I'm hoping this is due to regulatory pressure more than PR/branding pressure, only because the latter requires mere lip service to acquiesce and the former will presumably still bear scrutiny if...
I'm hoping this is due to regulatory pressure more than PR/branding pressure, only because the latter requires mere lip service to acquiesce and the former will presumably still bear scrutiny if their RCS support is still hampering communications, if they try to implement it in a way where there is still friction in communication.
If there's anything I've learned from watching Apple is that they're happy to advertise that they've always supported something a regulation mandates that they spent millions to prevent passing....
If there's anything I've learned from watching Apple is that they're happy to advertise that they've always supported something a regulation mandates that they spent millions to prevent passing.
Makes that old 1984 ad that much more ironic.
They also like to pay lip service to a thing that is about to be regulated in hopes that it dashes momentum of rule passing so they can drop it when the furvor hopefully dies off.
This I know to be a common strategy for these big corporations, I just feel it has less chance of working (but still a good chance with US regulators anyhow, can't speak to EU regulators). For the...
They also like to pay lip service to a thing that is about to be regulated in hopes that it dashes momentum of rule passing so they can drop it when the furvor hopefully dies off.
This I know to be a common strategy for these big corporations, I just feel it has less chance of working (but still a good chance with US regulators anyhow, can't speak to EU regulators). For the PR reasons, they can just say they implemented it and anyone who nitpicks the particular details will just look like an Apple hater. Of course it's the details that can often make or break whether something actually works as it is intended.
While I know it's a minority of sorts, I think it's still a decent minority that want encrypted communication by default and everyone outside the US doesn't have to deal with this but within the US if Apple doesn't play ball, then that communication won't happen. People aren't going to move to Signal or WhatsApp in the US, so you're forced to send unencrypted SMS to 70% of the people because they use iPhones (if you're not an iPhone user).
The downside to that particular example is it happens to be one regulators don't want, so if that's the one detail that Apple refuses to implement, then regulators probably aren't going to help at all with it.
I've read reports of iPhone usage in the US in the past and remembered it being somewhere between 50-70%. No I don't have a perfect memory, I wasn't necessarily intending to misrepresent the...
I've read reports of iPhone usage in the US in the past and remembered it being somewhere between 50-70%. No I don't have a perfect memory, I wasn't necessarily intending to misrepresent the actual number but more so to highlight the significance of the impact.
As another comment mentioned, it's seemingly closer to 60%, and I think if you consider that, 60% or 70% is not materially different to the point I was making, which should support that my intention was not to mislead because the number I chose wasn't that far off and does not materially change the substance of what I said. I felt reasonably confident enough that saying 70% wasn't going to be far off and wouldn't materially change what I was saying that I didn't feel like looking up the actual numbers at the time I made the comment. The reality is if you're trying to make a more statistically detailed argument, you'd also need to factor in other variables. In some social circles within the US, some non-iphone users might only communicate 20% of the time to iPhone users while others might communicate 90% of the time. For me, I don't know a single person that I regularly communicate with that doesn't have an iPhone (with me being the only person that has Android). So basically 100% of my communication is forced through SMS because Apple has to this point not allowed any other method and I'm never going to convince those people to use another app seeing as I'm the minority here.
Then to your other question, the remaining % that I did not account for is because there's a lot more variables to consider to make any statements about it. If for example, 60% of users in the US have an iPhone, then probably something like 39% have Android and 1% could have whatever just to account for some rare exceptions of some oddity. Well of those 39% that have Android, not all of those are necessarily using an Android phone/messaging app/carrier that supports RCS with Google's end-to-end encryption. I don't even know what the possible limitations of this are because Android is maddeningly fractured and all updates lag behind varying degrees between manufacturers that it's not worth trying to figure that out for the sake of this argument. That's not even to account for the oddities of how wireless carriers influence things that you wouldn't expect that they'd have anything to do with. So even though Google supports RCS, and in this scenario Android (primarily developed by Google) has 39% of the remaining market share, it isn't necessarily the case that all of that 39% even supports RCS or the encryption offered. This is compounded by Google messing up their messaging apps/platforms and other manufacturers offering different messaging apps as the default SMS messaging app on their phone.
