8 ms·

I was working on RCS systems back in 2012. It was the future back them - incredible low latency for messaging and gaming, rich messaging, and a decent SDK. How

by edent 3y ago

I was working on RCS systems back in 2012. It was the future back them - incredible low latency for messaging and gaming, rich messaging, and a decent SDK. How did carriers fuck it up so badly that, a decade later, it's barely a blip on the messaging landscape? The were so desperate to stop OTT (over the top) services that they... locked everything down in the hope that customers wouldn't churn. It backfired spectacularly.

bastard_op 3y ago
It wasn't the carriers, it was Apple mostly winning the race in creating their walled garden, and everyone else being disinterested in an alternative in the phone race wars. It's now some badge of shame Apple users discriminate against the blue vs green windows if a friend or relative doesn't have an i-thing, and Apple loves it all the way to the bank.
- rattlesnakedave 3y ago
  Apple only has dominant marketshare in the US. Everywhere else in the world people use Whatsapp. Why didn't they all hop on the RCS train? Because it sucks to implement and is a black box to use. Google was stuck with SMS because of their inability to implement a cohesive messaging app, despite owning and distributing an operating system. So what did they do? Pitched sob stories and got the europeans to threaten to regulate. Shitty move. They should have just built something good.
  - smoldesu 3y ago
    > They should have just built something good. This, but with Apple. Whether or not Google whined about it, iMessage was never going to last. It was never a matter of if iMessage would be forced to reconcile itself with the interoperable protocol it replaced, but when. So... Apple should have been ready. They should have been drafting absurd standards centered around their own servers, and taunting Google into adopting it. They could have even charged a license fee for the software. But instead they played high and mighty, and now they have to contend with the law. Frankly, I'm glad Google summoned Shai Hulud.
    - discard124 3y ago
      > They should have been drafting absurd standards centered around their own servers, and taunting Google into adopting it. It's hard to imaging you sincerely think this would have been better. It seems like you want them to engage in dishonesty. > But instead they played high and mighty, and now they have to contend with the law. iMessage isn't going anywhere. They're just going to add RCS support in the same way that SMS is supported, because now there is momementum for carrier support. This is really a storm in a teacup.
    - mcphage 3y ago
      > They should have been drafting absurd standards centered around their own servers, and taunting Google into adopting it. They could have even charged a license fee for the software. But instead they played high and mighty, and now they have to contend with the law. Isn't the situation in the EU that they're looking to force Apple to allow others to use the iMessage protocol? So why would Apple work on getting Google to support iMessage, when Google is putting in work to get access to it?
  - Arcanum-XIII 3y ago
    Well... let's say also that the telco investment were not light. That Google was pushing for RCS, and SMS, and their messenger of the moment. Apple refused to implement RCS, because why do so, since there was no carrier at the time proposing it. So yeah, no.
    - sudosysgen 3y ago
      As Google demonstrated, carrier support for RCS is not necessary.
  - lxgr 3y ago
    Google absolutely had a cohesive messaging app (Google Chat, later called Hangouts), they just threw it away and tried to rebuild it several times and under various other names and paradigms rather than iterating on it. If they'd simply added a "WhatsApp/iMessage mode" to Google Chat in 2015 (i.e. allow Google account based users to seamlessly communicate with phone number based users), I think we might be seeing a very different messaging landscape today.
    - jdiez17 3y ago
      Google Chat was great back in its day (standard XMPP) and had a somewhat "loyal" and large user base. Rebranding it into Hangouts, rebuilding it, and generally sabotaging themselves was, well, their own doing.
    - dev_daftly 3y ago
      We wouldn't because the issue always was iphone users never willing to use an app outside of imessage. What good is a messaging platform if more than 1/2 your network won't use it?
      - lotsofpulp 3y ago
        WhatsApp succeeded. Google misfiring 10 times giving people zero reason to invest was the problem.
    - zik 3y ago
      > If they'd simply added a "WhatsApp/iMessage mode" to Google Chat... They'd have been sued by WhapsApp and Apple if they did that since they're proprietary protocols.
  - no_wizard 3y ago
    I think iMessage doesn't have the most dominant marketshare outside the US (and possibly Canada) iOS /iPadOS (and by extension, iPhone and iPad) however, has slim-to-major majorities in most lucrative markets[0] and even in markets where iOS is not a majority, its well known in the mobile industry that iOS / iPadOS customers are far more lucrative [0]: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ios-vs-android-market-share-135251641.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ios-vs-android-market-share-1...
