[HN Gopher] "It's time for Apple to fix texting" ___________________________________________________________________ "It's time for Apple to fix texting" Author : Fabricio20 Score : 178 points Date : 2022-08-09 15:22 UTC (7 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.android.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.android.com) | alexklarjr wrote: | When it is time for Google to fix android? | nneonneo wrote: | Right now Apple is facing quite a lot of regulation in various | places to open up their platform: open up app loading, open up | repairs, etc. It's hard not to imagine this being yet another | salvo in forcing Apple to open up their messaging platform (and | it aligns with recent regulatory efforts). | | Except, unlike app stores and repairs, the standard being pushed | here, RCS, is not a good solution by comparison. It's locked to | carriers, who have different and inconsistent implementations, | rather than being tied to an identity like iMessage. | | It'll be a shame if Apple is forced to adopt an inferior standard | here... | jeroenhd wrote: | Apple will probably be forced to open up their iMessage | implementation once the Digital Markets Act will be adopted, | forcing large messenger companies to make their messaging | services interoperable. | | If they're smart, they work together with Google and other | large messenger providers to form some sort of secure standard. | If they keep being stubborn, they'll be forced to either stop | selling iMessage in Europe or accept consequences to their | technology much worse than cooperation. I'm no fan of breaking | E2EE for interoperation, but since none of the big market | players seem interested in working together, I think this will | be unavoidable. It's a shame, really, that it had to come to | regulation to get the market to work in the users' favour. | | This probably won't matter to users outside the EU but big | changes are coming over here. | lern_too_spel wrote: | This is about RCS vs. SMS. Apple and Google support SMS as a | cross-platform standard. They should support RCS, which is | superior. | rhacker wrote: | Apple connect to our messaging platform voice, i mean messages i | mean allo i mean duo i mean hangouts i mean... | tick_tock_tick wrote: | Funny thing is the EU doesn't give a fuck and is going to force | them. | malermeister wrote: | Yeah this is gonna happen soon anyways. Not because of some | Google website, but because of the Digital Markets Act. | rootusrootus wrote: | I find it interesting how many HN'ers now think bureaucratic | control of technology is a Good Thing(tm). | jabbany wrote: | I find it interesting how many HN'ers now don't think | consumer protection is a good thing. | | (Actually, in hindsight it isn't that surprising. Tech | companies only make the money they do because of the lack | of consumer protections... so definitely in most HN'ers | interest to keep the status quo. | rootusrootus wrote: | European legislators are why I now have a cookie banner | on every website I visit. It is hard to be enthusiastic | for more of that. I could support basic antitrust actions | that actually promote competition, but when it gets into | actually writing technical requirements, the outcome | seems less than ideal. | [deleted] | hbn wrote: | Google acting like RCS is the hot new standard is pretty | disingenuous. In theory it's a standard, but in reality most | carriers haven't been interested and haven't implemented it so | the vast majority of RCS messages are routed through Google. | | I can't really blame Apple for not being interested in adopting | a "standard" that's mostly Google pretending to be a standard. | Cyberdog wrote: | Unfortunately they did implement WebP support in WebKit... | debesyla wrote: | Just wondering, why "Unfortunately"? | pwpw wrote: | This is such a weirdly US specific issue. It's hard to understand | why people in this country refuse to adopt a data-based messaging | service such as Signal or WhatsApp like the rest of the world | has. Why are US citizens so set on having a terrible experience | when messaging half of the population? How did other countries | decide that using platform agnostic messaging services are | better? I believe the UK has a similar split in Android/iOS | users, yet they largely use WhatsApp. | | In a way, it feels perfectly inline with America. We use Imperial | when everyone else uses Metric. We use Fahrenheit when everyone | else uses Celsius. But in this case, it's not as if our | government led us down this path. The problem was entirely | created by our market of users. | | Ultimately, poor communication stifles society and innovation. | It's in all of our best interests to improve the current | situation. Sure, better alternatives such as Signal exist, but we | will have to move mountains to convert everyone onto a new | service. For now, I think it's best if we all apply pressure to | Apple to adopt RCS. It's significantly better than where we are | now, and that's a good thing. | TheRealPomax wrote: | Ah yes, whatsapp, that bastion of privacy, and not at all a | messaging service that exists primarily for Meta to mine. | hgsgm wrote: | xnx wrote: | I'm all for standards, but this is mainly sour grapes by Google. | If they hadn't shot themselves in the foot dozens of times with | messaging they could've dominated using the head start they had | with Google Talk. Google should put all messages from iPhone | users in comic sans. | hbn wrote: | They had a surefire strategy starting in 2013 when they added | SMS integration to Hangouts and made it a default-installed app | on all Androids. It was tied to your Google account so most | people (and basically all Android users) already had an | account. It was pre-installed, meaning you didn't need to pitch | people to install another app, which is usually a big ask. | Instead you say "hey open this app you already have installed, | we can chat here and it's better, and you can text all your | other contacts who don't have it too." It had video calling | too, basically all you needed. | | But then Allo and Duo came along. Remember Allo? Me neither! It | was Hangouts' death sentence anyway! And now Duo is being | rebranded/merged into Meet for some reason. | | Get out of the Google ecosystem wherever you can. They're only | getting worse. | xmonkee wrote: | I still remember the glory that was Google Talk back in | 2005-ish. And you could connect to it from other xmpp | networks. It's insane to me that the current google chat app | (a neglected box within gmail) is WAYYY worse than it was | almost 20 years ago. | ElijahLynn wrote: | This is sour grapes for users. Google doesn't own the RCS | standard, fwiw. I still use SMS/MMS and it is really, really | nice when another user is using RCS because modern messaging | features actually work. I can send long voice memos/song ideas | to others, high resolution photos, see if a message was read | etc. RCS is a huge upgrade, and really has nothing to do with | Google. | KerrAvon wrote: | I mean, there are many people who would prefer an iPhone if you | could only run Android on it -- including, apparently, the | European Commission. | | But Apple doesn't make commodity hardware. | sudden_dystopia wrote: | I have never experienced blurry photos or videos as this alleges. | I hate read receipts and typing bubbles anyway. I do agree that | Apples group chats are highly annoying. Personally, I think it is | Androids text platform that is bloated and inferior. | bagacrap wrote: | you've definitely experienced blurry media if someone texted | you from the other kind of phone (note that your own media will | still show up crisp in the conversion window even though the | other end gets a mega compressed version) | aaaaaaaaaaab wrote: | Ah, another "grassroots" initiative to adopt a "standard" (RCS) | from Google! No thanks, I don't want this RCS crap on my phone. | radiojasper wrote: | I still don't get why people use SMS/MMS anyway? I've been using | WhatsApp for ages now and so does everybody else in my country - | and every country I've been in, apart from China and Japan. My | friend who's from the US once said "I've paid for those text | messages, so I'm going to use them!" But if I send him a text | from Europe to the US, I pay 1 damn euro per delivered text. | WhatsApp is free! Is there any viable reason why Apple users use | SMS so much? | cgrealy wrote: | > Is there any viable reason why Apple users use SMS so much? | | They don't. At least not in my experience. I have an iPhone, | but there's about a 50/50 split ios/android in my friends and | family. | | Group chats are almost entirely WhatsApp, and single messages | are a blend of WhatsApp, iMessage and SMS. | | I probably use SMS/MMS once a week | lotsofpulp wrote: | There are many people in the US who have no international | contacts, and so they grew up using only the default messaging | app. And they are not sufficiently incentivized to install | another app like WhatsApp. | | Between NYC/SF, I do not know a single person that does not use | both iMessage and WhatsApp. But typically it is people who are | not children of immigrants and whose social circles have no one | outside the country that tend to not have WhatsApp. | themagician wrote: | Apple users don't use SMS--they use iMessage. It's seamless and | automatic. All your contacts are automatically there as long as | you have a phone number or email address which is an AppleID. | It's so seamless most people don't even realize they are using | it. | stonemetal12 wrote: | It comes preinstalled, works, is free. Why would I look for a | different messaging app? What does WhatsApp do that the | preinstalled, free, messaging app doesn't? | radiojasper wrote: | Deliver your messages encrypted, not mess up video quality | when sending to/from Android users, sends messages over WiFi | just to name a few. | cgrealy wrote: | Group messages to anyone regardless of platform. | | SMS is crap for group chats, and imessage doesn't work if | someone in the group isn't using ios. | | Now, you absolutely might not care about those things, but | millions of people definitely do. | kevin_thibedeau wrote: | SMS is the only federated messaging system guaranteed available | on all cell phones. That makes it more useful than any walled | garden. | rootusrootus wrote: | Almost nobody I know uses WhatsApp. On the other hand, a | significant number of people I meet do have iMessage. There's | no incentive for me to install WhatsApp. Even