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Very good idea! Google abandoned these long ago. I don't really get why so many Americans want RCS to succeed though. Do you guys not remember when carriers ch

Very good idea! Google abandoned these long ago. I don't really get why so many Americans want RCS to succeed though. Do you guys not remember when carriers charged 10p/text? Why on earth would you want to give any power at all back to those people?

downrightmike 1mo ago
The only benefit is sending higher DPI pictures between android and ios
- annzabelle 1mo ago
  It makes group messaging work a lot better, too. Previously, group chats with a mixture of ios and android users were really buggy leading to iPhone users significantly preferring group chats with all ios, which led to some social exclusion for android users in the US, leading to market dominance for iPhones. Now, with RCS, you can make a functional group chat across platforms and you don't have to convince anybody to install something new.
  - wolvoleo 1mo ago
    Well that is if that user uses Google messages. I certainly don't even have it installed.
    - annzabelle 1mo ago
      If you have a smartphone from the last 5 years, you have to have done something unusual to it to not have an SMS app that also does RCS.
  - grapheneos 1mo ago
    That's one of the reasons we care about it for GrapheneOS. It also provides end-to-end encryption between Android and iOS via Messaging Layer Security (MLS) which is clearly very important for us. GrapheneOS users needing to use Google Messages to get E2EE with Google Messages and iOS users who haven't been convinced to use Signal instead is not ideal. We do have Google Messages working via sandboxed Google Play but want to replace it.
- grapheneos 1mo ago
  RCS provides properly working group chats and end-to-end encryption with iOS and GMS Android users without having to succeed at convincing people to use Signal instead.
Dusseldorf 1mo ago
After getting several family group chats finally converted over to RCS, one day my phone just started absolutely refusing to verify my connection to the RCS servers. Instead of any kind of notification, I was just silently not sending or receiving messages for nearly an entire day. I had to disable RCS on my phone, which created a several day long issue where some chats would just fall back to SMS and others absolutely refused to work, or strange interactions with Apple devices where certain messages would not be displayed. After enough trouble with it I convinced everyone to switch to a third party messaging app. I'll never turn RCS on again, I can't trust that it won't just start silently failing.
goda90 1mo ago
It's a bandaid over iMessage's dominance among iOS users.
- NamTaf 1mo ago
  Text messages in iMessage or SMS are a fairly US-centric relic. That's not to say overseas is better - Europe depends on Whatsapp - but outside the US the whole 'blue box' thing isn't even a thing.
HybridStatAnim8 1mo ago
The main benefit of RCS is the fact it is available by default on other platforms like certified android and IOS. 3rd party messaging apps hit adoptability issues. A bundled, cross platform E2EE protocol is a huge step above SMS and MMS. Many 3rd party platforms are still better though.
annzabelle 1mo ago
Americans have had unlimited texting plans for much longer than Europeans. I'm pretty sure most Americans had unlimited texts before Whatsapp existed, so there was never the move to it for economic reasons.
- wolvoleo 1mo ago
  Yes I think this is the main reason for WhatsApp's popularity in Europe. Our providers were hanging on to sms as a cash cow and they were pretty much the most expensive bits you could send. Malicious providers like kpn in the Netherlands even sought to charge extra for WhatsApp traffic because they lost so much revenue. However the EU shot that down hard under net neutrality. But I remember it well and this is why I always disable RCS. I don't ever want to give my provider the chance to do that again. And I don't trust Google either. SMS is completely dead here too. It's been years since anyone sent me a personal message. It's just spam and poorly implemented 2FA shit. It's not an issue here in Spain anyway. The only phone with iPhones are rich expats. Most of the people I know use cheap budget androids.

downrightmike 1mo ago

The only benefit is sending higher DPI pictures between android and ios

annzabelle 1mo ago
It makes group messaging work a lot better, too. Previously, group chats with a mixture of ios and android users were really buggy leading to iPhone users significantly preferring group chats with all ios, which led to some social exclusion for android users in the US, leading to market dominance for iPhones. Now, with RCS, you can make a functional group chat across platforms and you don't have to convince anybody to install something new.
- wolvoleo 1mo ago
  Well that is if that user uses Google messages. I certainly don't even have it installed.
  - annzabelle 1mo ago
    If you have a smartphone from the last 5 years, you have to have done something unusual to it to not have an SMS app that also does RCS.
- grapheneos 1mo ago
  That's one of the reasons we care about it for GrapheneOS. It also provides end-to-end encryption between Android and iOS via Messaging Layer Security (MLS) which is clearly very important for us. GrapheneOS users needing to use Google Messages to get E2EE with Google Messages and iOS users who haven't been convinced to use Signal instead is not ideal. We do have Google Messages working via sandboxed Google Play but want to replace it.
grapheneos 1mo ago
RCS provides properly working group chats and end-to-end encryption with iOS and GMS Android users without having to succeed at convincing people to use Signal instead.

Dusseldorf 1mo ago

After getting several family group chats finally converted over to RCS, one day my phone just started absolutely refusing to verify my connection to the RCS servers. Instead of any kind of notification, I was just silently not sending or receiving messages for nearly an entire day. I had to disable RCS on my phone, which created a several day long issue where some chats would just fall back to SMS and others absolutely refused to work, or strange interactions with Apple devices where certain messages would not be displayed. After enough trouble with it I convinced everyone to switch to a third party messaging app. I'll never turn RCS on again, I can't trust that it won't just start silently failing.

goda90 1mo ago

It's a bandaid over iMessage's dominance among iOS users.

NamTaf 1mo ago
Text messages in iMessage or SMS are a fairly US-centric relic. That's not to say overseas is better - Europe depends on Whatsapp - but outside the US the whole 'blue box' thing isn't even a thing.

HybridStatAnim8 1mo ago

The main benefit of RCS is the fact it is available by default on other platforms like certified android and IOS. 3rd party messaging apps hit adoptability issues. A bundled, cross platform E2EE protocol is a huge step above SMS and MMS. Many 3rd party platforms are still better though.

annzabelle 1mo ago

Americans have had unlimited texting plans for much longer than Europeans. I'm pretty sure most Americans had unlimited texts before Whatsapp existed, so there was never the move to it for economic reasons.

wolvoleo 1mo ago
Yes I think this is the main reason for WhatsApp's popularity in Europe. Our providers were hanging on to sms as a cash cow and they were pretty much the most expensive bits you could send. Malicious providers like kpn in the Netherlands even sought to charge extra for WhatsApp traffic because they lost so much revenue. However the EU shot that down hard under net neutrality. But I remember it well and this is why I always disable RCS. I don't ever want to give my provider the chance to do that again. And I don't trust Google either. SMS is completely dead here too. It's been years since anyone sent me a personal message. It's just spam and poorly implemented 2FA shit. It's not an issue here in Spain anyway. The only phone with iPhones are rich expats. Most of the people I know use cheap budget androids.