New Google site begs Apple for mercy in messaging war

Google is tired of losing so badly to iMessage, so it wants Apple to adopt RCS.

Read the whole story

 

[Snarky Robot]

I see a lot of dismissive comments about the color coding, but I find the green ones hard to read due to the significantly worse contrast ratio. I’m all for distinguishing SMS. I also find it overwhelmingly likely that Apple went with a poor presentation intentionally for non iMessage. Darkening that green slightly to improve readability would have been pretty darn obvious.

SMS messages on iPhone have always been green. They were green at the beginning. They were green when Apple introduced iMessage. They’re green now if reception is bad enough it can’t send by iMessage, EVEN IF YOU’RE SENDING TO ANOTHER iPHONE.

Green text is stuff sent by SMS, just like it was in 2007. Unless you want to accuse them of planning this out over a decade in advance, I think it’s safe to say that no, they went with the presentation that they wanted at that time.

 

[TheAxMan]

Google begging for mercy has echoes of Microsoft begging for mercy with a native YouTube app for Windows Phone circa 2012. Google even made sure to deprecate Microsoft's homemade app for YouTube when the former wouldn't bother with it.

Suck it, Google. What goes around comes around.

Precisely!

I very much want a world of interoperability, but it has to be a two-way street. Google cannot leverage its services to kill competing platforms, and then complain when their platform's adoption gets limited by the same strategy.

 

[Snarky Robot]

Apple is essentially leveraging their closed ecosystem to make Android look bad, Google can play the same game.

Pleas explain how “all SMS, even between iPhones, is displayed with green text, as it has been since before Android even existed” is “making Android look bad”.

 

[brewejon]

I am going to personally solve texting for Google, by getting rid of my Android device and moving over to an iPhone. I am tired of supporting a company that doesn't care about its customers' privacy, or any personal investment they may have built in the countless services Google has unceramonially cancelled over the years.

Android had a lot of potential, so it is unfortunate that Google MBA'd itself to this extent over the years, but I am not suffering for their shortsightedness any longer.

I was big into google. I had a Pixel, Google Play was my music, I used gmail pretty much exclusively (via Inbox), and was on GoogleFi. This was 2016. Now I am on iPhone and use Apple Music and am doing everything I can to de-Google myself. Well done Google!

Same. It’s incredible how one company can screw up so badly.

 

[barrattm]

This will only ever get resolved if it becomes an anti-trust issue in the USA.

There does need to be a minimum, standardised, works for absolutely everybody messaging system, because that is an enabler of so many other things. So far, the only option is SMS, and thank goodness it got built into the standards in the 1980s before big tech existed, allowing the standard's engineers to engineer it unencumbered by corporate interests.

If someone can identify that there is some arena of business being held up unless a richer messaging standard is adopted, where there will be harm-the-consumer consequences if they cannot participate because it is proprietary, then that creates a reason why a government should get involved to force adoption of an improved standard.

But I don't really see anything that fits that bill. SMS just about covers the essentials of life and commerce, and it's hard to envisage something that is essential about, say, WhatsApp or iMessage that must be standardised. If consumers and companies want to operate social media in a dysfunctional way, who cares?

 

[Numfuddle]

Google begging for mercy has echoes of Microsoft begging for mercy with a native YouTube app for Windows Phone circa 2012. Google even made sure to deprecate Microsoft's homemade app for YouTube when the former wouldn't bother with it.

Suck it, Google. What goes around comes around.

They did the same with the iOS YouTube app. Apples homebrew app was for a long time the only version because Google couldn’t be bothered and then when they finally did make their own App the Apple version was the much better version.

Then Google said „no you have to use our app“ and deprecated a lot of APIs that were used by third parties. I‘d argue that the last version of Apple‘s YouTube app was still better than even the current 2022 version from Google.

Google only cares about interoperability when they haven’t „won“ yet.

 

[Deleted member 43669]

This will only ever get resolved if it becomes an anti-trust issue in the USA.

There does need to be a minimum, standardised, works for absolutely everybody messaging system, because that is an enabler of so many other things. So far, the only option is SMS, and thank goodness it got built into the standards in the 1980s before big tech existed, allowing the standard's engineers to engineer it unencumbered by corporate interests.