As you can see, for this conversation, that becomes so ridiculously complex to come up with specific figures for all of those variables there's no reason to even try to bother. It's a massive waste of time. It was easier for me to just round to 70% from memory to account for Apple's responsibility in the matter and not address the remaining 30% and call it a day as it gets the same point across.
I think they got their numbers wrong. A cursory google suggests that about 60% of smartphones in the US are iPhones, whereas 70% of smartphones worldwide are android. So if you're an android user...
I think they got their numbers wrong.
A cursory google suggests that about 60% of smartphones in the US are iPhones, whereas 70% of smartphones worldwide are android.
So if you're an android user sending a text to someone in the US, there's more or less a 60% chance your text is going to be a standard sms.
I don't think it has anything to do with regulatory pressure. The EU "gatekeeper" laws would be about making iMessage, the internet-based E2EE protocol, interoperable. "Messages," the app that...
I don't think it has anything to do with regulatory pressure. The EU "gatekeeper" laws would be about making iMessage, the internet-based E2EE protocol, interoperable. "Messages," the app that contains iMessage, is already interoperable and supports the SMS Standard. In fact that's why the "blue bubbles" exist. The original Messages app only supported SMS (and MMS), and everything was green. Blue showed up with iMessage to inform the user that the message had been sent using that protocol. Received messages are grey regardless of protocol.
So if the gatekeeper law were about the app, then Messages is already compliant. If it's about the protocol, iMessage isn't compliant, may not be able to even be complaint and retain E2EE, and is likely not even eligible under the law as it's EU market share is minuscule compared to WhatsApp. It's one of those EU tech laws that sounds nice but has a lot of potential drawbacks since it's fundamentally at odds with encrypted messaging (and from my personal POV a useless overreach since the SMS standard already exists).
I suspect RCS will join SMS and MMS in the single messages app and remain green, with RCS being the standard Apple assumes with actually wholly replace SMS.
In the event that Apple is forced to make iMessage interoperable and thus capable of operating without encryption, I really hope that they make unencrypted iMessage bubbles green just like SMS...
In the event that Apple is forced to make iMessage interoperable and thus capable of operating without encryption, I really hope that they make unencrypted iMessage bubbles green just like SMS bubbles so people don’t fall under the illusion that their messages to e.g. Facebook Messenger contacts through iMessage are as secure as normal iMessages.
In fact they should probably go even further and add a mildly scary open lock icon somewhere when there’s no encryption to really get it across.
From what I read they will adopt the standard along with iMessage. I strongly feel as if they will still allow an iPhone user to identify if they are sending a message to a iPhone. Which, I...
From what I read they will adopt the standard along with iMessage. I strongly feel as if they will still allow an iPhone user to identify if they are sending a message to a iPhone. Which, I personally prefer. I like knowing when I’m sending a message that is encrypted.
While I’m in the same boat as you here (and additionally use Signal), keep in mind that as far as I know, at least a couple of years ago it was the case that an iMessage isn’t actually end-to-end...
I like knowing when I’m sending a message that is encrypted.
While I’m in the same boat as you here (and additionally use Signal), keep in mind that as far as I know, at least a couple of years ago it was the case that an iMessage isn’t actually end-to-end encrypted if your recipient has turned iCloud backups/cross-device sync (can’t remember which) turned on, which is a fair assumption that most users do.
Again, not sure if it is still the case, I don’t want to put out false information, but that’d mean the vulnerability isn’t preventable on your side while using a seemingly safe protocol.
Well, sort of. The protocol is still e2ee but the other user would have a copy of the message in their iCloud backups unless they also e2ee their iCloud data, which most people don’t (for good...
Well, sort of. The protocol is still e2ee but the other user would have a copy of the message in their iCloud backups unless they also e2ee their iCloud data, which most people don’t (for good reason).
Looked into it and there is now an iCloud option to enable end 2 end. It’s called Advanced Data Protection. Which stores the encryption keys on your device via the cloud. In order to turn it on...
Looked into it and there is now an iCloud option to enable end 2 end. It’s called Advanced Data Protection. Which stores the encryption keys on your device via the cloud. In order to turn it on you have to turn on 2 factor auth and save your encryption key just in case you get locked out of your phone. Now I wonder what happens when one side of the message has advanced data protection and the other person has it turned off.
It'll still be E2E encrypted (as all iMessage is), but if the recipient backs up their messages to iCloud without Advanced Data Protection, Apple will have the encryption keys for their backup.
