around since 2013 and the only alternative client to Google Messages was your device maker's app that was allowed to tie into Google Messages via a device vendor only API (but essentially these were just a skin for Google Messages). Google has not provided any public API for RCS, and they control the ecosystem fully. If Google wanted other clients to use RCS as a platform, there would be public APIs that Signal, iMessage, Textra, Facebook Messenger and other SMS clients could integrate with.
- errantmind 4y agoAlright, thanks for the clarification. It looks like they opened it up for particular apps in the last few years but haven't yet gone beyond that.