    - disgruntledphd2 3y ago
      This more money on apple thing is a selection effect caused by Apple phones being more expensive, such that the distribution of revenue is truncated.
  - kmlx 3y ago
    > Apple only has dominant marketshare in the US. Japan: 65.88% Denmark: 64.04% Norway: 61.94% Canada: 57.84% Australia: 57.47% United States: 56.74% Switzerland: 55.92% Sweden: 55.33% United Kingdom: 51.63% Taiwan: 51.32% from: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/iphone-market-share-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/iphone-ma...
    - aeadio 3y ago
      I think the parent comment was referring to messaging, ie iMessage vs the others. Ie, in Taiwan and Japan the dominant solution is Line, not iMessage or SMS.
    - PrimeMcFly 3y ago
      That's kind of depressing honestly. Also surprising as I always thought Android was more popular because there is more variety and cheaper options.
      - doublepg23 3y ago
        I mean with the iPhone SE starting at $429 new Apple has a lot of price brackets covered.
    - bastard_op 3y ago
      With every princelet or otherwise rich folk in the world using Apple, does it matter? It's still a race war, apple (rich folk) vs. everyone else. Some middle ground probably, but not much - apple folks are obviously the richer targets. I know who to target with spyware and otherwise get rich quick schemes, ransomware, kidnapping, almost any other major crimes. The best demographic with 1200 to spend on a phone.
      - prewett 3y ago
        > It's still a race war, apple (rich folk) It's not a "race war" if you need to clarify that apple <=> "rich folk". I might give you "class war", except there is no "war" part and no need to include it.
  - justworkout 3y ago
    > Everywhere else in the world people use Whatsapp. Not really. It's dominant in some regions but definitely not a huge chunk of Asia.
- rgbrenner 3y ago
  What do you mean it wasn't the carriers? SMS revenues to hit $67B - 2007 https://www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/metric-sms-revenues-to-hit-67b https://www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/metric-sms-revenues-... They used to love using SMS to take as much money as possible from their customers. Imagine texting "Hey" to a friend and getting charged $0.20 for it.
  - mr_toad 3y ago
    I remember those days. You didn’t text ‘Hey’, you did your best to cram a whole conversation into 160 characters.
filmgirlcw 3y ago
Bingo. The cartel was so focused on trying to save their existing money printing machine they took their eye off the ball and refused to disrupt themselves. The cable television industry did the exact same thing. If they’d been willing to go OTT a decade ago and not force agreements based on geolocation, a lot of the streaming services that exist wouldn’t even need to exist today.
- AequitasOmnibus 3y ago
  > The cable industry did the exact same thing. Kinda but not really. The cable providers were and continue to be hamstrung by the networks who force the cable providers to buy channel packages. Cable never had the leverage to, say, tell Disney that they only want to offer ESPN but not the 10 other Disney branded networks being offered. It was often all or nothing.
  - geodel 3y ago
    Exactly right. A lot of people have tendency to simplistically choose heroes and villains. SO Disney is hero, cable TV bringing disney to home via their Coax cable is villain. Top artists are heroes, but ticket booking service which ultimately are reason for enormous payout to these artists are villains gouging fans.
    - Apocryphon 3y ago
      I get your point but how is Ticketmaster not a parasitic price-gouger?
      - jjoonathan 3y ago
        The artist is their customer, not you. If Ticketmaster didn't gouge you, give most of the gouging proceeds to the artist, and take the flak like a lightning-rod, they would quickly be replaced by a service that did.
        3y ago
rgbrenner 3y ago
Reminder to everyone who wonders why WhatsApp and iMessage won: US phone carriers used to charge $0.10 to $0.25 per message. Yes, it was as ridiculous as it sounds. There used to be news articles about kids racking up hundreds of dollars on their phone bill. Here's one from the same year the iphone was released: https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/19/AR2007051901284.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/0...
- lxgr 3y ago
  Was that really a concern in the US? WhatsApp and iMessage require data plans, and as far as I can remember these have largely included unlimited SMS as well. It was definitely a factor in the EU, though: SMS still aren't free on many prepaid plans there. WhatsApp was the first popular application supporting unlimited messaging on mobile phones for many.
  - swozey 3y ago
    I'm 39 and SMS not being unlimited was a huge thing. I never thought it would be unlimited, when that happened (Suncom? I forget who started it) it was huge. This was a LONG time ago though, long before WhatsApp. Probably 15-18 for me. I remember a lot of conversations in high school going "My plans maxed out can you text $friend?" IIRC you had to specifically turn off receiving texts or they'd charge you for each one and we were broke HS kids. edit: Oh that article posted above is 2007. I guess it lasted way longer than I thought.