my friends | internationally all have iPhones. I don't install third-party | apps unless there is a _very good_ reason. SMS is an inferior | but acceptable fallback for edge cases. | simonjgreen wrote: | Your bubble is not representative of the whole world though. | >80% of mobile devices are not iPhones. | (https://www.statista.com/statistics/272307/market-share- | fore...) | | 80% is not an edge case. | lern_too_spel wrote: | It's also time for Google to fix texting. Google Voice still | doesn't support RCS despite people asking for it for many years. | It would be great if someone just copied this web page and filled | in Google and Google Voice everywhere it talks about Apple and | iMessage, but I get the feeling that Google doesn't even care how | embarrassing it is. | ocdtrekkie wrote: | It's more embarrassing than that: For most of the time I used | Google Voice, it couldn't even forward _MMS_. I used Google | Voice as my primary number for years, and I had to tell people | that I couldn 't receive group texts or pictures, which always | got me weird puzzled looks. | | And of course, now they've removed SMS forwarding entirely, and | basically completely made the service useless/redundant. I'm | glad I ported my main number out years ago. | altairprime wrote: | Most businesses, consumers, and developers universally continue | to ignore the primary reason that iMessage is a closed platform, | rather than an app on every platform as iTunes is: | | Apple is using device serial numbers for anti-spam, supported by | a fully-authenticated hardware and software stack that does not | allow user modification. This permits Apple to simply "console | ban" any Apple device that spams on iMessage. This makes it | prohibitively expensive to send spam over iMessage. They have | been doing so since iMessage was launched. | | Android offers no such attestation that I'm aware of. Windows, on | Pluton, _could_ offer this attestation securely -- and that is a | key deliverable of Pluton. | | It's easy, then, to predict what Apple's first non-Apple platform | will be: Microsoft Windows 12, only if secure-booted, with | Pluton-signed attestation that the kernel is unmodified. And it's | easy to predict how Apple will implement anti-spam: by applying | "console" bans to specific Pluton chips by their serial number. | | If Android wants to join the party, then Android phone builders | need to implement secure boot with hardware-signed attestation of | non-rooted-ness, in the style of Apple T2 + macOS or Microsoft | Pluton + Secure Boot. Until then, Apple iMessage will remain | single platform. | | (I recognize that this is extremely unpalatable to device | hackers, but the same freedom to modify an OS kernel that hackers | desire is also the freedom to spam all users, as we have seen | repeatedly with all messaging software platforms operated without | hardware-backed attestation for the past thirty years -- | including email, Jabber, and HN itself.) | | (No, I do not work at Apple.) | kelnos wrote: | I'd rather live in a world with spam than a world where | corporations get to decide what I run on my devices, and | cripple a bunch of critical applications if I decide I want to, | y'know, actually do whatever I want with the hardware I own. | | I'm not unsympathetic to Apple's difficulties and goals here | (assuming this spam problem is actually the reason, though I'm | skeptical that there aren't also self-serving reasons that | would be sufficient for Apple), but I'm so tired of society's | slide toward "security at any cost, and to hell with freedom" | since the 9/11 attacks over 20 years ago. | | (It's possible and likely that slide has been going on much | longer, but I was a teenager in the 90s and not really aware of | such things. But I think it's undeniable that the aftermath of | 9/11 was a big turning point for the surveillance state and for | average citizens being so scared of everything that they'd be | willing to give up essential freedoms just to quell that | fright.) | gumby wrote: | > I'd rather live in a world with spam than a world where | corporations get to decide what I run on my devices, and | cripple a bunch of critical applications if I decide I want | to, y'know, actually do whatever I want with the hardware I | own. | | It's really oppressive that Apple doesn't let you install | WhatsApp, Secret, Telegram, FB Messenger or any other | communications app beyond their own. | | While it's all sweetness and light that Google got into bed | with the phone carriers to develop this new "standard" tied | to a phone number subscription that brings along all the | retrograde privacy nightmares of Big Telecom since the bell | system broke up. | | The points you want to raise are crucial, but this is far | from the hill to die on. | kelnos wrote: | Defaults matter. I too have WhatsApp, Signal, Google Chat | and a few others on my phone, but the fragmentation is | annoying to deal with, and getting social groups (or even | individuals) to move to a single consolidating messaging | platform turns out to be much more difficult than I | expected. | | If the default chat app is featureful and universally | supported, people tend not to stray toward non-default | alternatives unless they offer meaningful benefits. Sure, | this ship has in many ways already sailed, since those | alternative apps have a lot of mindshare and network | effects. | | But if Apple added RCS to its default messaging app (or if | Google were permitted to add iMessage support to its | default messaging app), I would ditch everything else and | just message everyone (including groups) using the default | Android Messages app, relying on it to select the best non- | SMS/non-MMS contact method for everyone, regardless of | platform. | | Sure, it would take a little more work to move messaging | _groups_ over, but the cool thing is that I could just do | it myself, and not wait for my friends to download yet | another messaging app. This is the problem I ran into when | I wanted to get friends off of WhatsApp; I had to convince | people to install something else, and not everyone felt | like doing it. But everyone already has the default | messaging app installed, so that problem just goes away. | | > _While it's all sweetness and light that Google got into | bed with the phone carriers to develop this new "standard" | tied to a phone number subscription that brings along all | the retrograde privacy nightmares of Big Telecom since the | bell system broke up._ | | Just wanted to call this out as FUD. RCS existed as a | standard long before Google was involved (nearly a | decade?). I too don't love that it's tied to a phone | number, but options for doing this well are limited, and | building a second, parallel identity system has its own | issues. RCS at least can be federated, and it'd be | _possible_ to allow phone users to choose their own | provider. And in practice, phone number portability means | you aren 't stuck with the crappy choice of ditching your | "identity", or sticking with a phone provider you hate. | | Not sure how iMessage or WhatsApp or Google Chat or Signal | is any better, though, as they're all controlled by a | single company that requires you to use their identity | system. | InitialLastName wrote: | > "standard" tied to a phone number subscription that | brings along all the retrograde privacy nightmares of Big | Telecom since the bell system broke up. | | Is there a way to make an account with Apple that isn't | tied to a mobile phone number? If so, I've never been able | to find it. | sergiotapia wrote: | I hear you believe me. | | But in the past five years, I have received so much call spam | that I just don't answer my phone anymore. Imagine that, the | primary use of a phone and it's all cocked up. | | Imagine what happens to imessages if they leave it open. | | Blame the cretins that spam people. | kelnos wrote: | Sounds like iMessage spam is already a problem (if another | poster in this thread is to be believed). | | Since I'm on Android, I'm stuck using SMS a lot, since most | people I know have iPhones. I do get some SMS spam, but not | a ton, and most of it is auto-flagged and I never see it. | | > _Blame the cretins that spam people._ | | SMS and voice call spam is actually a solved problem, but | carriers have been dragging their feet implementing the | solutions (and have lobbied the US government to give them | more time). Killing spam does not require our devices to be | locked down. Carriers deserve some blame here too. | | But I don't really care about blame, I care about outcomes. | Blaming spammers isn't going to fix anything. Forcing | carriers to implement the required technical measures to | stamp out spam... that could actually work. | rootusrootus wrote: | > I'd rather live in a world with spam than a world where | corporations get to decide what I run on my devices, and | cripple a bunch of critical applications if I decide I want | to, y'know, actually do whatever I want with the hardware I | own. | | Egads, no. The abuse heaped on me by Apple pales in | comparison to the spam phone calls and emails I get. If I | start getting spam via iMessage, I'll be an extremely unhappy | camper. It already happens with text messages and that's bad | enough. | kelnos wrote: | Sounds like other people in this thread already get a lot | of iMessage spam, so I guess you've just been lucky? And it | shows that this attestation junk doesn't actually curb the | spam problem, so it's just an analogue of security theater. | | Anyhow, sure, if you want to give away your freedom to | actually _own_ your devices, just so you don 't get spam... | I guess that's your choice. I just don't want to be locked | into a system where that's the _only_ choice. | | Regardless, iPhones also receive SMSes. If it's impossible | to spam over iMessage, they'll just use SMS. If it becomes | impossible to spam over SMS, then presumably Apple can | implement similar measures for iMessage that don't require | us all to have hermetically-sealed, locked-down devices. | rootusrootus wrote: | > Sounds like other people in this thread already get a | lot of iMessage spam | | Same folks who didn't realize that all messages show up | in the same color, the blue bubbles only happen when you | _send_. They 're getting SMS spam. | | > I just don't want to be locked into a system where | that's the only choice. | | Who's locked in? I can and have switched back and forth | between iPhone and Android devices. My