It'll still be E2E encrypted (as all iMessage is), but if the recipient backs up their messages to iCloud without Advanced Data Protection, Apple will have the encryption keys for their backup.
EU regulators aren't the only ones looking into Apple. U.S. Justice Department escalates Apple probe - WSJ Considering some of the other companies who are being tested in court on anti-competitive...
EU regulators aren't the only ones looking into Apple.
The U.S. Justice Department has in recent months escalated its long-running antitrust probe on Apple Inc (AAPL.O), the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday citing people familiar with the matter.
Considering some of the other companies who are being tested in court on anti-competitive grounds recently, Google by the Justice Department and Apple/Google being sued by Epic (which obviously isn't the same as regulators looking at them but it does show that there is market pressure building against them although Epic didn't really have much success against Apple from what I recall).
Look at what is coming out about Google in the DOJ case and even more that they are trying to block from coming out and even if Google prevails, it's still not a pretty sight for them. It's not unrealistic that Apple might look back over a few of their services/products and see if there aren't some compromises that might cost them less than the possibility of getting dragged into court and having their dirty laundry aired like what Google is going through now.
That's why I think it could be related to regulatory pressure. Of course there's no way to know unless some inside sources leak to the media or they get dragged into court by the DOJ.
As far as EU gatekeeper laws and how it directly relates to iMessage (or the Messages app), I don't think the EU really cares about SMS all that much, from what people in the EU say on Tildes, reddit or any other platform people communicate on, it sounds like they've already moved on from SMS. What they want is inter-communication between the apps they moved onto and iMessage (or expanded functionality of the Messages app and not just the SMS/RCS component that will be built into the Messages app), for the same reason why people in the US want some kind of RCS adoption.
Saying that the SMS standard already exists as if that is a practical fallback this day and age is kinda strange. Might as well say we don't need cars because there was already horses. SMS should be dead and buried by now. Honestly RCS is pretty old as well but Google failed to break away from carriers like Apple did and they failed repeatedly to build and maintain a solid messaging platform so they backed into RCS as a compromise.
Really what I'm considering is whether Apple is going to find a way to say they technically implemented RCS while keeping that type of communication as a second class citizen like they do with SMS now (and no they in some ways aren't technically making SMS worse, they're just letting it be worse on its own, but they did let users use reactions over SMS which is sort of like making it worse). Apple could clearly have done more to make the situation better but didn't want to because they could use it as leverage to sell more phones. Is it their responsibility? Not necessarily, but that's again why I am more concerned with why they decided to do this now. If it's just PR, then they're going to continue doing the same things which is fucking everyone else over to their own benefit, and if it's regulatory concerns then they might actually try to go a bit further than the bare minimum.
Your article cites sources who mention iOS as a whole not messaging specifically, and so we can't draw any inference there. The more applicable Apple related news story would be its ongoing court...
Your article cites sources who mention iOS as a whole not messaging specifically, and so we can't draw any inference there. The more applicable Apple related news story would be its ongoing court battles to prevent sideloading on iOS, which civil courts have so far mostly preserved.
Honestly based on how Apple behaves most of the time, I'd wager a fair amount that they simply found a way to implement RCS in a way they think benefits them and their users. In fact it's a direct response to your claim that by not improving SMS they are making everything "worse." With USB-C Apple was involved the whole time and broadly committed to the port. The only reason they didn't move sooner was the sheer backlash they got from moving away from the 30-pin connector. I imagine Apple see's an opportunity to influence the RCS standard and is taking it. Win for Apple, win for users.
This isn't quantum mechanics, RCS has been around awhile. There's nothing new about the landscape in which they're operating other than potential regulatory pressures and brand perception. Any way...
I'd wager a fair amount that they simply found a way to implement RCS in a way they think benefits them and their users.
This isn't quantum mechanics, RCS has been around awhile. There's nothing new about the landscape in which they're operating other than potential regulatory pressures and brand perception. Any way in which they have "found" would have already been one they knew about many years ago and chose not to pursue because it wasn't advantageous. In this framing, it's only advantageous for them to the extent that it might subdue more negative outcomes.
The only reason they didn't move sooner was the sheer backlash they got from moving away from the 30-pin connector.