    - earthboundkid 3y ago
      Yes, I think I got my first iPhone around 2010, and at the time I was still on limited text message plan. I don't think I got unlimited texts until 2014 or something.
      - swozey 3y ago
        Damn 2014?? My years are all skewed nowadays.
rickdeckard 3y ago
The answer is that the carriers worked out a specification and both infra-vendors and device-vendors were left to develop the server/client based on that spec. So each major device-vendor developed his client-app, and ended up with interoperability issues not only with the RCS-servers used by a given carrier, but also with devices of OTHER vendors. And that doesn't even begin to cover the issues on inter-carrier messaging... The situation was only resolved after Google acquired Jibe Mobile (the biggest player in developing RCS server/client applications for carriers) and basically created a single RCS-client/server implementation using their Android Messages app and a Google-owned server. But when you were working on RCS back in 2012, you may remember that at that time, RCS didn't even support store&forward (!!). So if the receiving device was not available when a message was delivered (because it had no network or client wasn't running on a device, which happened alot especially on iOS because the client was in a constant fight with the OS), the message wasn't queued anywhere. Apart from the obvious issue of missing messages, it caused the even worse UX-impact that the entire conversation looked different on sender/receiver. -- Ah yes, and: RCS was originally designed with per-message billing in mind (of course). At the time it was launched it was finally clear to the carriers that those times are over, but the whole architecture had quite a chunk of billing architecture in it as well...
- lxgr 3y ago
  > The situation was only resolved after Google acquired Jibe Mobile (the biggest player in developing RCS server/client applications for carriers) and basically created a single RCS-client/server implementation using their Android Messages app and a Google-owned server. Thank you for highlighting this. This important piece of information often gets lost in the "green bubble" discussion. Google has significant incentives for pushing RCS for more than one reason.
  - rickdeckard 3y ago
    The situation was resolved by Google taking effort to unify the Android landscape and maintain a single client for that OS, instead of carriers (like Orange Group) developing one client, Samsung, LG, Sony, Huawei, ZTE each developing other clients Google doesn't own the RCS-specification, the spec is still defined and maintained by GSMA, with Google just having one of the seats at the table (along with carriers and device manufacturers). Apple is also a member of GSMA, them adopting RCS means that they just take another seat at the table of the RCS working group. -- > Google has significant incentives for pushing RCS for more than one reason. I don't know if you mean to imply some hidden Agenda. The incentive is to standardize "rich communication" across mobile platforms. "Green bubble" is one manifestation of the bigger issue that 27 years after the creation of SMS there is still no other universal method for me to send a text to your phone number today. The main reason for that is, that several players still hope to own this communication channel to the user with their proprietary app, become the "Western WeChat" and sell access to the users. RCS could be an universal non-proprietary method, open to be adopted by Apple, Facebook, WhatsApp and whoever wants to build a Message ecosystem. It has the potential to end this hassle and allow me to send a text to your number and reach you regardless of your OS and application of preference.
cubefox 3y ago
Carriers supported it. Just Apple didn't, for a long time. The reason is obvious: To increase their market dominance in the US, where iMessage is common. Especially among US teens this was apparently successful. Teens didn't want to be the lame green bubble kids with reduced messaging features. They flocked to iPhones. RCS is (was) the prime example of Apple's anticompetitive behavior, after the App Store exclusivity, preventing side loading, and disallowing alternative browsers.
- onlyhumans 3y ago
  Google could have released a rcs messenger app on iOS this whole time. Not sure what they were doing
  - tomashubelbauer 3y ago
    Doubly so considering releasing chat apps is #2 on the list of things they are the most well known for after their search engine.
  - zorrotorro 3y ago
    I'm pretty sure it's literally impossible? I suspect RCS, just like SMS needs some special telecom interaction.
  - cubefox 3y ago
    An RCS app for iOS wouldn't make iMessage Android compatible.
- zik 3y ago
  Even when they adopt RCS I bet they still punish non Apple users with green bubbles.
  - zuppy 3y ago
    the green buble is not for the Android users, it's for the iOS users to know that there may be some taxes for sending the message. even on iOS you get a green bubble if you disable imessage. i don't understand what's in it for you guys for repeating that rethoric about the punishment.

