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I don’t think that was ever a thing outside the US. Seems consequently like a weird and distorted perspective to me.

by arrrg 4y ago

SllX 4y ago
Do you want to tell Google or should I?
- arrrg 4y ago
  I do not understand your comment. Could you write legible arguments and tone down the cynicism and sarcasm?
  - SllX 4y ago
    I am happy to clarify: Google has been running a PR campaign against the green and blue bubbles in iMessage. It’s a weird and distorted thing for them to focus on and really matters to any degree in the US market. Do we disagree? I thought we didn’t but maybe I was in the wrong there.
    - arrrg 4y ago
      I’m not aware of that PR campaign – which is why I didn’t understand your comment at all – so (not living in the US) if this is something that didn’t reach me Google may have well placed their PR efforts even if what they claim is not globally true.
      - SllX 4y ago
        Fair enough! Apologies! It’s been a common topic on HN for the past year or maybe even more at this point, so I assumed prior knowledge. Cheers!
- luma 4y ago
  Those bubbles exist because Google follows the international RCS standard and Apple refuses to do so. Do you want to tell Apple? edit: lol, guess everyone really loves their status symbols here. Congrats on having your chats be the "right" color!
  - parker_mountain 4y ago
    FWIW, RCS is terrible, half-baked, and the E2EE solution they offer is weak and flawed. Not to mention, they'd have to continue to support iMessage. It's a requirement, since it's the underpinning of some of their other successful ecosystem products. The correct solution, imo, is to get your friends on something like Signal. Cross platform, easy, E2EE messaging - it's not perfect, but it's better than vendor lockin or RCS
    - threeseed 4y ago
      RCS has no E2EE solution. It's a proprietary add-on by Google and since it's not part of the spec will simply be banned by many countries. It would take the entire industry back to the 90s where governments, carriers and rogue actors had free reign to access any data they wanted.
      - luma 4y ago
        > It's a proprietary add-on by Google and since it's not part of the spec will simply be banned by many countries. You sure about that? https://www.gsma.com/futurenetworks/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/RCC.07-v11.0.pdf https://www.gsma.com/futurenetworks/wp-content/uploads/2019/... It's an international standard, supported by carriers and everyone not-Apple. Google pushed it forward, but did so in coordination with standards bodies. I'm not sure how you arrive at the above conclusion when the history is not in question: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Communication_Services#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Communication_Services#Hi...
        SllX 4y ago
        Slow your roll there and define your terms: who actually is everyone not-Apple? Do you just mean carriers and Google? That leaves out in your apparent definition of “Apple” a bunch of things I thought were “not-Apple”: LINE, WeChat, KakaoTalk, Kik, WhatsApp, Viber, Facebook Messenger, Snapchat, Skype, Telegram, Signal, Discord, Slack, Teams and basically every single app with some form of DMing. RCS might have made sense in a different world, but in this one it’s just another protocol among many and without any compelling reason to support it other than it’s “not SMS”. There’s a lot of “not SMS” out there and iMessage and RCS are just two among many; you’re going to need something a lot more compelling than that.
parker_mountain 4y ago
It always made sense to me. For a few reasons - Android phones have a low end, and thus a lot of people associate them with being poor. It's simple status symbol showing off. This is stupid - I don't like it, but it's what people seem to think. - A single Android user can "drag down" the conversation of a bunch of iPhone users. Group chats are a perfect example of this. Not to mention, reacts, rich media sharing, and threading doesn't work across platforms. This is really frustrating when it happens. You could argue that Apple should adapt RCS - I would argue that RCS is technically terrible, poorly designed, and Apple has a legitimate point of not adopting it on those grounds. - "Green bubble" is also beyond just messaging. It's referring to the overall friction of the two ecosystems, such as file sharing, location sharing, payments, etc.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- smoldesu 4y ago
  > Not to mention, reacts, rich media sharing, and threading doesn't work across platforms. Because none of those are SMS features. They are features Apple introduced with iMessage, and then refused to scale across the rest of the industry. RCS is a response to iMessage being closed; if Apple can do better, nobody is stopping them from opening the iMessage specification. ..except they won't. Not because it's impossible, but because there's no money in improving the cross-platform user experience, even if it makes your users happy.
  - parker_mountain 4y ago
    Well, let me preface by saying I specifically avoided talking about vendor lock-in in my previous post for a reason. I only wanted to talk about why iPhone users perceive Android users negatively. I think this lock-in is generally bad. I think there are actual, material reasons why Apple won't integrate with RCS until they're forced to, but also opening up iMessage is a very difficult proposition. Here is my speculation: > refused to scale across the rest of the industry. iMessage was not designed to be a decentralized chat protocol, RCS was. iMessage was not designed to work well with carrier UIs, RCS was. They are extremely different things. "scaling it" is much easier said than done. > nobody is stopping them from opening the iMessage specification iMessage is tied closely to apple accounts and centralized auth. It'd take a huge amount of engineering effort to open iMessage up, for zero benefit to Apple. iMessage uses per-device-keys as a mechanism of spam control, and will blacklist physical devices. One of iMessage's key spam controls would be wrecked if it was "completely open". This means that android devices would have to be certified for imessage, to ensure that they have unique device keys, and that the manufacturer is actually operating in good faith. They'd probably have to negotiate with individual device vendors for enrollment. How would you feel if iMessage was on Samsung devices only? Anyways, it's a huge amount of work that only yields negative strategic benefit. Anyways, Porting iMessage to Android is extremely non-trivial. RCS is a piece of shit (it really is, go look at the spec, the carriers put their hands all over it and it's rough). Stop trusting major vendors, use signal or self host your chat.
stjohnswarts 4y ago
It was a thing. It never bothered me. I moved to iPhone after I got tired of fighting Android over privacy. Apple isn't great but they're mostly in the hardware business and not software/ad business (for now) so they aren't quite as invasive.