This seems a little more of wild speculation than grounded speculation and while I'm fine with speculation to an extent as I'll willingly engage in it myself for reasons of practicality in casual conversation, I've not personally encountered any sources that have offered this as a reason for Apple's continued use of the Lightning port prior to the EU legislation forcing them to do otherwise. I am certainly no repository of all Apple news, I also don't live under a rock either so all I can say is that it seems hard to believe. When you factor in that Apple had a system that made them money by forcing users to buy essentially proprietary cables and pushed hard for them to have certain certifications that Apple made money from, it becomes even harder to believe that wasn't the primary reason for them not moving sooner. Then you add in that the backlash they got was for moving to a connector that no one else used and thus no consumers even had such a connector or reason to have such a connector meant they were forced to buy something they wouldn't have otherwise needed if Apple hadn't compelled them to do so. As time goes on, then USB-C had growing adoption outside of Apple products for awhile that to some extent even many Apple hardware owners were increasingly likely to have already started to be in possession of USB-C connectors. There's no comparison here to what Apple did when changing connectors before, and Apple with all of its resources and knowledge would not have been so inept to believe otherwise. That's not even considering that in Apple's less popular products they had already adopted USB-C and thus even the most ardent Apple supporters were already exposed to and in possession of USB-C connectors. That simply further supports that Apple chose to keep their most popular product on a proprietary connector that they had found a way to extract even more money from.
Your article cites sources who mention iOS as a whole not messaging specifically, and so we can't draw any inference there. The more applicable Apple related news story would be its ongoing court battles to prevent sideloading on iOS, which civil courts have so far mostly preserved.
iMessage is considered to be a big part of why iOS is gaining so much over its competition.
In 2016, when a former Apple employee commented that "the #1 most difficult [reason] to leave the Apple universe app is iMessage . . . iMessage amounts to serious lock-in" to the Apple ecosystem, Mr. Schiller commented that "moving iMessage to Android will hurt us more than help us, this email illustrates why". (PX416, at '610; Cue Dep. 114:14-115:2.)
Among a few other comments that came out from the Epic trial against Apple. When you combine this with what I said before, it matters even more (since that's providing Apple's perspective) because it doesn't matter what the public thinks about what regulators are looking at, it matters what Apple thinks about what regulators are looking at, at least when it comes to Apple's decision making process if they are trying to maneuver around potential antitrust challenges by the DOJ. Since Apple already had to reveal that they viewed iMessage as integral to their ecosystem leverage with iOS compared to Android, the fact that the sources indicated at all that iOS was part of their antitrust probe combined with the above would make it very reasonable to believe that iMessage would at least play a part in any case being built against Apple, even if iMessage itself wasn't central to the potential antitrust suit.
Edit: I also don't mean this to be antagonistic, I think I was trying to be more blunt than I might usually be as a way to be a little more concise considering the length of the comment already.
I've spent a bit of time here bitching about Google trying to force Apple to support RCS, so I feel duty-bound to respond to this. I think it's a good thing. By all means, a(n improved compared to...
I've spent a bit of time here bitching about Google trying to force Apple to support RCS, so I feel duty-bound to respond to this.
I think it's a good thing.
By all means, a(n improved compared to SMS/MMS) standard communication method that works across platforms and is preinstalled on every phone is a good thing. The only thing I don't like about it is that RCS is effectively proprietary. I'd rather everyone just supported XMPP or something in that vein, but that wasn't ever going to happen.
From Wikipedia: In February 2008 the GSM Association (GSMA) officially became the project home of RCS and an RCS steering committee was established by the organization. So it kind of is an open...
In February 2008 the GSM Association (GSMA) officially became the project home of RCS and an RCS steering committee was established by the organization.
So it kind of is an open protocol unless I’m misunderstanding something.
Perhaps Google could bring RCS to their very own Google Voice product and stop the hypocrisy? Calling them out for all this time might be more effective with its own house in order.
The devil is in the details. The standard is fairly broad in its descriptions so the implementations can vary wildly. There are (or more accurately, were) many different RCS implementations, and...
The devil is in the details. The standard is fairly broad in its descriptions so the implementations can vary wildly. There are (or more accurately, were) many different RCS implementations, and AFAIK none of them are interoperable. I skimmed through the RCS Universal Profile and most of the document is devoted to how the UI is supposed to work. More critically I was unable to find any working open source RCS implementations and Google does not provide any public APIs for it.
