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They're dropping it because the world is moving to RCS, and there's no API they (or anyone) can use to interact with RCS. Not dropping SMS would mean people ge

by growse 4y ago

They're dropping it because the world is moving to RCS, and there's no API they (or anyone) can use to interact with RCS. Not dropping SMS would mean people getting annoyed at signal silently losing messages, as people use it to send SMS to which the recipient responds over RCS.

timbit42 4y ago
Doesn't this only affect group chats?
rstuart4133 4y ago
> They're dropping it because the world is moving to RCS, The "world" does not include iOS. In the USA, that's 55% of mobile phone users. With that in mind, lets go back to their reasons here https://community.signalusers.org/t/signal-blog-removing-sms-support-from-signal-android-very-soon/47954/57 https://community.signalusers.org/t/signal-blog-removing-sms... : 1. RCS is coming, and it doesn’t play well with Signal. I once had a situation when I was sending SMS to one of my friends via Signal, but I wasn’t seeing any of their responses Same will happen for iOS users. If Google/Android breaks SMS that badly for everyone I'll be dropping Google's Messenger. I expect most people would. 2. Proper SMS/MMS support is hard. No, I've done it, it's not hard. There aren't that many API's, and they've been stable for yonks. Yes, it may cause support issues. In fact I generated one. I sent my wife an SMS, and it didn't arrive. I posted a support question. Moxie(!) responded: we just use the Android API to send the message. I looked at the source. He was absolutely right, of course (why did I doubt it). It was a Samsung bug in the end. 3. SMS/MMS has plenty of it’s own bugs. Really? You are claiming the most used messaging platform on the planet is so riddled with bugs you can't support it. 4. Spam. What? I will still have SMS. Everyone will. We will all continue to get the get the same spam. It will just come through another app. 5. Finally, Signal having SMS support gives a lot of people the wrong impression of SMS. They think that because it’s Signal sending it, it’s actually secure. This where it clicked this was a marketing post. After reading all that I still don't know what engineering justification is. I presume there is one - maybe it's the level of support calls. Hell maybe they plan to introduce a paid version that does support SMS. If they do and it's a few bucks a year, I would pay it and say "nicely played boys".

by growse 4y ago

timbit42 4y ago

Doesn't this only affect group chats?

rstuart4133 4y ago

> They're dropping it because the world is moving to RCS, The "world" does not include iOS. In the USA, that's 55% of mobile phone users. With that in mind, lets go back to their reasons here https://community.signalusers.org/t/signal-blog-removing-sms-support-from-signal-android-very-soon/47954/57 https://community.signalusers.org/t/signal-blog-removing-sms... : 1. RCS is coming, and it doesn’t play well with Signal. I once had a situation when I was sending SMS to one of my friends via Signal, but I wasn’t seeing any of their responses Same will happen for iOS users. If Google/Android breaks SMS that badly for everyone I'll be dropping Google's Messenger. I expect most people would. 2. Proper SMS/MMS support is hard. No, I've done it, it's not hard. There aren't that many API's, and they've been stable for yonks. Yes, it may cause support issues. In fact I generated one. I sent my wife an SMS, and it didn't arrive. I posted a support question. Moxie(!) responded: we just use the Android API to send the message. I looked at the source. He was absolutely right, of course (why did I doubt it). It was a Samsung bug in the end. 3. SMS/MMS has plenty of it’s own bugs. Really? You are claiming the most used messaging platform on the planet is so riddled with bugs you can't support it. 4. Spam. What? I will still have SMS. Everyone will. We will all continue to get the get the same spam. It will just come through another app. 5. Finally, Signal having SMS support gives a lot of people the wrong impression of SMS. They think that because it’s Signal sending it, it’s actually secure. This where it clicked this was a marketing post. After reading all that I still don't know what engineering justification is. I presume there is one - maybe it's the level of support calls. Hell maybe they plan to introduce a paid version that does support SMS. If they do and it's a few bucks a year, I would pay it and say "nicely played boys".