by edent 3y ago

bastard_op 3y ago

It wasn't the carriers, it was Apple mostly winning the race in creating their walled garden, and everyone else being disinterested in an alternative in the phone race wars. It's now some badge of shame Apple users discriminate against the blue vs green windows if a friend or relative doesn't have an i-thing, and Apple loves it all the way to the bank.

rattlesnakedave 3y ago
Apple only has dominant marketshare in the US. Everywhere else in the world people use Whatsapp. Why didn't they all hop on the RCS train? Because it sucks to implement and is a black box to use. Google was stuck with SMS because of their inability to implement a cohesive messaging app, despite owning and distributing an operating system. So what did they do? Pitched sob stories and got the europeans to threaten to regulate. Shitty move. They should have just built something good.
- smoldesu 3y ago
  > They should have just built something good. This, but with Apple. Whether or not Google whined about it, iMessage was never going to last. It was never a matter of if iMessage would be forced to reconcile itself with the interoperable protocol it replaced, but when. So... Apple should have been ready. They should have been drafting absurd standards centered around their own servers, and taunting Google into adopting it. They could have even charged a license fee for the software. But instead they played high and mighty, and now they have to contend with the law. Frankly, I'm glad Google summoned Shai Hulud.
  - discard124 3y ago
    > They should have been drafting absurd standards centered around their own servers, and taunting Google into adopting it. It's hard to imaging you sincerely think this would have been better. It seems like you want them to engage in dishonesty. > But instead they played high and mighty, and now they have to contend with the law. iMessage isn't going anywhere. They're just going to add RCS support in the same way that SMS is supported, because now there is momementum for carrier support. This is really a storm in a teacup.
  - mcphage 3y ago
    > They should have been drafting absurd standards centered around their own servers, and taunting Google into adopting it. They could have even charged a license fee for the software. But instead they played high and mighty, and now they have to contend with the law. Isn't the situation in the EU that they're looking to force Apple to allow others to use the iMessage protocol? So why would Apple work on getting Google to support iMessage, when Google is putting in work to get access to it?
- Arcanum-XIII 3y ago
  Well... let's say also that the telco investment were not light. That Google was pushing for RCS, and SMS, and their messenger of the moment. Apple refused to implement RCS, because why do so, since there was no carrier at the time proposing it. So yeah, no.
  - sudosysgen 3y ago
    As Google demonstrated, carrier support for RCS is not necessary.
- lxgr 3y ago
  Google absolutely had a cohesive messaging app (Google Chat, later called Hangouts), they just threw it away and tried to rebuild it several times and under various other names and paradigms rather than iterating on it. If they'd simply added a "WhatsApp/iMessage mode" to Google Chat in 2015 (i.e. allow Google account based users to seamlessly communicate with phone number based users), I think we might be seeing a very different messaging landscape today.
  - jdiez17 3y ago
    Google Chat was great back in its day (standard XMPP) and had a somewhat "loyal" and large user base. Rebranding it into Hangouts, rebuilding it, and generally sabotaging themselves was, well, their own doing.
  - dev_daftly 3y ago
    We wouldn't because the issue always was iphone users never willing to use an app outside of imessage. What good is a messaging platform if more than 1/2 your network won't use it?
    - lotsofpulp 3y ago
      WhatsApp succeeded. Google misfiring 10 times giving people zero reason to invest was the problem.
  - zik 3y ago
    > If they'd simply added a "WhatsApp/iMessage mode" to Google Chat... They'd have been sued by WhapsApp and Apple if they did that since they're proprietary protocols.
- no_wizard 3y ago
  I think iMessage doesn't have the most dominant marketshare outside the US (and possibly Canada) iOS /iPadOS (and by extension, iPhone and iPad) however, has slim-to-major majorities in most lucrative markets[0] and even in markets where iOS is not a majority, its well known in the mobile industry that iOS / iPadOS customers are far more lucrative [0]: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ios-vs-android-market-share-135251641.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ios-vs-android-market-share-1...
  - disgruntledphd2 3y ago
    This more money on apple thing is a selection effect caused by Apple phones being more expensive, such that the distribution of revenue is truncated.
- kmlx 3y ago
  > Apple only has dominant marketshare in the US. Japan: 65.88% Denmark: 64.04% Norway: 61.94% Canada: 57.84% Australia: 57.47% United States: 56.74% Switzerland: 55.92% Sweden: 55.33% United Kingdom: 51.63% Taiwan: 51.32% from: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/iphone-market-share-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/iphone-ma...
  - aeadio 3y ago
    I think the parent comment was referring to messaging, ie iMessage vs the others. Ie, in Taiwan and Japan the dominant solution is Line, not iMessage or SMS.
  - PrimeMcFly 3y ago
    That's kind of depressing honestly. Also surprising as I always thought Android was more popular because there is more variety and cheaper options.
    - doublepg23 3y ago
      I mean with the iPhone SE starting at $429 new Apple has a lot of price brackets covered.
  - bastard_op 3y ago
    With every princelet or otherwise rich folk in the world using Apple, does it matter? It's still a race war, apple (rich folk) vs. everyone else. Some middle ground probably, but not much - apple folks are obviously the richer targets. I know who to target with spyware and otherwise get rich quick schemes, ransomware, kidnapping, almost any other major crimes. The best demographic with 1200 to spend on a phone.
    - prewett 3y ago
      > It's still a race war, apple (rich folk) It's not a "race war" if you need to clarify that apple <=> "rich folk". I might give you "class war", except there is no "war" part and no need to include it.
- justworkout 3y ago
  > Everywhere else in the world people use Whatsapp. Not really. It's dominant in some regions but definitely not a huge chunk of Asia.
rgbrenner 3y ago
What do you mean it wasn't the carriers? SMS revenues to hit $67B - 2007 https://www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/metric-sms-revenues-to-hit-67b https://www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/metric-sms-revenues-... They used to love using SMS to take as much money as possible from their customers. Imagine texting "Hey" to a friend and getting charged $0.20 for it.
- mr_toad 3y ago
  I remember those days. You didn’t text ‘Hey’, you did your best to cram a whole conversation into 160 characters.