contacts are | sync'd between them, calendar, mail, all of it just works | either way. Only reason I'm back on iPhone right now is | because the churn (and by extension, TCO) is | significantly lower. If the calculus changes on that, | I'll jump ship again, no big deal. | AnthonyMouse wrote: | This is a lawyer excuse. I've had Signal for years and the | number of spam messages I've received over it is none. It's not | a real problem. | | SMS on the other hand... but iPhones receive SMS too, don't | they? | dt2m wrote: | This is a great point which I haven't heard before in this age- | old debate. | | But until Apple's dominance starts to wane, there's no chance | in hell they will provide iMessage for other platforms unless | forced by regulation. | | If push comes to shove, they can implement heuristics which run | texts from non-Apple devices through a harder spam filter. Spam | isn't non-existent on the iMessage network, and there already | seems to be a rudimentary spam filter in place. | altairprime wrote: | Apple could easily charge $1/mo or $10/year for iMessage on | secured devices, with automatic refund and prorated | cancellation if no secured device is signed in within a given | billing period; and then discount $1/mo if one or more Apple | devices are signed in and active during a given billing | period. They'd make a billion dollars a month off of | _secured_ Android users, without exposing themselves to any | new spam whatsoever, and showing Android users that Apple | users have a better experience. Win-win for platform | marketing and cloud services revenue. | | iMessage spam isn't non-existent because sometimes someone | tries to spam, gets a few messages out, and then their device | gets console-banned. The iMessage "unsend" feature doesn't | yet exist in any released iOS or macOS, so it can't be used | to hide the spam after the fact. | kelnos wrote: | Hell, they could charge a token amount for _un_ -secured | devices, which I imagine could make things prohibitively | expensive for spammers. | | I would (grudgingly, because the whole thing is just | stupid) pay 3 bucks a month or so to be able to message | iPhone users from Android without dealing with unreliable | message delivery and ordering, and photos and videos | pixelated to hell. I have a ton of barely-recognizable | videos of my niece and nephews from my sister because she | always forgets that sending me video over MMS is a boatload | of fail. | jacooper wrote: | Well Apple is going to be forced anyway, the EU's Digital | Markets Act will be enforced soon. | | And fines are up to 20% of global _revenue_. | Seanambers wrote: | As an iPhone user I do not like EU dictating how Apple | software should work at all. The same with chargers as | well. | | Sure we can all have a discussion about how it should work | - but having bureaucrats decide is the worst idea ever. | kelnos wrote: | > _but having bureaucrats decide is the worst idea ever_ | | I agree wholeheartedly, but what's the alternative? The | so-called "free market" (not that such a thing actually | exists) clearly has not solved this problem for us. | dt2m wrote: | As much as I agree with this in principle, there is | absolutely no denying that Apple is abusing their power | when it comes to consumer lock-in. | | I find it very hard to argue against regulation which is | only meant to make devices more interoperable. USB-C for | charging is mature enough at this point that it seems | reasonable to declare it THE charging port. | | An interesting - partially ironic - observation here, is | that Apple actually designed the reversible USB-C | connector and submitted it to the USB-IF - a team of | bureaucrats. Bureaucrats, who of course previously were | responsible for blunders such as micro-USB-B 3.0, and | more recently, the ambiguous shitshow that is the current | state of the USB spec. | | I wholeheartedly believe that Apple is such a design- | driven company that they would actually engage with | regulators again (gasp, even the EU), if they were to | come up with a better connector design down the road. | Everybody wins. | ghaff wrote: | Is iMessage a "Number-independent interpersonal | communication services (e.g., messengers)"? | | It's a messenger but it's based on phone numbers AFAIK-- | unlike something like WhatsApp. | rdsnsca wrote: | It is, I use it from my Mac Mini without owing an iPhone. | frumper wrote: | You can sign up and use an email for iMessage through | wifi | ghaff wrote: | Ah. I've only used it as a default SMS alternative on | Apple devices including iPhone. | wilde wrote: | This doesn't work though. I receive enough iMessage spam | specifically through Apple ids that I wish I could disable the | ability to message me unless you use a phone number. | Tagbert wrote: | I believe that is SMS spam originating from outside of | iMessage | frumper wrote: | I definitely get iMessage spam | rootusrootus wrote: | If you're 100% sure it's iMessage and not SMS, report it | to Apple. They can ban that account. | wilde wrote: | With blue bubbles? | phinnaeus wrote: | Remember, the color of the bubbles only changes for | messages YOU send, not messages you receive. Received | messages are always black on grey. | chrisoverzero wrote: | > Received messages are always black on grey. | | What on Earth are you talking about? | y2bd wrote: | You only see the colors on messages you send. OP is | implying that you wouldn't know what "color" the | conversation is unless you're actively replying to the | spammer. | ryandrake wrote: | You can still tell whether it is an iMessage or text | message without replying and observing the color. Long- | press on the incoming message. If the menu shows: Reply, | Copy, Translate, More... then it is an iMessage. If the | menu shows: Copy, Translate, More... then it is a text. | lern_too_spel wrote: | Attestation is service that can only be provided by the builder | of the phone. Most commercially available Android phones | provide this, and banks and DRM rely on it. | https://developer.android.com/training/safetynet/attestation | and | https://developer.android.com/google/play/integrity/overview | altairprime wrote: | That API is not useful for anti-spam purposes, as individual | devices cannot be banned for spamming by their serial number. | Quoting that page: | | > _The API is not designed to fulfill the following use | cases:_ | | > _Contain signals for app-specific use-cases, such as device | identifiers_ | lern_too_spel wrote: | That can be built trivially using this API. The app stores | an identifier, which it knows has not been tampered with | because of attestation. Giving apps access to a unique | device identifier shared across apps is a privacy leak but | can be obtained with the proper scary permission. | altairprime wrote: | > Giving apps access to a unique device identifier shared | across apps is a privacy leak | | Correct: 'Non-heuristic antispam' and 'Private device | identifiers' are incompatible requirements, unless you | introduce another _expensive_ obstacle to overcome. | Spamming depends on cheap /free sock puppet accounts. The | cost per account is inversely proportional to the value | it holds to spammers. That cost can be in Apple's | iMessage terms: $100+ per serial number, all devices must | include burned-in serial number attestation in their | server communications. Or that cost can be in | bureaucracy: $10 per notarized "account signup request | with verified citizenship", but now all communications | can be associated with the notary's logs of your | citizenship ID number. | | There is no way to stop spam without incurring one or | another cost to each user. Apple's method doesn't care | who you are, so long as you possess Apple hardware. The | Pluton method wouldn't either. What other methods exist | that are unconcerned with the exact identity of the | _user_ , but still make spamming unprofitable? | Daunk wrote: | I haven't called a "normal" phone call or used SMS/MMS in many | many years. Everyone I know (or care about rather) uses Telegram, | and it's been great for us all. | Tagbert wrote: | Telegram? Never heard of it. | | Messaging currently requires you and the people you are | communicating with to agree on a platform. If all you use is | Telegraph, then you are not communicating with those who don't. | bagacrap wrote: | that's terrific, but if telegram were the universal standard | used for 95%+ of messaging then Google wouldn't bother with | this effort. | balls187 wrote: | Does Twilio support RCS? | newaccount2021 wrote: | pretty rich coming from Google who has been bungling its own | messaging ecosystem for years | drcongo wrote: | This is one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time. The | company that has had 47 different messaging apps and changes them | weekly trying to lecture the company that nailed it first time. | Grow up Google. | ypeterholmes wrote: | But isn't the request for a cross platform standard? Sure Apple | got their own internal standard right, but the experience | across platforms still matters. | icehawk wrote: | Yeah it does and Google removing XMPP federation from Google | talk should means | | "What happens when they no longer stand to benefit the most?" | | should probably come up. | drcongo wrote: | Doesn't matter to me, I have an iPhone. But regardless of | personal experience, Google has tried and failed endlessly to | make a not-shit messaging app for Android, and has now | seemingly given up and adopted a terrible protocol, and is | crowing about it like they're the saviour of messaging. | They're not, they've just given up trying. | garciasn wrote: | Exactly. They've positioned this as creating problems for | iOS users; however, all of these items are frustrating for | Android users, not the other way around. | | They're preaching to the wrong choir. | jdalgetty wrote: | This | blooalien wrote: | > "Google has tried and failed endlessly to make a not-shit | messaging app for Android" ... | | Sadly, some would say that they've tried and _succeeded | multiple times_ to make a "not-shit messaging app for | Android" and then promptly _murdered each success_ just as | it became popular. | | > ... "and has now seemingly given up and adopted a | terrible protocol, and is crowing about it like they're the | saviour of messaging." | | Yeah, this seems to be pretty much the "standard model" for | _most_ "tech giants" these days. :( | | > ... "They're not, they've just given up trying." | | On _so many_ levels _beyond_ just