As an Android user with an Apple wife, RCS implementation is the best thing ever. Apparently it is the simple things in life that excite me in my old age.
As an Android user with an Apple wife, RCS implementation is the best thing ever. Apparently it is the simple things in life that excite me in my old age.
This is worth being excited about! I was just explaining to someone today the whole RCS/SMS/iMessage situation and how it just sucks for consumers (this person was complaining about receiving...
This is worth being excited about! I was just explaining to someone today the whole RCS/SMS/iMessage situation and how it just sucks for consumers (this person was complaining about receiving videos and pictures in low-quality).
Google's still working out the kinks on the RCS multimedia compression side in Google Messages, so that person might still be experiencing low quality pictures and videos. Google Messages, for...
Google's still working out the kinks on the RCS multimedia compression side in Google Messages, so that person might still be experiencing low quality pictures and videos. Google Messages, for whatever reason, had compression enabled up until today, but in that last linked thread, it looks like videos are still compressed and photos are too for some people.
Can't speak for everyone, but I'm in Canada. Sending pictures was never really a problem. Sending videos would be so compressed they were unwatchable. Now they look normal and if they are...
Can't speak for everyone, but I'm in Canada. Sending pictures was never really a problem. Sending videos would be so compressed they were unwatchable. Now they look normal and if they are compressed I can't tell.
Agreed. I honestly assumed Apple would never want to play nice with RCS. Totally fine with still being that weird green bubble guy. Added bonus that it works well.
Agreed. I honestly assumed Apple would never want to play nice with RCS. Totally fine with still being that weird green bubble guy. Added bonus that it works well.
I've been on dbs for a while and I've been using RCS for about three or so releases. Its been awesome! I can see when people type, get the reactions right on my text, and more... just like an...
I've been on dbs for a while and I've been using RCS for about three or so releases. Its been awesome! I can see when people type, get the reactions right on my text, and more... just like an iMessage user. Perfect implementation.
Antifeature of the century material right there. Many terrible texts have been thrown away sight unseen because nobody knew I was typing them (Android user intentionally avoiding RCS). If I wanted...
I can see when people type
Antifeature of the century material right there. Many terrible texts have been thrown away sight unseen because nobody knew I was typing them (Android user intentionally avoiding RCS).
If that's the only reason you're avoiding RCS, you can disable the typing indicator. In Messages, tap the portrait in the upper right corner, tap Messages Settings, tap RCS chats, toggle "Show...
If that's the only reason you're avoiding RCS, you can disable the typing indicator. In Messages, tap the portrait in the upper right corner, tap Messages Settings, tap RCS chats, toggle "Show typing indicators."
I avoided RCS because I prefer my SMS app to Google's Messages though.
haha. I can appreciate that. You can disable this, I believe. I used to hate it, but its grown on me over the years. I hate it with every other text platform, though.
haha. I can appreciate that. You can disable this, I believe. I used to hate it, but its grown on me over the years. I hate it with every other text platform, though.
Almost perfect. RCS lacks end-to-end encryption unlike iMessage. Google briefly pushed for this to be a feature but capitulated immediately when the carriers complained.
Almost perfect. RCS lacks end-to-end encryption unlike iMessage. Google briefly pushed for this to be a feature but capitulated immediately when the carriers complained.
It's not getting blocked exactly. Google's implementation wasn't part of the RCS spec, which defeats the whole purpose of interoperability (and the purpose of a standard specification at all)....
It's not getting blocked exactly. Google's implementation wasn't part of the RCS spec, which defeats the whole purpose of interoperability (and the purpose of a standard specification at all). Last I read, Apple (and Google) were working on getting E2EE added to the RCS spec.
Hasn't RCS through Google Messages been encrypted since 2023? This article seems to say so and personally my car can't read Android to Android RSC since implementation....
Hasn't RCS through Google Messages been encrypted since 2023?
This article seems to say so and personally my car can't read Android to Android RSC since implementation.
RCS support is cool I guess, though it’s a bummer that the industry didn’t standardize on any way of encrypting it, which means that on the security front it’s no better than SMS/MMS. I probably...
RCS support is cool I guess, though it’s a bummer that the industry didn’t standardize on any way of encrypting it, which means that on the security front it’s no better than SMS/MMS. I probably won’t get much use out of it personally because everybody I know uses iMessage, Telegram, or Signal.
iOS 18 has been solid so far. Not earth shattering, but it has a number of smaller improvements.