filmgirlcw 3y ago

Bingo. The cartel was so focused on trying to save their existing money printing machine they took their eye off the ball and refused to disrupt themselves. The cable television industry did the exact same thing. If they’d been willing to go OTT a decade ago and not force agreements based on geolocation, a lot of the streaming services that exist wouldn’t even need to exist today.

AequitasOmnibus 3y ago
> The cable industry did the exact same thing. Kinda but not really. The cable providers were and continue to be hamstrung by the networks who force the cable providers to buy channel packages. Cable never had the leverage to, say, tell Disney that they only want to offer ESPN but not the 10 other Disney branded networks being offered. It was often all or nothing.
- geodel 3y ago
  Exactly right. A lot of people have tendency to simplistically choose heroes and villains. SO Disney is hero, cable TV bringing disney to home via their Coax cable is villain. Top artists are heroes, but ticket booking service which ultimately are reason for enormous payout to these artists are villains gouging fans.
  - Apocryphon 3y ago
    I get your point but how is Ticketmaster not a parasitic price-gouger?
    - jjoonathan 3y ago
      The artist is their customer, not you. If Ticketmaster didn't gouge you, give most of the gouging proceeds to the artist, and take the flak like a lightning-rod, they would quickly be replaced by a service that did.
      - 3y ago

rgbrenner 3y ago

Reminder to everyone who wonders why WhatsApp and iMessage won: US phone carriers used to charge $0.10 to $0.25 per message. Yes, it was as ridiculous as it sounds. There used to be news articles about kids racking up hundreds of dollars on their phone bill. Here's one from the same year the iphone was released: https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/19/AR2007051901284.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/0...

lxgr 3y ago
Was that really a concern in the US? WhatsApp and iMessage require data plans, and as far as I can remember these have largely included unlimited SMS as well. It was definitely a factor in the EU, though: SMS still aren't free on many prepaid plans there. WhatsApp was the first popular application supporting unlimited messaging on mobile phones for many.
- swozey 3y ago
  I'm 39 and SMS not being unlimited was a huge thing. I never thought it would be unlimited, when that happened (Suncom? I forget who started it) it was huge. This was a LONG time ago though, long before WhatsApp. Probably 15-18 for me. I remember a lot of conversations in high school going "My plans maxed out can you text $friend?" IIRC you had to specifically turn off receiving texts or they'd charge you for each one and we were broke HS kids. edit: Oh that article posted above is 2007. I guess it lasted way longer than I thought.
  - earthboundkid 3y ago
    Yes, I think I got my first iPhone around 2010, and at the time I was still on limited text message plan. I don't think I got unlimited texts until 2014 or something.
    - swozey 3y ago
      Damn 2014?? My years are all skewed nowadays.