messaging. :( | ElijahLynn wrote: | Yeah, so many in this thread are acting ignorant to what is | actually going on. Which is surprising considering the | audience. | | RCS is a new standard, Google doesn't own it people. | seydor wrote: | How did they nail it if it doesnt work well with 80% of phones? | etchalon wrote: | Absolutely. | | Google can't act indignant that Apple isn't following their | lead after they tried, and failed, repeatedly, to follow | Apple's. | | Google wanted a proprietary messaging service like iMessage for | Android. They failed. They failed so many times they gave up | and became champions of RCS, a standard the carriers were | limping towards supporting. | | Google pretending they're now champions of open standards and | Apple is the big-bad meanie is ridiculous. | milleramp wrote: | Loved "It's time for Apple to fix texting" | ElijahLynn wrote: | Really hopeful this is the push needed to get RCS mainstream. I | use RCS on Android a bunch, and when the other user has it | working it is amazing!!! | moizici wrote: | Why would Apple fix something that do not affect Apple users ? | summerlight wrote: | Simple; regulators will come after if Apple refuses to do so. | DMA is just one response. | Veuxdo wrote: | Per the article, they do affect iPhone users. | bena wrote: | The article is an ad from Google. They have a vested | interest. | | While I'm sure there are grains of truth in the article, I'm | also sure they're presented in such a way to lead you to a | conclusion. | | Google wants to either get access to the iMessage ecosystem | or relegate it to the fringe. Because they can exert pressure | on RCS, they cannot exert pressure on iMessage. | thiht wrote: | It doesn't. Messages fallback to SMS when I talk to my | parents or friends who don't have an iPhone and... it works. | I can send text, photos, etc. and it works. Some accusations | are ridiculous, like how white on green is somehow illegible | compared to white on blue? Come on. | sudden_dystopia wrote: | Per experience, they do not. At least, they do not affect me | in the slightest. Never had any of these alleged problems. | smaryjerry wrote: | The lack of ability to leave a group text chat is the most | annoying thing ever. Spammers send these group texts and | there's no way to leave. | bhandziuk wrote: | It affects them in that everytime an iPhone users text me a | video I have to ask them to post it somewhere else so I can | view it. The videos are so small and blurry I can never see | what's happening in them. I[hone users are have unsent | messages to android users without cell service which | happens all the time and is confusing why some texts send | and some don't and it's a function of the type of phone the | receiving party has (?!) | alexandreb wrote: | You get a notification if your iPhone can't send the SMS, | and a clear indication that it didn't send. | ElijahLynn wrote: | It does affect Apple users, very much so. | jonathan_oberg wrote: | more like, it's time to kill texting. | | how many times can we attempt to patch new features on top of a | protocol that was never intended for those purposes and is | fundamentally insecure. | vonwoodson wrote: | android(dot)com says Apple product bad! Shocking! | vzaliva wrote: | Apple messaging is super annoying. I use Android phone but also | have an iPad. Whenever I chat with someone on iPhone, is suddenly | decides to route all messages via iMessage instead of SMS and I | do not see them on my phone. You have to disable iMessage in iPad | to avoid this. | isatty wrote: | I don't see how this is a problem. If you want to use an | inferior method then it should be opt out (like you are doing) | instead of the other way around. | vzaliva wrote: | The opt-out is global. I could not keep using iMessage on | iPad and SMS on Android as long as Apple account is | associated with the same mobile phone number. | | Also, changing the mode of communication withot asking or | informing users sounds like a bad idea. I send you SMS from | my phone. You see it in your iMessage and type a reply and it | goes back to my iPad. | 1MachineElf wrote: | I hope the EU continues on it's legislative path to force Apple | into playing nice. | jes wrote: | I wish Apple would give me a way to filter and delete junk SMS | texts based on message body content. | kelnos wrote: | I don't love RCS[0], but Apple implementing it (including the | E2EE extensions) would strike a huge blow to messaging | fragmentation immediately, at least in the US. | | Hell, Apple doesn't have to ditch iMessage; they just have to | support RCS for messaging with Android users, or group messaging | with mixed Android/iOS devices. | | I would also (grudgingly) accept an opening of the iMessage | protocol so Google could implement it in the Android Messages | app. Not ideal by any measure, and I figure Apple would never do | this (and I suspect Google would hypocritically not want to do | this anyway), but it would at least improve things. | | The thing that's sad overall is that the current state of affairs | is just a result of an anti-consumer corporate pissing match. The | only losers here are the users, both on iOS and Android. And | meanwhile both Apple and Google get to tout the benefits of their | preferred solution as if they're both the good guys, fighting for | their users. When in reality they're merely fighting for their | own market dominance. | | [0] Tying messaging to your carrier is just a continuation of the | crappy SMS "portability" experience. Sure, most RCS backend | implementations are currently provided by Google, but one thing | I'd like to see would be the ability to select your RCS provider. | Maybe others would crop up if this were an option, and if RCS | were actually popular. | Asdrubalini wrote: | Side note: I wonder why they didn't put Telegram in the "Other | messaging apps." section, instead of only Whatsapp and Signal. | systemz wrote: | Looks like Google started to think about EU's DSA / DMA | compliance and created this article to have proof to EU | commission "look, we tried but they refused!" | seydor wrote: | This is not very smart, as apple doesn't do such things unless | coerced by law. Instead , android should drop/cripple iphone | support until they adopt RCS | ocdtrekkie wrote: | Another fun one to point out: Google doesn't just want expanded | RCS support because they have a monopoly on all the non-iMessage | client devices, but they also run one of the largest providers of | the data services for carriers to support RCS as well: | https://jibe.google.com/jibe-platform/ | | Yet another angle on the Google vertical monopoly, and another | reason Apple should stay very far away from RCS to protect user | privacy. | [deleted] | otterley wrote: | Apple, pointing to all the happy children in the iMessage pool: | "nah, we good, thanks" | jes wrote: | I wish Apple would give me a way to filter junk SMS texts via a | regexp or something, without needing a third-party app. | aaaaaaaaaaab wrote: | Settings - Messages - Filter Unknown Senders | vzaliva wrote: | One way looking at it is that carrier job is only to provide data | service. They should not be in the business of messaging. Users | (and market) will chose to use whatever messaging service they | want. | | This even applies to voice. I rather do Signal voice call than | carrier voice call with most of my friends. Better quality, | encryption, etc. | lostgame wrote: | I can't take this site seriously. It says it's 'not about' the | green and blue bubbles. | | It _is_ , and it's largely that Apple has a vested interest in | making their ecosystem look so much better in general. | | If I'm texting my friends with an Android and group chat, etc; | isn't working properly - I will automatically assume something | about Android is broken, because it works perfectly to my other | friends who use iPhones. | | Apple will never - ever - 'fix' this, because it's not 'broken', | it's a design meant to create the illusion that iOS is the better | ecosystem. | | iMessage is one of Apple's most valuable psychological tricks to | keep people within the ecosystem, or convert others to join in. | | This is a waste of a call to action. | | It will be about as effective as praying to Rain Gods for rain. | :P | | Apple has a massive vested interest in not fixing this 'problem'. | | There's also a ton of cross platform messaging apps that already | have no issues when used with each other - including popular open | source ones like Signal. | | The websites' creator has their heart in the right place, but | their mind is confused. This is all intentional on Apple's part. | It's genius and they know it. They will never willingly stop a | plan that is working so very well. | curious_cat_163 wrote: | > Apple has a vested interest in not fixing this 'problem'. | | Perhaps, you are right. Their vested interest is in making more | $ for AAPL shareholders. The sands may shift. There are | incoming regulatory pressures and what not. | | However, it is still fair game to point out what is broken | though. The Internet (such as it is) is full of opinions. It is | not a waste. It is a perspective. | londons_explore wrote: | > This is a waste of a call to action. | | Agreed. I can't imagine what the decision makers at Google | thought this webpage would do? Will it suddenly make Apple | implement RCS - I think not... | | The only thing that might make Apple make open messaging in the | near future is the threat of the EU mandating it via the | Digital Services Act. And those platform rules apply equally to | any app with more than 45 million people - so iMessage, | Whatsapp, Messenger, Instagram, Tiktok, Twitter, etc. | rootusrootus wrote: | > iMessage is one of Apple's most valuable psychological tricks | to keep people within the ecosystem, or convert others to join | in. | | Perhaps a kernel of truth there, but the real success of | iMessage is how it gives you all the features of a modern | instant messaging platform without any hassle. Built in to the | phone, same app as SMS with automatic fallback, available on | MacOS, not limited to a phone#, etc. | | Yeah, I can go download one of a number of other IM apps. A | small fraction of people I interact with will be reachable on | any given app, but a majority are reachable with iMessage. The | network effect is very real. | Veuxdo wrote: | You've explained the subtext of the article. Which means the | article did need to be written. | lostgame wrote: | lol, in no way. The article