Apple is rolling out iOS 18 and iPadOS 18, which will introduce a bunch of new features to the iPhone and iPad. One of the biggest changes with today’s launch is the addition of RCS messaging, which should help improve communication with Android users.
First announced in June, RCS messaging will finally allow iPhone and Android users to share high-res photos and videos, see typing indicators, and use read receipts. (Messages from Android users will still appear in green bubbles, though.)
I updated my old SE 2020 to 18 to see what it is like. Feels snappier(I think?) Photos app is worse though. Math Notes is alright, I’ve always used NumWorks for math stuff. Didn’t try Screen...
I updated my old SE 2020 to 18 to see what it is like.
Feels snappier(I think?)
Photos app is worse though.
Math Notes is alright, I’ve always used NumWorks for math stuff.
Didn’t try Screen Mirroring because my main phone is still on iOS 17, and won’t update until at least 18.1 if I have any desire to.
When I was on the developer betas, I had to enable and disable RCS a few times before it kicked in. Unfortunately, as it's Apple, there isn't much you can do to debug until you see the little...
When I was on the developer betas, I had to enable and disable RCS a few times before it kicked in. Unfortunately, as it's Apple, there isn't much you can do to debug until you see the little helper text in the message field saying RCS.
That's what I have read as well, but Google Fi has claimed they have everything set up and it's waiting on Apple, so I wonder how long it takes Apple to make it available on those carriers once...
That's what I have read as well, but Google Fi has claimed they have everything set up and it's waiting on Apple, so I wonder how long it takes Apple to make it available on those carriers once they are ready.
According to this Ars Technica article they haven't actually said that but made a statement that implies it. In reality since this is a complex multi-organizational but not entirely open...
According to this Ars Technica article they haven't actually said that but made a statement that implies it. In reality since this is a complex multi-organizational but not entirely open ecosystem, who knows what the real answer is. The same article links to a reddit comment from Mint's CEO saying that they're working on it, but it doesn't mention what the actual problem is. One of their moderators has a theory, but there doesn't seem to be any official confirmation from anyone involved.
It's this kind of thing that tells you exactly why it was such a dumb idea to try to standardize on a carrier-controlled messaging platform to begin with.
What was the alternative? It seems to me that it only happened this way because in the US, we had standardized on SMS initially, and then Apple came out with iMessage but baked it in a way that...
It's this kind of thing that tells you exactly why it was such a dumb idea to try to standardize on a carrier-controlled messaging platform to begin with.
What was the alternative? It seems to me that it only happened this way because in the US, we had standardized on SMS initially, and then Apple came out with iMessage but baked it in a way that worked with their SMS Messages app and made it exclusive to Apple devices. So while nearly every other region had moved off SMS to a chat system that was open on multiple platforms, the US was still on SMS and Apple capitalized on that.
It didn't help that Google botched their messaging platforms tons of times and that Microsoft gave up on their mobile OS so we were left with only Apple and Google.
I recently tried to get a friend who has an iPhone to use Signal or even Whatsapp but he wouldn't do it, he wanted to use Facebook Messenger because that's the only other thing he uses besides SMS/iMessage. Facebook Messenger is probably the least desirable of all the options to me, though I'm not sure if there's a huge distinction between Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp in terms of what Meta gains from it, WhatsApp doesn't require a Facebook account at least.
And that's basically why standardizing on RCS became a thing, because Apple has a moneymaker in iMessage and has no monetary incentive to utilize any kind of open communication system or make something multi-platform. The only way to get Apple to play ball was to leverage the fact that the only multi-platform system they supported was legacy SMS and that RCS was the upgrade to that.
I don't understand the logic of asking what the alternative is and then continuing to list a number of different alternatives. There were always options. The thing that every proprietary messaging...
I don't understand the logic of asking what the alternative is and then continuing to list a number of different alternatives. There were always options.
The thing that every proprietary messaging platform tries to do is to make money. For Apple, iMessage doesn't actually make them any money. The only money they make from it is indirect, a thing that helps make people want to use an iPhone over another device. Like you mentioned, Google famously failed to monitize messaging when dealing with the public directly, so instead they decided to focus on building a messaging platform that they could charge businesses for. That's why they swerved into RCS. They build and charge for the messaging infrastructure to the carriers. They could do this because the RCS UP is an incredibly vague standard, which is why RCS was largely not interoperable between networks before Google showed up and strongarmed that market segment.