rickdeckard 3y ago

The answer is that the carriers worked out a specification and both infra-vendors and device-vendors were left to develop the server/client based on that spec. So each major device-vendor developed his client-app, and ended up with interoperability issues not only with the RCS-servers used by a given carrier, but also with devices of OTHER vendors. And that doesn't even begin to cover the issues on inter-carrier messaging... The situation was only resolved after Google acquired Jibe Mobile (the biggest player in developing RCS server/client applications for carriers) and basically created a single RCS-client/server implementation using their Android Messages app and a Google-owned server. But when you were working on RCS back in 2012, you may remember that at that time, RCS didn't even support store&forward (!!). So if the receiving device was not available when a message was delivered (because it had no network or client wasn't running on a device, which happened alot especially on iOS because the client was in a constant fight with the OS), the message wasn't queued anywhere. Apart from the obvious issue of missing messages, it caused the even worse UX-impact that the entire conversation looked different on sender/receiver. -- Ah yes, and: RCS was originally designed with per-message billing in mind (of course). At the time it was launched it was finally clear to the carriers that those times are over, but the whole architecture had quite a chunk of billing architecture in it as well...

lxgr 3y ago
> The situation was only resolved after Google acquired Jibe Mobile (the biggest player in developing RCS server/client applications for carriers) and basically created a single RCS-client/server implementation using their Android Messages app and a Google-owned server. Thank you for highlighting this. This important piece of information often gets lost in the "green bubble" discussion. Google has significant incentives for pushing RCS for more than one reason.
- rickdeckard 3y ago
  The situation was resolved by Google taking effort to unify the Android landscape and maintain a single client for that OS, instead of carriers (like Orange Group) developing one client, Samsung, LG, Sony, Huawei, ZTE each developing other clients Google doesn't own the RCS-specification, the spec is still defined and maintained by GSMA, with Google just having one of the seats at the table (along with carriers and device manufacturers). Apple is also a member of GSMA, them adopting RCS means that they just take another seat at the table of the RCS working group. -- > Google has significant incentives for pushing RCS for more than one reason. I don't know if you mean to imply some hidden Agenda. The incentive is to standardize "rich communication" across mobile platforms. "Green bubble" is one manifestation of the bigger issue that 27 years after the creation of SMS there is still no other universal method for me to send a text to your phone number today. The main reason for that is, that several players still hope to own this communication channel to the user with their proprietary app, become the "Western WeChat" and sell access to the users. RCS could be an universal non-proprietary method, open to be adopted by Apple, Facebook, WhatsApp and whoever wants to build a Message ecosystem. It has the potential to end this hassle and allow me to send a text to your number and reach you regardless of your OS and application of preference.

cubefox 3y ago

Carriers supported it. Just Apple didn't, for a long time. The reason is obvious: To increase their market dominance in the US, where iMessage is common. Especially among US teens this was apparently successful. Teens didn't want to be the lame green bubble kids with reduced messaging features. They flocked to iPhones. RCS is (was) the prime example of Apple's anticompetitive behavior, after the App Store exclusivity, preventing side loading, and disallowing alternative browsers.

onlyhumans 3y ago
Google could have released a rcs messenger app on iOS this whole time. Not sure what they were doing
- tomashubelbauer 3y ago
  Doubly so considering releasing chat apps is #2 on the list of things they are the most well known for after their search engine.
- zorrotorro 3y ago
  I'm pretty sure it's literally impossible? I suspect RCS, just like SMS needs some special telecom interaction.
- cubefox 3y ago
  An RCS app for iOS wouldn't make iMessage Android compatible.
zik 3y ago
Even when they adopt RCS I bet they still punish non Apple users with green bubbles.
- zuppy 3y ago
  the green buble is not for the Android users, it's for the iOS users to know that there may be some taxes for sending the message. even on iOS you get a green bubble if you disable imessage. i don't understand what's in it for you guys for repeating that rethoric about the punishment.