Watch it be a separate app or some other insane implementation that still makes texting Android users a pain. I have zero faith in Apple to properly implement this into iMessage, though I'd be...
Watch it be a separate app or some other insane implementation that still makes texting Android users a pain.
I have zero faith in Apple to properly implement this into iMessage, though I'd be happy to be proven wrong.
Finally! A hearty thank you to the EU from me over here in the US. I’ll now be getting both USB-C and RCS on my iPhone thanks to your efforts. I cannot tell you how thrilled I will be when I never...
Finally! A hearty thank you to the EU from me over here in the US. I’ll now be getting both USB-C and RCS on my iPhone thanks to your efforts.
I cannot tell you how thrilled I will be when I never have to use SMS/MMS again.
They did it for right to repair and USB-C, why would this be different? Its kinda like companies in the USA seeing the writing on the wall wrt minimum wage increases and preemptively raising to...
They did it for right to repair and USB-C, why would this be different?
Its kinda like companies in the USA seeing the writing on the wall wrt minimum wage increases and preemptively raising to $15/hr to get a bit of PR.
In a surprising move, Apple has announced today that it will adopt the RCS (Rich Communication Services) messaging standard. The feature will launch via a software update “later next year” and bring a wide range of iMessage-style features to messaging between iPhone and Android users.
Back when it was still known as iChat on Macs there were also third party plugins that added support for other messaging services like MSN messenger. This meant that for a while there was a window...
Back when it was still known as iChat on Macs there were also third party plugins that added support for other messaging services like MSN messenger.
This meant that for a while there was a window where the messenger app bundled with an OS was capable of communicating with people on iMessage, AIM, MSN, Facebook, Google Talk (via Jabber), and other Jabber services. While third party multi-messengers existed (like Pidgin and Adium) it was cool to not even need to install those.
I'm hoping this is due to regulatory pressure more than PR/branding pressure, only because the latter requires mere lip service to acquiesce and the former will presumably still bear scrutiny if their RCS support is still hampering communications, if they try to implement it in a way where there is still friction in communication.
If there's anything I've learned from watching Apple is that they're happy to advertise that they've always supported something a regulation mandates that they spent millions to prevent passing.
Makes that old 1984 ad that much more ironic.
They also like to pay lip service to a thing that is about to be regulated in hopes that it dashes momentum of rule passing so they can drop it when the furvor hopefully dies off.
This I know to be a common strategy for these big corporations, I just feel it has less chance of working (but still a good chance with US regulators anyhow, can't speak to EU regulators). For the PR reasons, they can just say they implemented it and anyone who nitpicks the particular details will just look like an Apple hater. Of course it's the details that can often make or break whether something actually works as it is intended.
While I know it's a minority of sorts, I think it's still a decent minority that want encrypted communication by default and everyone outside the US doesn't have to deal with this but within the US if Apple doesn't play ball, then that communication won't happen. People aren't going to move to Signal or WhatsApp in the US, so you're forced to send unencrypted SMS to 70% of the people because they use iPhones (if you're not an iPhone user).
The downside to that particular example is it happens to be one regulators don't want, so if that's the one detail that Apple refuses to implement, then regulators probably aren't going to help at all with it.
I've read reports of iPhone usage in the US in the past and remembered it being somewhere between 50-70%. No I don't have a perfect memory, I wasn't necessarily intending to misrepresent the actual number but more so to highlight the significance of the impact.
As another comment mentioned, it's seemingly closer to 60%, and I think if you consider that, 60% or 70% is not materially different to the point I was making, which should support that my intention was not to mislead because the number I chose wasn't that far off and does not materially change the substance of what I said. I felt reasonably confident enough that saying 70% wasn't going to be far off and wouldn't materially change what I was saying that I didn't feel like looking up the actual numbers at the time I made the comment. The reality is if you're trying to make a more statistically detailed argument, you'd also need to factor in other variables. In some social circles within the US, some non-iphone users might only communicate 20% of the time to iPhone users while others might communicate 90% of the time. For me, I don't know a single person that I regularly communicate with that doesn't have an iPhone (with me being the only person that has Android). So basically 100% of my communication is forced through SMS because Apple has to this point not allowed any other method and I'm never going to convince those people to use another app seeing as I'm the minority here.