I feel there is a good arguement to be made that we didn't really need to have a single de facto standard for messaging. Both Apple and Google have OS level integrations that would simply let you choose the best ways to communicate with someone regardless of which app is used for it.
If I were in charge, everyone would be using XMPP, an actual open standard built with extensiblity in mind and largely built in the real world with open-source servers and clients, all of which can talk to one another even if they aren't using the same servers. It's time tested, with jabber.org running continuously since 1999. Heck, even Google was using it before they decided to try to trash it in favor of a proprietary service they could more easily monetize! But in the end, practically nobody cares about a free and open ecosystem and are quickly swayed by cosmetic things like reactions and photo and video filters. They walk across the bridge made of shiny gold instead of the one made of strong steel.
The logic is that those doesn't count as solutions because the problem to those is different than the problem of RCS or SMS or iMessage, which is what I was illustrating slightly in the personal...
I don't understand the logic of asking what the alternative is and then continuing to list a number of different alternatives. There were always options.
The logic is that those doesn't count as solutions because the problem to those is different than the problem of RCS or SMS or iMessage, which is what I was illustrating slightly in the personal example I gave. Those applications have different problems that require different solutions, which is largely down to social interactions/behaviors. iMessage has a network effect in the US now and has for awhile.
To say that Apple and Google have OS level integrations that would let you choose the best ways to communicate is just not true. You cannot use anything other than Apple's Messages app for SMS. This is an essential part to leveraging SMS into iMessage gains. It's quite possible that Apple's iMessage would have lost to Google's Hangouts if Apple didn't restrict this, because Google could have added SMS support (which they had for a time on other platforms), then possibly turned the network effect in their favor by building an app that is multi-platform, including iOS, and still has SMS fallback for all other circumstances. Basically even iPhone users could have potentially been influenced to installing Hangouts because it would be the only one that works with SMS, iOS, Android, Windows, OSX etc.
The thing that every proprietary messaging platform tries to do is to make money. For Apple, iMessage doesn't actually make them any money. The only money they make from it is indirect, a thing that helps make people want to use an iPhone over another device. Like you mentioned, Google famously failed to monitize messaging when dealing with the public directly, so instead they decided to focus on building a messaging platform that they could charge businesses for. That's why they swerved into RCS. They build and charge for the messaging infrastructure to the carriers. They could do this because the RCS UP is an incredibly vague standard, which is why RCS was largely not interoperable between networks before Google showed up and strongarmed that market segment.
A lot of messaging apps/platforms that have existed didn't and haven't made money, that's probably why all the old ones have mostly died off. They were often ancillary, getting users to sign up for your service that does make money. In that way it's similar to iMessage except with iMessage it's tied to hardware rather than an account/service. The argument that Google got into RCS to make money just doesn't make any sense to me. If it was so profitable, they or someone else would have gotten into it earlier. They didn't get into it to make money, they got into it as a last resort because they bungled their earlier messaging strategies and came late to the game and lost the network effect to Apple. At some point the network effect makes it so that it's no longer about competition over functionality or features etc. and it's just about having a large enough user base. The reason why Google is the only one that did it is because they're the only other one with a viable mobile OS.
RCS was a technical solution to both a social problem and a corporate incentive problem, because it bypassed the social problems that Messenger, WhatsApp, Signal, Hangouts etc. had and leveraged that Apple still supported carrier controlled SMS. Apple straight up refuses to use the Google elements of their RCS implementation, so you can pretend like it's some quasi-open standard that Google actually controls but clearly it's not since Apple is using the universal profile and it's actually bringing RCS intercommunication between iOS and Android. While Google may be doing some heavy lifting for carriers to implement it, Apple has rejected Google contributed pieces of it and you even called it a "carrier-controlled messaging platform" before. All those other apps can't claim to do these things, which is why I suspect RCS might actually end up getting more usage than any of those other platforms in the US in a shorter amount of time.
If I were in charge, everyone would be using XMPP, an actual open standard built with extensiblity in mind and largely built in the real world with open-source servers and clients, all of which can talk to one another even if they aren't using the same servers. It's time tested, with jabber.org running continuously since 1999. Heck, even Google was using it before they decided to try to trash it in favor of a proprietary service they could more easily monetize! But in the end, practically nobody cares about a free and open ecosystem and are quickly swayed by cosmetic things like reactions and photo and video filters. They walk across the bridge made of shiny gold instead of the one made of strong steel.