has a call to action to try to | get Apple to change course. | | The author suggesting that indicates a total lack of | comprehension to Apple's plan and purpose/intention. | | Calling for people to ask Apple to change this is like | politely asking Opioid manufacturers to stop killing people. | It's profit. It has nothing to do with what's best for the | consumer. | | My main point of the comment was not to explain the subtext | of the article. It was to explain that the article just | didn't need to be written, and won't change anything. | malermeister wrote: | The audience isn't really Apple. It's regulators. | victorbstan wrote: | Adroid.com not biased | boesboes wrote: | Who uses sms anymore these days? | | I tried to go back to a non-smart phone, but it was impossible | due to not having whatsapp. That might be a 'local' thing though, | not sure. | | Anyway, they should just release imessage for android; that would | piss off meta too, which is a win in my book ;) | thefz wrote: | Agree. SMS is relegated to 2FA and before today I did not even | know that Apple had a special SMS application for its users. | pjmlp wrote: | Plenty of people in Europe with our pre-pay SIM cards, having | like 5 000 free SMS per month, minimum. | tinus_hn wrote: | I have infinite free SMS per month and I uses less than 1 a | month. In Europe everyone uses WhatsApp. | pjmlp wrote: | Except I know people that never touched WhatsApp, so no not | everyone. | | Also all my contacts on Balkan countries rather go with | Viber, so, nope not everyone. | mrweasel wrote: | > In Europe everyone uses WhatsApp. | | That's a bit of an overstatement and really depend on who | you ask. I'd say that no-one uses WhatsApp. I know exactly | two people who uses WhatsApp, but that also not | representative of their actual marketshare. | s17n wrote: | Everyone in the US (if there is at least one android user in | the chat) | trebbble wrote: | US here. On the old end of "millennial", if that matters. | | More than 95% of my personal communication with other humans | I know (remote communication, that is, not in-person, | obviously) is in WhatsApp. The rest is phone and SMS and | that's all older family. | | SMS, like email, is mainly for machines to talk to me. | caseyohara wrote: | > More than 95% of my personal communication ... is in | WhatsApp | | This is wild to me. I'm squarely in the middle of the | millennial generation and I've never used WhatsApp and I've | never known anyone that uses it. Nearly all of my personal | communication is through Messages on my iPhone/iPad/Mac. | Evidlo wrote: | That sounds horrible to be so locked-in. | simonjgreen wrote: | Locked in to WhatsApp as opposed to iMessage? At least it | works on all platforms | trebbble wrote: | We're not, so it isn't. | s17n wrote: | Yes, "everyone" was an exaggeration. But whatsapp usage in | the US is pretty small. iMessage/sms and fb messenger are | the only apps with enough market share to matter. | KMnO4 wrote: | I have dozens of group chats with iPhone, Android, and even | PC users. We never encounter any of the limitations of SMS, | for the same reason we can drive across the country and don't | have to constantly scan for new radio channels. It's just not | a technology that we use. | | SMS is the old, | WhatsApp/Telegram/Messenger/Signal/Discord/etc is the new. | timdavila wrote: | So I have to replace the native messaging app that's | decentralized, well proven, reliable, and pre-installed on | every phone that can communicate with anyone in the world | for 5 different centralized apps from the app store that | may or may not exist next year and also try to move my | entire network over? | | No thanks, I'll stick to SMS. | ZacharyPitts wrote: | SMS that is not usable from all my other non-phone | computers! | | For this reason alone, I greatly prefer | iMessage/discord/slack/whateverIsNext so I can use it on | my phone and my computers. | timdavila wrote: | I use iMessage. It's great, and doesn't get in the way. | And as I said it's included on my phone. It also allows | me to communicate with anyone and I don't have to think | about if the person I'm contacting has it installed or | not, it gracefully degrades to SMS when needed. That's a | great messaging app! | wejick wrote: | I dont remember when the last time sending message via SMS. You | will not be able to find message app on my android launcher | because I hide it, and many people in my circle never really | open it other than to read spam message from operator. | | So yeah most of the time whatsapp and telegram 100% of my | circle. SMS is a thing from the past, I guess the gen z here | don't even understand what's SMS. | | (someone from SEA region) | mongol wrote: | It's the only texting solution you can be sure to know works if | you just have a phone number. So in these situations, it is the | best choice. | Vomzor wrote: | mrweasel wrote: | > Who uses sms anymore these days? | | Most people? But yeah, it's a local thing. Denmark have had | free SMS for something like 20 years, at least as an optional | add-on to your subscription. So there where never a reason to | move to something else. If you frequently used SMS you just | paid the small free for a large number of SMS message, or even | unlimited. Current subscriptions pretty much all have free SMS. | | When smartphones arrived, most just use the built in messing | app. On the iPhone that means that you use iMessage, but it's | not something you think about. If you took the average Danish | iMessage user and asked them, they'd just say it's SMS. | | I don't know that I would want Apple to just dominate the | messaging market, but iMessage on Android would kill of many of | the existing platforms pretty quickly. | r2_pilot wrote: | I use and prefer that others use SMS for messaging me. I do | have other communication apps, but by far and away SMS is my | daily driver. | PaulsWallet wrote: | I absolutely use SMS. I use Android and don't have Facebook or | Whatsapp so if you want to text me you are gonna use SMS. | [deleted] | sunsetandlabrea wrote: | This is pretty disingenuous I think. Other than Android who is | using RCS? | | Why can't I message between WhatsApp and an RCS client. Or any | other chat technology, how about Google Chat to RCS, or Slack to | RCS, or anything else. | | Their examples for 'the modern standard adopted by most of the | mobile world': Motorola, OnePlus, Google Pixel, Samsung, | Snapdragon are all providers of Android phones, so clearly they | would use the default Android messaging service. | | I have a few folk (mostly family) who uses Apple messaging, | everyone else seems to be on WhatsApp. | bagacrap wrote: | A lot of Android handset manufacturers do not in fact leave the | default X in place for most X. | ocdtrekkie wrote: | It's no different than half a dozen web "standards" Google | invented like Web Serial, WebUSB, Web MIDI, etc. Google | implemented it on their monopoly platform, and then declared it | a "standard" and started getting their staff to start trying to | shame everyone else for not adopting it as such. | kramerger wrote: | > Other than Android who is using RCS? | | Don't forget Android has over 80% world-wide market share. | sunsetandlabrea wrote: | This is like saying Windows is the standard operating system. | | My point still stands they are saying adopt our technology, | but being disingenuous by calling it a standard. | | Besides that how many people are using WhatsApp instead on | both iPhone and Android. | kramerger wrote: | No, it is not. The RCS standards are managed by the GSMA. | | It is supported by many companies, one of which is Google. | sunsetandlabrea wrote: | So where is it used except Android? With any market share | that makes it significant beyond android? | tuckerman wrote: | According to the sources I was able to find, iOS and | Android collectively make up more than 99% of the smart | phone market. There isn't any significant market share | outside of Android because there is no significant market | outside of Android. | tonfa wrote: | That's a weird reply when a market has mostly two | players. By definition there won't be any other | significant market share. | [deleted] | ivoras wrote: | This is a US thing, right? | | Haven't received an SMS from a real person (in other words, all | SMSes I get are 2FA etc) for, at least 5 years, maybe 10. | | Even people who use iPhones don't send SMSes, MMSes or anything | as obsolete (including RCS). Everyone just seems to use WhatsApp | and Telegram (or if they don't know any better, Viber). Locale: | Central Europe. | | So, why would anyone stick to the obsolete stuff? Are there | regions of the US which have cell phone signals but no Internet | access? | rootusrootus wrote: | Network effect. SMS works everywhere, all phones support it | out-of-the-box. WhatsApp is opt-in. Almost nobody I communicate | with regularly has a WhatsApp account. | chizhik-pyzhik wrote: | For some reason whatsapp/telegram/etc haven't taken off nearly | as well in the US as they have in the rest of the world. | | NYT had an article about this recently- | https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/02/technology/sms-whatsapp.h... | bagacrap wrote: | basically it's the lowest common denominator. There are so many | chat apps out there (signal, sms, fb, ig are popular in my | circles) and the default app is the only one everyone has | installed. | | For people close to me, I insist on the use of signal, but I | don't have that kind of social capital with every single | acquaintance. | RussianCow wrote: | The US market standardized on mobile plans with unlimited | texting a long, long time ago, so I think this caused people to | mostly stick to SMS/MMS for communication since it was the path | of least resistance. I don't know what the situation in Europe | is like now, but in the past I remember it being difficult to | find plans without very small SMS caps when traveling. That | could be why Europeans naturally gravitated towards other | messaging platforms. | angio wrote: | Unlimited SMS plans have been a thing in western europe for | the past 15 years, at least. People switched to whatsapp | because you can send pictures, not only text. | oneplane wrote: | This is indeed a US thing (culturally). Most countries seem to | have chat culture revolve around Whatsapp, Telegram, Signal, | WeChat or LINE. | | On top of that, most people don't really care and read whatever | comes in regardless of the format. | | MMS was a