Then to your other question, the remaining % that I did not account for is because there's a lot more variables to consider to make any statements about it. If for example, 60% of users in the US have an iPhone, then probably something like 39% have Android and 1% could have whatever just to account for some rare exceptions of some oddity. Well of those 39% that have Android, not all of those are necessarily using an Android phone/messaging app/carrier that supports RCS with Google's end-to-end encryption. I don't even know what the possible limitations of this are because Android is maddeningly fractured and all updates lag behind varying degrees between manufacturers that it's not worth trying to figure that out for the sake of this argument. That's not even to account for the oddities of how wireless carriers influence things that you wouldn't expect that they'd have anything to do with. So even though Google supports RCS, and in this scenario Android (primarily developed by Google) has 39% of the remaining market share, it isn't necessarily the case that all of that 39% even supports RCS or the encryption offered. This is compounded by Google messing up their messaging apps/platforms and other manufacturers offering different messaging apps as the default SMS messaging app on their phone.
As you can see, for this conversation, that becomes so ridiculously complex to come up with specific figures for all of those variables there's no reason to even try to bother. It's a massive waste of time. It was easier for me to just round to 70% from memory to account for Apple's responsibility in the matter and not address the remaining 30% and call it a day as it gets the same point across.
I think they got their numbers wrong.
A cursory google suggests that about 60% of smartphones in the US are iPhones, whereas 70% of smartphones worldwide are android.
So if you're an android user sending a text to someone in the US, there's more or less a 60% chance your text is going to be a standard sms.
I don't think it has anything to do with regulatory pressure. The EU "gatekeeper" laws would be about making iMessage, the internet-based E2EE protocol, interoperable. "Messages," the app that contains iMessage, is already interoperable and supports the SMS Standard. In fact that's why the "blue bubbles" exist. The original Messages app only supported SMS (and MMS), and everything was green. Blue showed up with iMessage to inform the user that the message had been sent using that protocol. Received messages are grey regardless of protocol.
So if the gatekeeper law were about the app, then Messages is already compliant. If it's about the protocol, iMessage isn't compliant, may not be able to even be complaint and retain E2EE, and is likely not even eligible under the law as it's EU market share is minuscule compared to WhatsApp. It's one of those EU tech laws that sounds nice but has a lot of potential drawbacks since it's fundamentally at odds with encrypted messaging (and from my personal POV a useless overreach since the SMS standard already exists).
I suspect RCS will join SMS and MMS in the single messages app and remain green, with RCS being the standard Apple assumes with actually wholly replace SMS.
In the event that Apple is forced to make iMessage interoperable and thus capable of operating without encryption, I really hope that they make unencrypted iMessage bubbles green just like SMS bubbles so people don’t fall under the illusion that their messages to e.g. Facebook Messenger contacts through iMessage are as secure as normal iMessages.
In fact they should probably go even further and add a mildly scary open lock icon somewhere when there’s no encryption to really get it across.
From what I read they will adopt the standard along with iMessage. I strongly feel as if they will still allow an iPhone user to identify if they are sending a message to a iPhone. Which, I personally prefer. I like knowing when I’m sending a message that is encrypted.
another 9to5mac article claims only iMessage bubbles will be blue.
While I’m in the same boat as you here (and additionally use Signal), keep in mind that as far as I know, at least a couple of years ago it was the case that an iMessage isn’t actually end-to-end encrypted if your recipient has turned iCloud backups/cross-device sync (can’t remember which) turned on, which is a fair assumption that most users do.
Again, not sure if it is still the case, I don’t want to put out false information, but that’d mean the vulnerability isn’t preventable on your side while using a seemingly safe protocol.
Well, sort of. The protocol is still e2ee but the other user would have a copy of the message in their iCloud backups unless they also e2ee their iCloud data, which most people don’t (for good reason).
And regardless, it’s still a major upgrade in security over SMS or non-Google RCS. Encryption with caveats is better than no encryption.
Looked into it and there is now an iCloud option to enable end 2 end. It’s called Advanced Data Protection. Which stores the encryption keys on your device via the cloud. In order to turn it on you have to turn on 2 factor auth and save your encryption key just in case you get locked out of your phone. Now I wonder what happens when one side of the message has advanced data protection and the other person has it turned off.