While some people do, many people just get pulled in by the network effect. I don't think you can adequately compare social networking platforms like this because it's just not acknowledging why the social components to it create problems that can't be addressed by having better functionality, better security etc.
That's irrelevant. It doesn't mean that you can't use another app to communicate with other people, and the entire reason why everyone's excited about RCS is because they think SMS isn't good...
To say that Apple and Google have OS level integrations that would let you choose the best ways to communicate is just not true. You cannot use anything other than Apple's Messages app for SMS.
That's irrelevant. It doesn't mean that you can't use another app to communicate with other people, and the entire reason why everyone's excited about RCS is because they think SMS isn't good enough. It should also be noted that Google's RCS implementation is completely proprietary, so even on Android the only apps that can use it are ones that have paid Google to license it.
The argument that Google got into RCS to make money just doesn't make any sense to me. If it was so profitable, they or someone else would have gotten into it earlier. They didn't get into it to make money, they got into it as a last resort because they bungled their earlier messaging strategies and came late to the game and lost the network effect to Apple.
It makes perfect sense. For the most part, carriers didn't make their own RCS implementation, they bought them. You never heard of them because they weren't selling them to you, they were selling them to the carriers. It's the same reason why you don't know what POS system your local diner is using. There were (and may still be) a number of different implementations, and they were all pretty shitty because for the most part they weren't interoperable so you could only send messages to people who had the same carrier. There is a very long history of this. RCS had existed long before Google came in and basically took over the market for it.
If you think Google was going to agree to cooperate with countless carriers across the globe and spend significant amounts of money on development, validation, and maintenance for anything other than a big pile of money, well, you have a much better opinion of Google than anyone I know.
Apple straight up refuses to use the Google elements of their RCS implementation, so you can pretend like it's some quasi-open standard that Google actually controls but clearly it's not since Apple is using the universal profile and it's actually bringing RCS intercommunication between iOS and Android.
RCS UP is a terrible standard that isn't detailed enough to ensure interoperability. If it did, it wouldn't have been such a big problem for it before Google stepped in. Because both Google and Apple's implementations are completely proprietary and trade secret, nobody actually knows how Apple managed to get RCS running. They either reverse-engineered Google's implementation, or much more likely, they paid either Google or someone else who did the reverse-engineering to use their stuff. Things like not implementing E2E could be because they did their own thing, or it could be because they are trying to discourage people from switching to Android or something else that they prefer.
Yes, and if everyone were using other apps, no one would care that SMS isn't good enough. So it's extremely relevant you can't use another app for SMS, SMS not being good enough and that people...
That's irrelevant. It doesn't mean that you can't use another app to communicate with other people, and the entire reason why everyone's excited about RCS is because they think SMS isn't good enough.
Yes, and if everyone were using other apps, no one would care that SMS isn't good enough. So it's extremely relevant you can't use another app for SMS, SMS not being good enough and that people cared that it wasn't good enough, because that means many people were/are still using it.
Almost every time I see conversations about RCS in larger forums, anyone who is not in the US says something along the lines of "who cares" because their region is using a multi-platform app and not SMS. They generally have the benefit of having a multi-platform app but they're also just as locked in as we are in the US, so they have the same network effect problems but it just doesn't matter as much because their social networks aren't being leveraged to sell $1000 phones.
It should also be noted that Google's RCS implementation is completely proprietary, so even on Android the only apps that can use it are ones that have paid Google to license it.
A problem that very few people have had a chance to encounter and complain about because Apple has taken this long to implement RCS. I can assure you that if Apple hadn't taken this long, and wasn't clearly being obstinate because of how good iMessage is to their sales, I'd be dogging Google for that. I mean, I presumably will switch to predominantly shaming Google for that when Apple actually allows it to be a problem for me by making RCS available at all. I'd estimate 90-95% of my social network are people with iPhones.
Of the last 12 people that I talked to, 11 of them have iPhones and I know that 100%, not just guessing. The only person who doesn't have an iPhone out of those 12 (they have an Android device but I don't know what type), that's the only chat that is both RCS and encrypted. If I were to go back to my network of people that I was communicating with regularly from my former workplace, the percentages maybe dropped closer to 85-90% iPhones but it was still quite significant. So none of these people are ever going to bother using another app as their default or go to. Even if they do manage to use another app to send me some video or something, that's the only time they're ever going to use it and then they will resume SMS because it's in their Messages app. And it gets worse for group chats where they aren't going to try to convince each other to all switch to another app when its 1 person that doesn't have an iPhone, they will either just deal with shitty SMS group chat or just cut that person out. Generally it works that they might have two group chats, one that is SMS that includes that person and one that isn't that doesn't include that person, and then people just gravitate to the one that doesn't include that person because they can use all the chat features and what not.