I don’t think that was ever a thing outside the US. Seems consequently like a weird and distorted perspective to me.

by arrrg 4y ago

I don’t think that was ever a thing outside the US. Seems consequently like a weird and distorted perspective to me.

SllX 4y ago

Do you want to tell Google or should I?

arrrg 4y ago
I do not understand your comment. Could you write legible arguments and tone down the cynicism and sarcasm?
- SllX 4y ago
  I am happy to clarify: Google has been running a PR campaign against the green and blue bubbles in iMessage. It’s a weird and distorted thing for them to focus on and really matters to any degree in the US market. Do we disagree? I thought we didn’t but maybe I was in the wrong there.
  - arrrg 4y ago
    I’m not aware of that PR campaign – which is why I didn’t understand your comment at all – so (not living in the US) if this is something that didn’t reach me Google may have well placed their PR efforts even if what they claim is not globally true.
    - SllX 4y ago
      Fair enough! Apologies! It’s been a common topic on HN for the past year or maybe even more at this point, so I assumed prior knowledge. Cheers!
luma 4y ago
Those bubbles exist because Google follows the international RCS standard and Apple refuses to do so. Do you want to tell Apple? edit: lol, guess everyone really loves their status symbols here. Congrats on having your chats be the "right" color!
- parker_mountain 4y ago
  FWIW, RCS is terrible, half-baked, and the E2EE solution they offer is weak and flawed. Not to mention, they'd have to continue to support iMessage. It's a requirement, since it's the underpinning of some of their other successful ecosystem products. The correct solution, imo, is to get your friends on something like Signal. Cross platform, easy, E2EE messaging - it's not perfect, but it's better than vendor lockin or RCS
  - threeseed 4y ago
    RCS has no E2EE solution. It's a proprietary add-on by Google and since it's not part of the spec will simply be banned by many countries. It would take the entire industry back to the 90s where governments, carriers and rogue actors had free reign to access any data they wanted.
    - luma 4y ago
      > It's a proprietary add-on by Google and since it's not part of the spec will simply be banned by many countries. You sure about that? https://www.gsma.com/futurenetworks/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/RCC.07-v11.0.pdf https://www.gsma.com/futurenetworks/wp-content/uploads/2019/... It's an international standard, supported by carriers and everyone not-Apple. Google pushed it forward, but did so in coordination with standards bodies. I'm not sure how you arrive at the above conclusion when the history is not in question: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Communication_Services#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Communication_Services#Hi...
      - SllX 4y ago
        Slow your roll there and define your terms: who actually is everyone not-Apple? Do you just mean carriers and Google? That leaves out in your apparent definition of “Apple” a bunch of things I thought were “not-Apple”: LINE, WeChat, KakaoTalk, Kik, WhatsApp, Viber, Facebook Messenger, Snapchat, Skype, Telegram, Signal, Discord, Slack, Teams and basically every single app with some form of DMing. RCS might have made sense in a different world, but in this one it’s just another protocol among many and without any compelling reason to support it other than it’s “not SMS”. There’s a lot of “not SMS” out there and iMessage and RCS are just two among many; you’re going to need something a lot more compelling than that.