It'll still be E2E encrypted (as all iMessage is), but if the recipient backs up their messages to iCloud without Advanced Data Protection, Apple will have the encryption keys for their backup.
EU regulators aren't the only ones looking into Apple.
U.S. Justice Department escalates Apple probe - WSJ
Considering some of the other companies who are being tested in court on anti-competitive grounds recently, Google by the Justice Department and Apple/Google being sued by Epic (which obviously isn't the same as regulators looking at them but it does show that there is market pressure building against them although Epic didn't really have much success against Apple from what I recall).
Look at what is coming out about Google in the DOJ case and even more that they are trying to block from coming out and even if Google prevails, it's still not a pretty sight for them. It's not unrealistic that Apple might look back over a few of their services/products and see if there aren't some compromises that might cost them less than the possibility of getting dragged into court and having their dirty laundry aired like what Google is going through now.
That's why I think it could be related to regulatory pressure. Of course there's no way to know unless some inside sources leak to the media or they get dragged into court by the DOJ.
As far as EU gatekeeper laws and how it directly relates to iMessage (or the Messages app), I don't think the EU really cares about SMS all that much, from what people in the EU say on Tildes, reddit or any other platform people communicate on, it sounds like they've already moved on from SMS. What they want is inter-communication between the apps they moved onto and iMessage (or expanded functionality of the Messages app and not just the SMS/RCS component that will be built into the Messages app), for the same reason why people in the US want some kind of RCS adoption.
Saying that the SMS standard already exists as if that is a practical fallback this day and age is kinda strange. Might as well say we don't need cars because there was already horses. SMS should be dead and buried by now. Honestly RCS is pretty old as well but Google failed to break away from carriers like Apple did and they failed repeatedly to build and maintain a solid messaging platform so they backed into RCS as a compromise.
Really what I'm considering is whether Apple is going to find a way to say they technically implemented RCS while keeping that type of communication as a second class citizen like they do with SMS now (and no they in some ways aren't technically making SMS worse, they're just letting it be worse on its own, but they did let users use reactions over SMS which is sort of like making it worse). Apple could clearly have done more to make the situation better but didn't want to because they could use it as leverage to sell more phones. Is it their responsibility? Not necessarily, but that's again why I am more concerned with why they decided to do this now. If it's just PR, then they're going to continue doing the same things which is fucking everyone else over to their own benefit, and if it's regulatory concerns then they might actually try to go a bit further than the bare minimum.
Your article cites sources who mention iOS as a whole not messaging specifically, and so we can't draw any inference there. The more applicable Apple related news story would be its ongoing court battles to prevent sideloading on iOS, which civil courts have so far mostly preserved.
Honestly based on how Apple behaves most of the time, I'd wager a fair amount that they simply found a way to implement RCS in a way they think benefits them and their users. In fact it's a direct response to your claim that by not improving SMS they are making everything "worse." With USB-C Apple was involved the whole time and broadly committed to the port. The only reason they didn't move sooner was the sheer backlash they got from moving away from the 30-pin connector. I imagine Apple see's an opportunity to influence the RCS standard and is taking it. Win for Apple, win for users.
This isn't quantum mechanics, RCS has been around awhile. There's nothing new about the landscape in which they're operating other than potential regulatory pressures and brand perception. Any way in which they have "found" would have already been one they knew about many years ago and chose not to pursue because it wasn't advantageous. In this framing, it's only advantageous for them to the extent that it might subdue more negative outcomes.
This seems a little more of wild speculation than grounded speculation and while I'm fine with speculation to an extent as I'll willingly engage in it myself for reasons of practicality in casual conversation, I've not personally encountered any sources that have offered this as a reason for Apple's continued use of the Lightning port prior to the EU legislation forcing them to do otherwise. I am certainly no repository of all Apple news, I also don't live under a rock either so all I can say is that it seems hard to believe. When you factor in that Apple had a system that made them money by forcing users to buy essentially proprietary cables and pushed hard for them to have certain certifications that Apple made money from, it becomes even harder to believe that wasn't the primary reason for them not moving sooner. Then you add in that the backlash they got was for moving to a connector that no one else used and thus no consumers even had such a connector or reason to have such a connector meant they were forced to buy something they wouldn't have otherwise needed if Apple hadn't compelled them to do so. As time goes on, then USB-C had growing adoption outside of Apple products for awhile that to some extent even many Apple hardware owners were increasingly likely to have already started to be in possession of USB-C connectors. There's no comparison here to what Apple did when changing connectors before, and Apple with all of its resources and knowledge would not have been so inept to believe otherwise. That's not even considering that in Apple's less popular products they had already adopted USB-C and thus even the most ardent Apple supporters were already exposed to and in possession of USB-C connectors. That simply further supports that Apple chose to keep their most popular product on a proprietary connector that they had found a way to extract even more money from.
iMessage is considered to be a big part of why iOS is gaining so much over its competition.