(I didn't just draw the line at 12 because 13 started a bunch of Androids, I just stopped there because those are the people I've most recently talked to and the others were further back. I wouldn't be surprised if I went further that the last 19/20 or 19/21 or so were iPhones.)
If you think Google was going to agree to cooperate with countless carriers across the globe and spend significant amounts of money on development, validation, and maintenance for anything other than a big pile of money, well, you have a much better opinion of Google than anyone I know.
Google is losing tons of users and sales in the US because of the messaging platform issue. I'm not trying to make my personal example to be everything, everyone can go look up the stats on phone sales in the US to get the full accounting, but I know people are buying iPhones in part because of the messaging network effect. I almost bought one myself for that reason. Google didn't get into RCS to make money off the carriers, they might be now that it's catching on, but they got into RCS to save their US marketshare and that's a loss of money in terms of opportunity cost.
Yeah there's really no good reason for users for carriers to have a hand in messaging at all, aside from being a dumb pipe. It's only beneficial for carriers, who can more easily nickel and dime...
It's this kind of thing that tells you exactly why it was such a dumb idea to try to standardize on a carrier-controlled messaging platform to begin with.
Yeah there's really no good reason for users for carriers to have a hand in messaging at all, aside from being a dumb pipe. It's only beneficial for carriers, who can more easily nickel and dime and spy on users by being able to monitor the service.
Seems like a solid update, though I'm finding the Control Center controls a bit harder to tap due to their smaller size on my iPhone 12 mini. Also, Calculator is slower to load, but everything...
Seems like a solid update, though I'm finding the Control Center controls a bit harder to tap due to their smaller size on my iPhone 12 mini. Also, Calculator is slower to load, but everything else feels just as fast. I guess it's due to the Math Notes and conversion bloat? I'm glad to see expanded emoji support in iMessage tapbacks and the standalone Passwords app. Otherwise, it's been a pretty ho-hum year for the iPhone. Looking forward to finally upgrading to whatever iPhone 17 brings next year.
I was on the beta. 18.0 has been a little buggy for me on a 15 Pro. Notifications kept rendering off screen on both the lock screen and the notification shade. Thankfully that seems to have been...
I was on the beta. 18.0 has been a little buggy for me on a 15 Pro. Notifications kept rendering off screen on both the lock screen and the notification shade. Thankfully that seems to have been patched. Otherwise RCS has worked perfectly since the first beta. No major complaints.
Sadly, the RCS feature doesn't work for most iPhone users on MVNOs like Mint or Tello. This is a big pain since one of the main iPhone users I would want to use RCS with is on an MVNO. Hopefully...
Sadly, the RCS feature doesn't work for most iPhone users on MVNOs like Mint or Tello. This is a big pain since one of the main iPhone users I would want to use RCS with is on an MVNO. Hopefully this gets fixed sooner than later, because I remember they took their sweet time fixing 5G...
As an Android user with an Apple wife, RCS implementation is the best thing ever. Apparently it is the simple things in life that excite me in my old age.
This is worth being excited about! I was just explaining to someone today the whole RCS/SMS/iMessage situation and how it just sucks for consumers (this person was complaining about receiving videos and pictures in low-quality).
Google's still working out the kinks on the RCS multimedia compression side in Google Messages, so that person might still be experiencing low quality pictures and videos. Google Messages, for whatever reason, had compression enabled up until today, but in that last linked thread, it looks like videos are still compressed and photos are too for some people.
Can't speak for everyone, but I'm in Canada. Sending pictures was never really a problem. Sending videos would be so compressed they were unwatchable. Now they look normal and if they are compressed I can't tell.
Agreed. I honestly assumed Apple would never want to play nice with RCS. Totally fine with still being that weird green bubble guy. Added bonus that it works well.
I've been on dbs for a while and I've been using RCS for about three or so releases. Its been awesome! I can see when people type, get the reactions right on my text, and more... just like an iMessage user. Perfect implementation.
Antifeature of the century material right there. Many terrible texts have been thrown away sight unseen because nobody knew I was typing them (Android user intentionally avoiding RCS).
If I wanted a synchronous conversation I'd call.