failed concept, and so is RCS. Not because the | technology is fundamentally bad, it's the implementation that | is fundamentally flawed by keeping telcos in the loop. The only | reason SMS didn't die is purely by accident: it was included as | some sort of auxiliary technical channel, not really intended | as a means of chatting with other people. Heck, it was almost | not even included in the GSM standard and mostly thought of as | a useless waste of protocol specification. This made it | unattractive to market or monetise at first, and later on with | the whole ringtone/bitmap mess around the 00's it only enjoyed | a short bubble of commercial exploitation. | | The cost, and the limited format then caused the likes of BBM | and even MSN for mobile to be used as true chat replacements, | except in the USA. That was around the same time as the flop | that was MMS. Then WhatsApp (and others) came along and by then | the whole telco legacy mindset finally caught up and it was way | too late. Then Apple came around and a decade later finally RCS | was invented at some sad endeavour to get back in the loop as a | telco. | | Similar things were tried to 'replace' email etc. in the AOL | days, which also turned into a big flop. | LegitShady wrote: | It works for every phone and doesn't require me to have an app | installed. It doesn't change on which contact I have ("oh she | uses WhatsApp, he uses some other app, this group chat is on | facebook messenger, etc". | | It's just one tech that works on all phones. I don't even mind | if its missing five million emojis or things like that. | patja wrote: | does WhatsApp still require you to hand over all your contacts | to them when you sign up? | | None of my contacts gave consent for me to share their private | information. | throwayawya11 wrote: | Maybe Google should enable push notification support again for | Mail.app Gmail users too. | kitsunesoba wrote: | Or even just make Gmail's IMAP support properly spec compliant | instead of requiring third party clients to hack around its | nonstandard behaviors. | jeroenhd wrote: | AFAIK, Gmail's IMAP uses OAUTH2 authentication through SASL | (RFC7628). Legacy email clients don't implement that RFC, but | it's far from a hack. | AnonHP wrote: | Could you expand on the non-standard behaviors? Long ago I | noticed that using tags in Gmail causes a mess because they | seem to appear as folders on an IMAP client. I'd like to know | what other issues exist with respect to its IMAP | implementation. | LeoPanthera wrote: | > Texts from iPhones can't always be sent to Android over Wi-Fi, | leaving your messages unsent and convos hanging if you don't have | cell service. | | Yes they can? I have no cellular service at home but I have wifi, | and my iPhone connects to "T-Mobile Wi-Fi" via my home internet. | | SMS messages are sent and received just fine. | throwaway67743 wrote: | Assuming you have an operator that supports wifi calling and a | phone that both supports it and is "whitelisted" (basically | USA, Europe does not do such silly things) | tpush wrote: | > [...] (basically USA, Europe does not do such silly things) | | What? Europe has Wi-Fi Calling, too [0]. | | [0] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204040 | throwaway67743 wrote: | _woosh_ - read the comment again, it clearly implied the US | has a prominent idea of whitelisting "compatible" handsets | (ie; those bought from the network because unlocked is a | hilariously quaint idea) whereas in Europe, unlocked | handsets are generally the default, since people don't like | it and regulations prevent it for the most part anyway, in | those cases it's just incompatible/old/awful | implementations, rather than operators denying said | features. | [deleted] | willio58 wrote: | From what I'm seeing RCS just isn't a true solution. Apple and | Google should come together to create a standard outside of the | carriers. | kitsunesoba wrote: | Absolutely agree. Carriers have no rightful place in the | discussion, they're dumb data pipes and shouldn't be able to | nickel and dime customers on messaging quotas and features, as | RCS is designed to allow. | mongol wrote: | Not so sure about that. We still call these devices "phones", | with the expectation that any phone in the world can call any | phone number in the world. With no other information than a | phone number, you need to involve the carriers to deliver a | message texted to an arbitrary phone number. That is why | Apple need to fallback to SMS. They have no other means to | deliver the message. | | If Apple and Google teams up without carriers, they still | don't have access to the full, true phone number database | that carriers maintain. | enaaem wrote: | Do we really need a single standard? I and many others use | multiple messaging services and it's fine. Each has their pros | and cons. I can also contact people in multiple ways if one | service fails. | obnauticus wrote: | I would agree more if the RCS standard wasn't also hot garbage... | | I would encourage anyone who is curious to read more about it. | It's taken so long to gain traction that it has also become | somewhat legacy. Also, it still requires a carrier sponsored | phone plan? How is this "modern" in comparison to say every other | carrier agnostic messaging app in existence? | | Also this: | https://twitter.com/RonAmadeo/status/1480679515298934786 | resfirestar wrote: | >There are zero benefits to phone identity over email | | I can think of one: most people's email identity is subject to | termination under Google's ToS. Same thing with identity tied | to Facebook or other social networks. In the US, your ability | to take your phone number to a different carrier is protected | by federal regulations. | a2tech wrote: | No one really wants to understand it, they just want to | complain that Apple doesn't support it | arbirk wrote: | Very interesting. I wonder what protocol and format the EU | commission will point to in enforcing the Digital Markets Act | Hippocrates wrote: | Agree. It sounds similar to the argument for USB-C charging, | also a hot mess of a standard. But RCS is definitely more | offensive. | lostgame wrote: | I miss XMPP :( | Zash wrote: | It's XMPP that misses you ;) | thiht wrote: | XMPP sucked, you guys have to stop bringing it out over and | over again. Not having a common experience between clients | because of that stupid << X >> sucked. There's an impossible | to solve mismatch between XEPs supported by the clients and | the servers. | | XMPP is dead for reason, stop trying to bring it back | MattJ100 wrote: | Because of the "stupid X", modern XMPP supports far more | than it used to, and isn't stuck in the past like email and | SMS. | | There is a mismatch between iMessage (Apple) and RCS | (Google's flavour of the month). To the point where there | is almost no sensible interoperability between the two. | | All XMPP does is provide answers to "If I want to implement | feature X, how should that look on the wire". | | Just as the XMPP Standards Foundation annually publishes | the recommended baseline feature sets for XMPP clients, it | wouldn't be hard for Apple and Google to follow that or | (more likely) agree on their own baseline for | interoperability between the two ecosystems. | | As I always say when this comes up: the wire protocol is of | least concern - it's not the reason these businesses don't | prioritize interoperability. No protocol engineering can | magically fix that. | thiht wrote: | > Because of the "stupid X", modern XMPP supports far | more than it used to, and isn't stuck in the past like | email and SMS. | | Yeah, it's dead. Maybe XMPP supports shiny stuff. But no | client or server support them, and if they do it's like | they don't understand the spec the same way. | | A protocol should not be extensible, it should be full | featured and regularly updated to include new needs. It | should also propose a reference implementation and an | official client so that there's a clear baseline. | | Matrix is doing it way better than XMPP ever did. | 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: | Google cannot legally ship, as part of Android, a carrier- | agnostic messaging app like iMessage. | unethical_ban wrote: | Could you elaborate? I've never heard this before. | 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: | I've heard that since Android is the OS that 3rd parties | use it could violate antitrust to include a Google branded | chat-app. Apple does not distribute iOS so they can do | whatever they want. | ThatPlayer wrote: | It's illegal tying[0]. Google used to force Chrome and | Google Search as part of Google Play Store requirements. | And were fined a few years ago by the EU[1]. Pretty much | most of this reasoning could be applied to a messaging app | too. | | [0] https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition- | guidance/gui... | | [1] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/I | P_18_... | equalsione wrote: | It really is god-awful. RCS is a technology that benefits | mobile operators, not users. | | Also, Google really aren't in a position to lecture anyone on | this topic, given their N+1 approach to messaging services. | jkingsman wrote: | Speak for yourself; I LOVE texting my fellow-Android-owners | with RCS. My photos don't get squashed a la MMS, sending | multimedia Just Works, and typing/receipt indicators are | lovely. Maybe the mobile operators are getting far bigger | wins, but as an average person texting my friends, it's | great. | [deleted] | angryasian wrote: | Its definitely a compromise, but Google is ultimately at the | mercy of the carriers. We can sit back behind our keyboards | and criticize but it is a way to get something going. I don't | think carriers have any incentive to improve this area, and | probably nothing would happen | obnauticus wrote: | I understand that there are huge interoperability and | legacy requirements on the phone network. But for the sake | of solving the biggest problem of Android to iPhone | communication I think we can and should demand something | which is actually modern (ie platform and carrier | agnostic). | | The problem with RCS is that the solution has been stuck in | GSM consortium hell for over a decade. | rootusrootus wrote: | > Google is ultimately at the mercy of the carriers | | Yet again I recall the deal with the devil Apple did with | AT&T, giving them a year or two of exclusive rights to sell | the iPhone in return for having exactly