Among a few other comments that came out from the Epic trial against Apple. When you combine this with what I said before, it matters even more (since that's providing Apple's perspective) because it doesn't matter what the public thinks about what regulators are looking at, it matters what Apple thinks about what regulators are looking at, at least when it comes to Apple's decision making process if they are trying to maneuver around potential antitrust challenges by the DOJ. Since Apple already had to reveal that they viewed iMessage as integral to their ecosystem leverage with iOS compared to Android, the fact that the sources indicated at all that iOS was part of their antitrust probe combined with the above would make it very reasonable to believe that iMessage would at least play a part in any case being built against Apple, even if iMessage itself wasn't central to the potential antitrust suit.
Edit: I also don't mean this to be antagonistic, I think I was trying to be more blunt than I might usually be as a way to be a little more concise considering the length of the comment already.
I've spent a bit of time here bitching about Google trying to force Apple to support RCS, so I feel duty-bound to respond to this.
I think it's a good thing.
By all means, a(n improved compared to SMS/MMS) standard communication method that works across platforms and is preinstalled on every phone is a good thing. The only thing I don't like about it is that RCS is effectively proprietary. I'd rather everyone just supported XMPP or something in that vein, but that wasn't ever going to happen.
From Wikipedia:
In February 2008 the GSM Association (GSMA) officially became the project home of RCS and an RCS steering committee was established by the organization.
So it kind of is an open protocol unless I’m misunderstanding something.
Perhaps Google could bring RCS to their very own Google Voice product and stop the hypocrisy? Calling them out for all this time might be more effective with its own house in order.
The devil is in the details. The standard is fairly broad in its descriptions so the implementations can vary wildly. There are (or more accurately, were) many different RCS implementations, and AFAIK none of them are interoperable. I skimmed through the RCS Universal Profile and most of the document is devoted to how the UI is supposed to work. More critically I was unable to find any working open source RCS implementations and Google does not provide any public APIs for it.
The protocol is open, but Google is holding the reins and hosting the servers. That's why Apple didn't want to get in before being forced.
Welp, I guess Nothing isn't going to see too much return on their investment here
Apple marketing next year will explain how Apple invented it and why it is the next big thing!
The last step will be naming it.
"RCS messaging by Apple, we call it Dynamic Emoji."
“iMessage SE”
Watch it be a separate app or some other insane implementation that still makes texting Android users a pain.
I have zero faith in Apple to properly implement this into iMessage, though I'd be happy to be proven wrong.
Finally! A hearty thank you to the EU from me over here in the US. I’ll now be getting both USB-C and RCS on my iPhone thanks to your efforts.
I cannot tell you how thrilled I will be when I never have to use SMS/MMS again.
I wonder if this is in relation to the potential EU regulations targeting having multiple different messaging apps
They did it for right to repair and USB-C, why would this be different?
Its kinda like companies in the USA seeing the writing on the wall wrt minimum wage increases and preemptively raising to $15/hr to get a bit of PR.
I remember when inessage supported jabber and irc relay. Why aren’t we using either one of those, again?
Back when it was still known as iChat on Macs there were also third party plugins that added support for other messaging services like MSN messenger.
This meant that for a while there was a window where the messenger app bundled with an OS was capable of communicating with people on iMessage, AIM, MSN, Facebook, Google Talk (via Jabber), and other Jabber services. While third party multi-messengers existed (like Pidgin and Adium) it was cool to not even need to install those.
Everyone moved to siloes.
FB Messenger used to be XMPP based, as did Google ... I want to say Chats? Maybe it was Hangouts.
Someone did a report to a mid-level manager that they could increase number of users if they were forced to join the service to talk to their friends.