If that's the only reason you're avoiding RCS, you can disable the typing indicator. In Messages, tap the portrait in the upper right corner, tap Messages Settings, tap RCS chats, toggle "Show typing indicators."
I avoided RCS because I prefer my SMS app to Google's Messages though.
I'm sure you can find a way to disable it on Android.
haha. I can appreciate that. You can disable this, I believe. I used to hate it, but its grown on me over the years. I hate it with every other text platform, though.
Almost perfect. RCS lacks end-to-end encryption unlike iMessage. Google briefly pushed for this to be a feature but capitulated immediately when the carriers complained.
so scummy to block e2e, eh. Hopefully Apple et al can figure out a workaround for this.
It's not getting blocked exactly. Google's implementation wasn't part of the RCS spec, which defeats the whole purpose of interoperability (and the purpose of a standard specification at all). Last I read, Apple (and Google) were working on getting E2EE added to the RCS spec.
Hasn't RCS through Google Messages been encrypted since 2023?
This article seems to say so and personally my car can't read Android to Android RSC since implementation.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/8/8/23824800/google-messages-rcs-end-to-end-encryption-default-group
It's definitely not encrypted between iPhones and Android. At least for now.
RCS support is cool I guess, though it’s a bummer that the industry didn’t standardize on any way of encrypting it, which means that on the security front it’s no better than SMS/MMS. I probably won’t get much use out of it personally because everybody I know uses iMessage, Telegram, or Signal.
iOS 18 has been solid so far. Not earth shattering, but it has a number of smaller improvements.
FWIW, Apple and Google are working on adding E2EE to the RCS standard.
I updated my old SE 2020 to 18 to see what it is like.
Feels snappier(I think?)
Photos app is worse though.
Math Notes is alright, I’ve always used NumWorks for math stuff.
Didn’t try Screen Mirroring because my main phone is still on iOS 17, and won’t update until at least 18.1 if I have any desire to.
I just upgraded and sadly RCS doesn’t seem to work for some reason. I know the carrier supports it but my iPhone doesn’t seem to detect that it works.
When I was on the developer betas, I had to enable and disable RCS a few times before it kicked in. Unfortunately, as it's Apple, there isn't much you can do to debug until you see the little helper text in the message field saying RCS.
It appears to be an issue with most mvnos. There is apparently some sort of relay server they will need to set up, according to the rumors.
That's what I have read as well, but Google Fi has claimed they have everything set up and it's waiting on Apple, so I wonder how long it takes Apple to make it available on those carriers once they are ready.
According to this Ars Technica article they haven't actually said that but made a statement that implies it. In reality since this is a complex multi-organizational but not entirely open ecosystem, who knows what the real answer is. The same article links to a reddit comment from Mint's CEO saying that they're working on it, but it doesn't mention what the actual problem is. One of their moderators has a theory, but there doesn't seem to be any official confirmation from anyone involved.
It's this kind of thing that tells you exactly why it was such a dumb idea to try to standardize on a carrier-controlled messaging platform to begin with.
What was the alternative? It seems to me that it only happened this way because in the US, we had standardized on SMS initially, and then Apple came out with iMessage but baked it in a way that worked with their SMS Messages app and made it exclusive to Apple devices. So while nearly every other region had moved off SMS to a chat system that was open on multiple platforms, the US was still on SMS and Apple capitalized on that.
It didn't help that Google botched their messaging platforms tons of times and that Microsoft gave up on their mobile OS so we were left with only Apple and Google.
I recently tried to get a friend who has an iPhone to use Signal or even Whatsapp but he wouldn't do it, he wanted to use Facebook Messenger because that's the only other thing he uses besides SMS/iMessage. Facebook Messenger is probably the least desirable of all the options to me, though I'm not sure if there's a huge distinction between Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp in terms of what Meta gains from it, WhatsApp doesn't require a Facebook account at least.
And that's basically why standardizing on RCS became a thing, because Apple has a moneymaker in iMessage and has no monetary incentive to utilize any kind of open communication system or make something multi-platform. The only way to get Apple to play ball was to leverage the fact that the only multi-platform system they supported was legacy SMS and that RCS was the upgrade to that.
I don't understand the logic of asking what the alternative is and then continuing to list a number of different alternatives. There were always options.