zero control over | the device. That was an excellent trade. Before 2007, | carriers were intrusively involved with all aspects of a | mobile phone. | danaris wrote: | > Google is ultimately at the mercy of the carriers | | I mean...are they? | | If Google were serious about pushing a new standard, and | were willing to actually push it _on the carriers_ , they | have plenty of money, reach, and clout to make their point | heard loud and clear. That would be triply true if it | weren't a "new standard" that was yet another transparent | attempt to gather more data from users. | ElijahLynn wrote: | It is actually light years better than SMS/RCS and has a huge | value to end users. I can see if a message was read, I can send | legit voice memos without size limits, I can send large high | resolution photos. | | It may not be perfect but it is better than what Apple is doing | now. | kazinator wrote: | Gapingly missing is any mention of what iPhones use when sending | messages to each other. And why doesn't that mechanism require | support from a large number of carriers? Or if it does, why don't | Android phones support it? | cruano wrote: | > android.com | | I'm sure they are not biased at all | listless wrote: | That video reminds me of the "I'm a Mac" ads in that it does a | great job of making Apple look dated and out of touch. I love | good marketing. | blinkingled wrote: | > iPhones make texts with Android phones difficult to read, by | using white text on a bright green background. | | Wow. I can't really come up with anything creative to blame | Google for this one. Whatever you want to say about Google's | messaging mess and RCS - Apple seems to go out of their way to | make it inconvenient to text with Android users. | | Also it doesn't sound like Google's asking Apple to give up | iMessage - just that they use RCS instead of SMS/MMS to talk to | Android users. Not a unreasonable ask given RCS is still a | standard and an non-trivial improvement over SMS. | | Edit: Color aside, the read receipts, MMS quality, Wifi send etc | all seem worth fixing with RCS. | wincy wrote: | What? I don't even notice the difference in color except that I | know not to use the tapback stuff when I'm texting an Android | user. Does the green on white actually bother anyone? This | seems like grasping at straws to me. | dymk wrote: | I've never heard this issue ever raised by anyone in real | life. | | I've only seen it brought up in internet tiffs about how | Apple is using green message bubbles to "shame" non-Apple | users. Which is similarly straw-graspy. | kelnos wrote: | Given how cruel and capricious children tend to be, it | would not surprise me in the least that iPhone-using US | teenagers ostracize peers with Android devices because of | the green bubbles. | XorNot wrote: | While it doesn't surprise me, if it wasn't one thing it | would probably be another. | | Conversely if you're a parent with a distraught teenager | being teased about this, I imagine that's cold comfort. | radiojasper wrote: | https://color.a11y.com/ContrastPair/?bgcolor=3cd882&fgcolor=. | .. | | The colours do not pass the A11Y standards, which means | people with poor eyesight can't read the messages properly. | | This did made me curious to see if the blue background passes | - and it doesn't either. https://color.a11y.com/ContrastPair/ | ?bgcolor=047aff&fgcolor=... | | At least the blue background passes WCAG AA with larger sized | text, while the green doesn't pass at all. | dymk wrote: | Wrong color, iMessage uses #64C567 for the green | background, which has a higher contrast than the pair you | supplied (1.85 versus 2.15) | mikewhy wrote: | I'm confused by all the mention of "what colour apple | uses" in messages, message bubbles are a mask over a | gradient | radiojasper wrote: | Still doesn't pass? Also thanks for pointing out the | error! | kelnos wrote: | The funny thing is that simply changing the text color to | black causes the green-on-black to pass all those metrics, | with the blue-on-black passing everything but WCAG AAA with | the normal font (but still passes on the larger font). | | (Same result using #64C567 for the green bubbles, which a | sibling pointed out is the correct value.) | r00fus wrote: | Tapback works, too - it just appears to the non-iMessage | receiver as an another SMS message with the text equivalent | of the tapback emoticon. | TaylorAlexander wrote: | I would not discount visibility issues for anyone with a | visual impairment. But at the same time there are a lot of | issues listed on the page, with the color contrast only being | one of them. You may consider the other usability issues more | significant, but either way as a whole it seems to be a | problem. | Angostura wrote: | This is the most trivial complaint I've ever read. I'm in my | 50s and I have zero problems reading green bubbles - it just | means that it hasn't been sent via iMessage - if I send to an | iPhone and sending falls back to SMS it looks just the same. I | can't believe people get that upset about green v blue. | dcormier wrote: | That's very ableist of you. | | About 1 in 12 males are colorblind. I'm in this group. | | I find white text on a bright green background very difficult | to read. | joes_hk wrote: | So making the bubble blue instead of green without changing | the protocol would be already ok for you? How do you cope | with this right now, do you and your social group use | alternatives to iMessage like signal or telegram? | azinman2 wrote: | It's the text you send, not incoming, so you don't need to | read it much. There's also various accessibility features | to help with color across the os. | rootusrootus wrote: | Not only that, but these are complaints coming from non- | iPhone users, by definition, which means it is totally up | to Android what color their messages are displayed in. | cgrealy wrote: | Which is why there are accessibility settings for exactly | that. | chizhik-pyzhik wrote: | sure, but why keep an inaccessible default? | radicaldreamer wrote: | Because it doesn't affect everyone and aesthetics are not | equal to accessibility? | | I do agree that the green bubbles aren't great looking | but thats what they chose for iOS even prior to iMessage | existing. | gjs278 wrote: | hgsgm wrote: | brokencode wrote: | If you read the article, you'd know that there are actually | multiple functional issues due to Apple insisting on SMS/MMS. | neilv wrote: | > _I 'm in my 50s and I have zero problems reading green | bubbles_ | | Besides the other issues... as soon as I heard that | adolescents and teens (i.e., hyper-self-conscious, wanting | group acceptance, figuring out social status) would be | appearing differently in chats with schoolmates, based on | whether they used Apple or non-Apple... that sure is a way to | sell them Apples. | Liquix wrote: | Google conclusively found there was a statistically most | pleasing shade of blue in their _41 Shades of Blue_ | experiment. This type of testing can be and is being | leveraged for profit. It 's not too difficult to imagine | Apple tuning iMessage vs. SMS colors to be perfectly | calming/nauseating respectively. | r_klancer wrote: | Let's be clear. Green vs blue is a bit of a red herring. | | The real issue is that Apple has to have _some_ fallback | protocol for texting with non-iMessage devices, but refusing | to upgrade the fallback protocol beyond SMS /MMS makes the | texting experience worse for everyone, as described in the | article. | | (To avoid additional red herrings. No one is thinking here | about opening up iMessage itself to non-Apple clients, just | upgrading the fallback option. Also, I can't speak for | everyone, but among the non-terminally-online Gen Xer and | late-Millennial Americans I know, "texting" means using the | built-in app on your phone. Switching to another app is a | _relationship step_. Many of them are blithely unaware that | they can 't "just" text a photo or video to me or other | Android users, nor that I can't just sign out of a group chat | when I feel like it.) | [deleted] | nemothekid wrote: | iMessage was released on iOS 5 with the release of the iPhone | 4S. Before then, all messages had a green background. Somehow | sticking with the default of more than 10+ years is intentional | maleficence by Apple? | 015a wrote: | In a product development org, refusing to prioritize | something is identical to deprioritizing it. | | @Time0 -> Priority1=X, Priority2=Y | | @Time1 -> Priority1=X, Priority2=Z, Priority3=Y | | Across this timeframe, Y's priority was lowered from P2 to | P3, because the org intentionally decided to make Z a higher | priority. | | One could argue that improving this experience was never in | their priority list; but as long as product leaders in the | org knew about it; its the same thing. Letting something | linger in the backlog, and intentionally deciding to never | add it to the backlog in the first place, are identical. | | I don't know about "maleficence", but intentional: Yes. | Cognizant inaction conveys intentionality. | blinkingled wrote: | No but not updating the default for 10 years in a way that | mostly affects only Android users seems like borderline | malfeasance to me. | dymk wrote: | It's not a "default", it's an indicator of how the message | was sent. | blinkingled wrote: | So every sent message looks white on bright green or just | the ones sent over SMS/MMS (I.e. to Android users)? | dymk wrote: | Messages sent via SMS/MMS are green, messages sent via | iMessage are blue. | | If you send a message via SMS/MMS to an iPhone user, it's | green. | | There is no detection if the user on the other end is an | Android user. | tantalor wrote: | So it's a default. | [deleted] | rootusrootus wrote: | Blue is the default, because iOS always tries iMessage | first in preference to SMS. | gjs278 wrote: | nomel wrote: | The green used on the website is significantly brighter than on | an iPhone. In fact, on the iPhone, I would say the green gives | _better_ contrast than the white text on a blue background. | | For direct messages, the colored bubbles are only used on | messages _you_ send. Messages received are always white text on | black background (dark mode) or black text on grey background | (light mode). | | edit: From a screenshot of the messages app, on my phone. | #317332: My phone green (iOS 15.6) #75d993: Website | green (Safari 15.6) #58bf5d: Website video green | #184bd4: My phone Blue #5b8fec: Website blue | #2862be: Website video blue | | They're