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submitted 11 months ago by L4s@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

Pressure grows on Apple to open up iMessage::Samsung has joined Google’s campaign to force Apple to make iMessage RCS-compatible—but European regulators are more likely to get that job done.

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[-] csm10495@sh.itjust.works 38 points 11 months ago

I don't get why people like RCS in this context. It has the same problem as iMessage.

On Android you have to use Google Messages to get it. Third party apps don't work with it because Google never opened it up to them. How common is RCS without Google Messages? Even on Samsung phones it goes via Google.

How common is iMessage without an Apple product?

Why does Google want them to use iMessage? Probably since the data would flow through them.

Same shiz, different company.

[-] monkey@lemmy.world 36 points 11 months ago

RCS is just a standard, much like how SMS is just a standard. Google's Messaging app is just one implementation of it, though it probably is the most popular in the US it is not the only one, nor is Google able to decide who cannot use it. Carriers typically have their own, though you may have recently heard that T-Mobile decided to switch over to Google's.

[-] Zetta@mander.xyz 24 points 11 months ago

As someone else said RCS is just the new global standard replacing SMS that apple does not want to support because it weakens their walled garden.

[-] pewnit@lemmings.world 20 points 11 months ago

RCS is an open standard created by GSMA, not a Google product. Google and Samsung just have the most popular "flavours" of RCS

[-] zaph@sh.itjust.works 12 points 11 months ago
[-] primarybelief@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago

Wait, since when does Textra have RCS support?

[-] zaph@sh.itjust.works 2 points 11 months ago

Beats me someone liked a text I sent them a few days ago and I realized I could give their's emoji responses too.

[-] Emerald@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago

That does not mean that Textra supports RCS at all. It does not. It just supports text reactions with other Textra users.

https://old.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/vpt6uq/textra_updated_to_send_reactions_like_ios/iensamw/

[-] zaph@sh.itjust.works 2 points 11 months ago

The other user isn't using Textra though which is why I thought it was rcs.

[-] Fog0555@lemmy.world 9 points 11 months ago
[-] flop_leash_973@lemmy.world 6 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Because most people don't really understand the specifics of what they are railing against and/or arguing for. They just read "big bad Apple is being eViL" and get on the complaint train without really understanding what they are advocating for.

In my opinion Google should really being trying to push Chat as the default for Android instead. It is no more walled off than Googles RCS implementation, and unlike RCS they don't need Apple to bake it into their messaging app to attract users.

The fact that they care more about their RCS implementation for this purpose instead of Chat or just the basic RCS protocol as the standard tells me Google is more interested in the easy road to being the technical foundation of texting for reasons other than the universal convince of customers or the proliferation of standards.

In reality they probably want this so bad because if they were to get it it would make it effectively impossible for the average person to avoid Google services on some level, which is good for their data mining empire.

[-] undnocheiner@feddit.de 12 points 11 months ago

You used a lot of words, just too say that you don't know what you are talking about.

[-] flop_leash_973@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Well then go on, why am I wrong? Or do you just not like my opinion and are grasping at straws to make youself feel better?

[-] pewnit@lemmings.world 9 points 11 months ago

RCS is an open standard created by GSMA. That's why you're wrong.

[-] flop_leash_973@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago

Googles implementation of the RCS standard has extra things not included in the base standard. The encryption for example is something Google added that is not part of the standard.

Additionally, Google does not allow any other implementation of RCS to talk to their jibe servers to pass messages without them explicitly approving it.

So what Google has functionally created is a proprietary messaging service built on top of an open standard. This is what most people miss about all of the coverage of Google pushing for RCS.

[-] pewnit@lemmings.world 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I didn't know that Google built encryption on top of the standard, I thought it was part of it.

Besides that though, Google would be making the dumbest business move if they didn't let Apple's potential RCS implementation talk to theirs.

Besides that, the point that RCS is still an open standard stands and should replace SMS just because of how archaic and old it is. Heck, there's still a character limit.

[-] ultratiem@lemmy.ca 2 points 11 months ago

That’s why Apple has been cagey about the whole thing. It’s Google’s tech. Their patents. Their way. Of course they are going to weaponize it because that’s where we are with software these days.

The answer isn’t RCS and Apple knows it. It’s trading iMessage for a merger with gMessage, a hybrid of the two with Apple losing half of its control. For a pretty meek gain.

The answer is to come up with an open standard that all messaging apps adopt and build on. So we can eventually move away from shitty SMS. Neither Google, or Apple should control the framework.

this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2023
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