The thing that every proprietary messaging platform tries to do is to make money. For Apple, iMessage doesn't actually make them any money. The only money they make from it is indirect, a thing that helps make people want to use an iPhone over another device. Like you mentioned, Google famously failed to monitize messaging when dealing with the public directly, so instead they decided to focus on building a messaging platform that they could charge businesses for. That's why they swerved into RCS. They build and charge for the messaging infrastructure to the carriers. They could do this because the RCS UP is an incredibly vague standard, which is why RCS was largely not interoperable between networks before Google showed up and strongarmed that market segment.
I feel there is a good arguement to be made that we didn't really need to have a single de facto standard for messaging. Both Apple and Google have OS level integrations that would simply let you choose the best ways to communicate with someone regardless of which app is used for it.
If I were in charge, everyone would be using XMPP, an actual open standard built with extensiblity in mind and largely built in the real world with open-source servers and clients, all of which can talk to one another even if they aren't using the same servers. It's time tested, with jabber.org running continuously since 1999. Heck, even Google was using it before they decided to try to trash it in favor of a proprietary service they could more easily monetize! But in the end, practically nobody cares about a free and open ecosystem and are quickly swayed by cosmetic things like reactions and photo and video filters. They walk across the bridge made of shiny gold instead of the one made of strong steel.
The logic is that those doesn't count as solutions because the problem to those is different than the problem of RCS or SMS or iMessage, which is what I was illustrating slightly in the personal example I gave. Those applications have different problems that require different solutions, which is largely down to social interactions/behaviors. iMessage has a network effect in the US now and has for awhile.
To say that Apple and Google have OS level integrations that would let you choose the best ways to communicate is just not true. You cannot use anything other than Apple's Messages app for SMS. This is an essential part to leveraging SMS into iMessage gains. It's quite possible that Apple's iMessage would have lost to Google's Hangouts if Apple didn't restrict this, because Google could have added SMS support (which they had for a time on other platforms), then possibly turned the network effect in their favor by building an app that is multi-platform, including iOS, and still has SMS fallback for all other circumstances. Basically even iPhone users could have potentially been influenced to installing Hangouts because it would be the only one that works with SMS, iOS, Android, Windows, OSX etc.
A lot of messaging apps/platforms that have existed didn't and haven't made money, that's probably why all the old ones have mostly died off. They were often ancillary, getting users to sign up for your service that does make money. In that way it's similar to iMessage except with iMessage it's tied to hardware rather than an account/service. The argument that Google got into RCS to make money just doesn't make any sense to me. If it was so profitable, they or someone else would have gotten into it earlier. They didn't get into it to make money, they got into it as a last resort because they bungled their earlier messaging strategies and came late to the game and lost the network effect to Apple. At some point the network effect makes it so that it's no longer about competition over functionality or features etc. and it's just about having a large enough user base. The reason why Google is the only one that did it is because they're the only other one with a viable mobile OS.
RCS was a technical solution to both a social problem and a corporate incentive problem, because it bypassed the social problems that Messenger, WhatsApp, Signal, Hangouts etc. had and leveraged that Apple still supported carrier controlled SMS. Apple straight up refuses to use the Google elements of their RCS implementation, so you can pretend like it's some quasi-open standard that Google actually controls but clearly it's not since Apple is using the universal profile and it's actually bringing RCS intercommunication between iOS and Android. While Google may be doing some heavy lifting for carriers to implement it, Apple has rejected Google contributed pieces of it and you even called it a "carrier-controlled messaging platform" before. All those other apps can't claim to do these things, which is why I suspect RCS might actually end up getting more usage than any of those other platforms in the US in a shorter amount of time.
While some people do, many people just get pulled in by the network effect. I don't think you can adequately compare social networking platforms like this because it's just not acknowledging why the social components to it create problems that can't be addressed by having better functionality, better security etc.
That's irrelevant. It doesn't mean that you can't use another app to communicate with other people, and the entire reason why everyone's excited about RCS is because they think SMS isn't good enough. It should also be noted that Google's RCS implementation is completely proprietary, so even on Android the only apps that can use it are ones that have paid Google to license it.
It makes perfect sense. For the most part, carriers didn't make their own RCS implementation, they bought them. You never heard of them because they weren't selling them to you, they were selling them to the carriers. It's the same reason why you don't know what POS system your local diner is using. There were (and may still be) a number of different implementations, and they were all pretty shitty because for the most part they weren't interoperable so you could only send messages to people who had the same carrier. There is a very long history of this. RCS had existed long before Google came in and basically took over the market for it.