all significantly different. Did they not bother to | make sure the colors are accurate, or is this some hit piece? | guelo wrote: | It's objectively much worse contrast. | | https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/B3-CB781_1017ST_2_. | .. | | My contrast tool says the blue contrast is 3.4:1 while the | green is 1.9:1 | nomel wrote: | Those colors don't match what's on my iPhone. Where did you | get them? | | Try these: | | My iPhone green: #317332 | | My iPhone blue: #184bd4 | | from screenshot of messages app, iOS 15.6. | dfabulich wrote: | I just took screenshots of an Android green text bubble and | the https://www.android.com/get-the-message/ site, and used | Photoshop's eyedropper tool to compare colors. They're the | exact same shade of green, #48dd8f. | | But it's not just you! The green on Google's site looks | visually brighter because the entire bubble is on a blue | background. On iPhone, the green is normally on a white | background. | | Now, try setting your iPhone to Dark Mode in Settings, and | you'll find that the green bubbles are still #48dd8f green | and the text is still #ffffff pure white; it's harder to read | on a black background, IMO. | nomel wrote: | No, not for me. I'm seeing much darker on my phone: | | On the page: #75d993 | | In the video: #58bf5d | | From my iPhone (iOS 15.6): #317332 | Phrodo_00 wrote: | The green (and also the blue, but less so) used by iMessage | doesn't even meet the minimum contrast set by apple | accesibility guidelines [1] | | [1] https://medium.com/@krvoller/how-iphone-violates-apples- | acce... | kingTug wrote: | The puke-green text bubbles from android and calm-blue bubbles | from iMessage always struck me as very intentional. | giantrobot wrote: | Before iMessage was released all text messages sent from | iPhones were SMS/MMS. They were all green. If an iPhone | recipient is unavailable via iMessage a text will fall back | to SMS. So green bubbles _are_ intentional, they indicate a | text was sent via SMS. | etchalon wrote: | The Green is historical, not a specific decision by Apple to | hinder reading texts. | | Before iOS 5, and the release of iMessage, all messages on iOS | were green. | | That Google is painting this as something else speaks to how | disingenuous this whole conversation has gotten, in all | corners. | zoover2020 wrote: | But it turns automatically green when you text a non iPhone | device. | | You have no idea how much of a hot topic this is I modern | bullying | riversflow wrote: | This is ridiculous. As someone who suffered greatly from | bullying throughout their education, the only way to deal | with bullying is punishing bullies. | | Bullies will always find _something_ to bully others for, | thats why they are bullies and not just expressing a | preference. | | I'm fairly convinced the bullying problem is a result of a | society who treat kids as their parent's property instead | of communal property. Parents enable bullying. | etchalon wrote: | It turns green when the message is sent over SMS, not when | you text a "non-Apple device". | | You can send SMS messages to Apple devices, from an Apple | device, if you're not signed into iMessage, or they're not, | or if your data connectivity is limited, or theirs is. | pharmakom wrote: | If apple made them all the same color I think bullying | would change by around 0% | 015a wrote: | So, you're asserting that the color choice of the bubbles ten | years ago was unintentional? That whatever developer coded it | had no instruction, Jony Ive & Steve Jobs were silent, and | they used a random number generator to pick the hex code? | | And additionally, you're asserting that its impossible to | change or improve? That its just such an intractable problem | which we inherited, and changing it would be such a herculean | effort that its not worth moving the needle on? | | I've never seen the codebase for the iOS messages app. I | believe, even acknowledging that, its probably an absolute | mess of legacy code, and I have a ton of sympathy for the | developers working on it. I also believe, even acknowledging | that, that changing one color is something an intern could do | (and because its a big tech product org, there'd be fifty | user studies and three orgs of product managers involved and | Tim Cook would get a say in it, but those are manufactured | problems. Also, let's be clear; if Jobs were still alive & in | control, even all those manufactured roadblocks would be torn | down, if it were a change he cared to prioritize, because | that's the kind of leader he was). | | Inaction is Intentional. Inaction is Intentional. Inaction is | Intentional. | etchalon wrote: | I'm asserting that a decision was made that SMS messages | were green. | | Then a decision was made that iMessage messages would be | blue. | | I'm asserting this was not done with animosity. It was a | decision by Apple's UX team to make it easy to visually | identify the difference between the message mechanics and | capabilities of the end-user. | | It is remarkably simple, effective and easily understood. | | If Apple chose to make it so there was no visual | distinction between the message sending mechanisms, that | would be a worse, and more confusing, user experience. | | If Apple changed the colors, whatever the new colors they | chose to use would just be the new focus of the debate. It | would become "Orange Bubbles vs Blue Bubbles" or "Purple | Bubbles vs Blue Bubbles". People would argue that Apple | chose the new color based on some secondary negative | characteristic of the new color, just as they do today with | green. | NonNefarious wrote: | Apple commits many UI offenses, but the alleged illegibility of | SMS messages is BS. | | Not to mention that Apple's messaging is hideously broken in | more ways than Android integration. iMessage will simply delete | your phone number from its "can be reached at" list, which | breaks years-long threads with a single (iPhone-using) friend | into inexplicable new threads. | | Ever go overseas? Try putting a local SIM into your USA phone | somewhere else, and watch your phone "forget" all of your | contacts. Seriously: WTF? Suddenly all of your contacts are | unrecognized by number. It's idiotic. | firloop wrote: | Feels like sort of a non issue, even the bottom of the page | pushes people to apps like Whatsapp/Signal. If Google wants | better iPhone messaging - can't it just ship its solution in the | App Store? Not really sure why Apple must update iMessage for | Google to get what it wants. | | I personally love iMessage and use it and Signal primarily - I | don't like the idea of Google dictating its feature set, | especially considering its horrible messaging track record. | bagacrap wrote: | No, Google isn't trying to ship another messaging app. It's | trying to improve the interoperability of Android and iPhone | when using phone number texting. Your experience in iMessage | when texting with an Android user would be improved. | aquanext wrote: | I use an iPhone and have never experienced any of these issues | with blurriness. Do they have specific examples? As others have | said, I think I'm good with the way things are right now. | tbihl wrote: | Once upon a time, I couldn't see myself moving to an iPhone | because of the limited options for ad blocking. Now that ad | blocking on Brave iPhone presumably works, Apple's messaging | behavior is the last thing that keeps me away. On the occasions | when I get stuck in a group chat outside Signal and someone has | an iPhone, it always seems to break the chats. Otherwise the | iPhone mini seems like it would be a great option. | throwaway67743 wrote: | The solution isn't RCS either, shoehorning yet another nonsense | over a system designed to transmit operational messaging is | absurd, just use proper rich media systems like the 10s of im | platforms, or the reinvented wheels like matrix etc, it's in a | similar vein to trying to add voice calls to IRC. | Li7h wrote: | They couldn't even find a hi-res logo for WhatsApp on the bottom. | [1] | | [1] | https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Jv09_Bj8cea5-_S6DdpoA_MolG... | __derek__ wrote: | First, Apple shaming Microsoft. Then, Microsoft shaming Google. | Now, Google shaming Apple. | | > missing read receipts and typing indicators | | Life is better without both of these. | | > no texting over Wi-Fi | | This claim was odd. I visited Europe a few months ago and | definitely sent/received SMS over wifi using my iPhone. | | > When people with iPhones and Android phones text each other, | Apple relies on SMS and MMS, outdated systems which do not always | support texting over wi-fi. That means if you don't have a | cellular network connection, _depending on your carrier and | situation_ , you _may not be able_ to send and receive texts. | | Oh, so the claim was deliberately misleading. That's not a good | way to build trust. | egwynn wrote: | > definitely sent/received SMS over wifi using my iPhone | | Are you certain? From what I understand about how SMS works, I | don't see how that's possible. Apple's own docs also appear to | suggest that SMS-over-WiFi won't work: | https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207006 | frizlab wrote: | Most operators do cellular over wifi now (because 4G/5G sucks | indoor). Not all of them though. | egwynn wrote: | I'm curious about how this works, can you link me someplace | where I can read more about it? I tried searching for | "cellular over wifi" but wasn't about to find anything | promising. | | EDIT: I searched harder and found "VoWiFi". It looks like | this can support SMS and is supported by iOS. TIL. | __derek__ wrote: | Bingo. My carrier offers it as Wifi Calling. It worked | surprisingly well. | sneak wrote: | This is spam for the Android operating system, nothing more. | | Google claiming that RCS includes end-to-end encryption here is | misleading. | | Encryption got explicitly axed from the RCS spec because carriers | don't like it. | | The end-to-end crypto they're talking about is a custom Google | thing and not part of RCS. | | Friends don't let friends use unencrypted everyday | communications. | | Reject RCS and reject Google platform marketing. | | PS: Note also that iMessage has a crypto backdoor maintained by | Apple for the FBI; Google should not be encouraging iMessage to | become more useful/popular, as this reduces privacy and makes | people less safe. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-08-09 23:00 UTC)