parker_mountain 4y ago

It always made sense to me. For a few reasons - Android phones have a low end, and thus a lot of people associate them with being poor. It's simple status symbol showing off. This is stupid - I don't like it, but it's what people seem to think. - A single Android user can "drag down" the conversation of a bunch of iPhone users. Group chats are a perfect example of this. Not to mention, reacts, rich media sharing, and threading doesn't work across platforms. This is really frustrating when it happens. You could argue that Apple should adapt RCS - I would argue that RCS is technically terrible, poorly designed, and Apple has a legitimate point of not adopting it on those grounds. - "Green bubble" is also beyond just messaging. It's referring to the overall friction of the two ecosystems, such as file sharing, location sharing, payments, etc.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
smoldesu 4y ago
> Not to mention, reacts, rich media sharing, and threading doesn't work across platforms. Because none of those are SMS features. They are features Apple introduced with iMessage, and then refused to scale across the rest of the industry. RCS is a response to iMessage being closed; if Apple can do better, nobody is stopping them from opening the iMessage specification. ..except they won't. Not because it's impossible, but because there's no money in improving the cross-platform user experience, even if it makes your users happy.
- parker_mountain 4y ago
  Well, let me preface by saying I specifically avoided talking about vendor lock-in in my previous post for a reason. I only wanted to talk about why iPhone users perceive Android users negatively. I think this lock-in is generally bad. I think there are actual, material reasons why Apple won't integrate with RCS until they're forced to, but also opening up iMessage is a very difficult proposition. Here is my speculation: > refused to scale across the rest of the industry. iMessage was not designed to be a decentralized chat protocol, RCS was. iMessage was not designed to work well with carrier UIs, RCS was. They are extremely different things. "scaling it" is much easier said than done. > nobody is stopping them from opening the iMessage specification iMessage is tied closely to apple accounts and centralized auth. It'd take a huge amount of engineering effort to open iMessage up, for zero benefit to Apple. iMessage uses per-device-keys as a mechanism of spam control, and will blacklist physical devices. One of iMessage's key spam controls would be wrecked if it was "completely open". This means that android devices would have to be certified for imessage, to ensure that they have unique device keys, and that the manufacturer is actually operating in good faith. They'd probably have to negotiate with individual device vendors for enrollment. How would you feel if iMessage was on Samsung devices only? Anyways, it's a huge amount of work that only yields negative strategic benefit. Anyways, Porting iMessage to Android is extremely non-trivial. RCS is a piece of shit (it really is, go look at the spec, the carriers put their hands all over it and it's rough). Stop trusting major vendors, use signal or self host your chat.

stjohnswarts 4y ago

It was a thing. It never bothered me. I moved to iPhone after I got tired of fighting Android over privacy. Apple isn't great but they're mostly in the hardware business and not software/ad business (for now) so they aren't quite as invasive.