If you think Google was going to agree to cooperate with countless carriers across the globe and spend significant amounts of money on development, validation, and maintenance for anything other than a big pile of money, well, you have a much better opinion of Google than anyone I know.
RCS UP is a terrible standard that isn't detailed enough to ensure interoperability. If it did, it wouldn't have been such a big problem for it before Google stepped in. Because both Google and Apple's implementations are completely proprietary and trade secret, nobody actually knows how Apple managed to get RCS running. They either reverse-engineered Google's implementation, or much more likely, they paid either Google or someone else who did the reverse-engineering to use their stuff. Things like not implementing E2E could be because they did their own thing, or it could be because they are trying to discourage people from switching to Android or something else that they prefer.
Yes, and if everyone were using other apps, no one would care that SMS isn't good enough. So it's extremely relevant you can't use another app for SMS, SMS not being good enough and that people cared that it wasn't good enough, because that means many people were/are still using it.
Almost every time I see conversations about RCS in larger forums, anyone who is not in the US says something along the lines of "who cares" because their region is using a multi-platform app and not SMS. They generally have the benefit of having a multi-platform app but they're also just as locked in as we are in the US, so they have the same network effect problems but it just doesn't matter as much because their social networks aren't being leveraged to sell $1000 phones.
A problem that very few people have had a chance to encounter and complain about because Apple has taken this long to implement RCS. I can assure you that if Apple hadn't taken this long, and wasn't clearly being obstinate because of how good iMessage is to their sales, I'd be dogging Google for that. I mean, I presumably will switch to predominantly shaming Google for that when Apple actually allows it to be a problem for me by making RCS available at all. I'd estimate 90-95% of my social network are people with iPhones.
Of the last 12 people that I talked to, 11 of them have iPhones and I know that 100%, not just guessing. The only person who doesn't have an iPhone out of those 12 (they have an Android device but I don't know what type), that's the only chat that is both RCS and encrypted. If I were to go back to my network of people that I was communicating with regularly from my former workplace, the percentages maybe dropped closer to 85-90% iPhones but it was still quite significant. So none of these people are ever going to bother using another app as their default or go to. Even if they do manage to use another app to send me some video or something, that's the only time they're ever going to use it and then they will resume SMS because it's in their Messages app. And it gets worse for group chats where they aren't going to try to convince each other to all switch to another app when its 1 person that doesn't have an iPhone, they will either just deal with shitty SMS group chat or just cut that person out. Generally it works that they might have two group chats, one that is SMS that includes that person and one that isn't that doesn't include that person, and then people just gravitate to the one that doesn't include that person because they can use all the chat features and what not.
(I didn't just draw the line at 12 because 13 started a bunch of Androids, I just stopped there because those are the people I've most recently talked to and the others were further back. I wouldn't be surprised if I went further that the last 19/20 or 19/21 or so were iPhones.)
Google is losing tons of users and sales in the US because of the messaging platform issue. I'm not trying to make my personal example to be everything, everyone can go look up the stats on phone sales in the US to get the full accounting, but I know people are buying iPhones in part because of the messaging network effect. I almost bought one myself for that reason. Google didn't get into RCS to make money off the carriers, they might be now that it's catching on, but they got into RCS to save their US marketshare and that's a loss of money in terms of opportunity cost.
Yeah there's really no good reason for users for carriers to have a hand in messaging at all, aside from being a dumb pipe. It's only beneficial for carriers, who can more easily nickel and dime and spy on users by being able to monitor the service.
Seems like a solid update, though I'm finding the Control Center controls a bit harder to tap due to their smaller size on my iPhone 12 mini. Also, Calculator is slower to load, but everything else feels just as fast. I guess it's due to the Math Notes and conversion bloat? I'm glad to see expanded emoji support in iMessage tapbacks and the standalone Passwords app. Otherwise, it's been a pretty ho-hum year for the iPhone. Looking forward to finally upgrading to whatever iPhone 17 brings next year.
I was on the beta. 18.0 has been a little buggy for me on a 15 Pro. Notifications kept rendering off screen on both the lock screen and the notification shade. Thankfully that seems to have been patched. Otherwise RCS has worked perfectly since the first beta. No major complaints.
Sadly, the RCS feature doesn't work for most iPhone users on MVNOs like Mint or Tello. This is a big pain since one of the main iPhone users I would want to use RCS with is on an MVNO. Hopefully this gets fixed sooner than later, because I remember they took their sweet time fixing 5G...