If someone can identify that there is some arena of business being held up unless a richer messaging standard is adopted, where there will be harm-the-consumer consequences if they cannot participate because it is proprietary, then that creates a reason why a government should get involved to force adoption of an improved standard.

But I don't really see anything that fits that bill. SMS just about covers the essentials of life and commerce, and it's hard to envisage something that is essential about, say, WhatsApp or iMessage that must be standardised. If consumers and companies want to operate social media in a dysfunctional way, who cares?

The problem with this is that in many places, sending SMS has a cost. I think most mobile plans in Spain, for instance, have a ~0.10€ fee per message. I suppose there are plans with free texts, but it's not really a thing here. And frankly, I believe SMS is so out of style, that if you send an SMS to someone they're going to think it's phishing.

 

[Questar]

This will only ever get resolved if it becomes an anti-trust issue in the USA.

There does need to be a minimum, standardised, works for absolutely everybody messaging system, because that is an enabler of so many other things. So far, the only option is SMS, and thank goodness it got built into the standards in the 1980s before big tech existed, allowing the standard's engineers to engineer it unencumbered by corporate interests.

If someone can identify that there is some arena of business being held up unless a richer messaging standard is adopted, where there will be harm-the-consumer consequences if they cannot participate because it is proprietary, then that creates a reason why a government should get involved to force adoption of an improved standard.

But I don't really see anything that fits that bill. SMS just about covers the essentials of life and commerce, and it's hard to envisage something that is essential about, say, WhatsApp or iMessage that must be standardised. If consumers and companies want to operate social media in a dysfunctional way, who cares?

You don’t think big tech existed in the 80’s? Ever heard of companies like IBM, Xerox, ATT, Kodak?

The names have changed, but there’s been big tech companies since tech has existed.

 

[dj__jg]

If google had stuck with hangouts they would have been WhatsApp big

Dutch view:
I remember Hangouts being /the/ video chat and collaboration tool we used in highschool at some point, Skype had recently gone to shit and was universally hated.

If they had pushed and polished it a bit better, perhaps better integration with google Docs, it could probably have competed with Whatsapp quite well. I seem to recall it did some weird shit with integrating sms messages, that was stupid and didn't help I think.

Back then Whatsapp was definitely the standard, but people were were willing to try something else (if you had space on your phone anyway). Now Whatsapp has been the standard for a decade and switching that is almost impossible.

 

[dj__jg]

This will only ever get resolved if it becomes an anti-trust issue in the USA.

There does need to be a minimum, standardised, works for absolutely everybody messaging system, because that is an enabler of so many other things. So far, the only option is SMS, and thank goodness it got built into the standards in the 1980s before big tech existed, allowing the standard's engineers to engineer it unencumbered by corporate interests.

If someone can identify that there is some arena of business being held up unless a richer messaging standard is adopted, where there will be harm-the-consumer consequences if they cannot participate because it is proprietary, then that creates a reason why a government should get involved to force adoption of an improved standard.

But I don't really see anything that fits that bill. SMS just about covers the essentials of life and commerce, and it's hard to envisage something that is essential about, say, WhatsApp or iMessage that must be standardised. If consumers and companies want to operate social media in a dysfunctional way, who cares?

The problem with this is that in many places, sending SMS has a cost. I think most mobile plans in Spain, for instance, have a ~0.10€ fee per message. I suppose there are plans with free texts, but it's not really a thing here. And frankly, I believe SMS is so out of style, that if you send an SMS to someone they're going to think it's phishing.

Here in NL most 'decent' mobile data plans will include something like 300 free SMS messages, sometimes combined in something like 300 calling minutes or messages. The larger 'upsell' dataplan (the just a bit too expensive plan with the large jump in price and capacity from the smaller one that is just a bit too small) will generally have unlimited calls/sms.

Of course you can find mobile plans without sms included and maybe they're a bit cheaper, but almost any dataplan will include at least a small bundle of sms and call minutes.

Whatsapp is the default communication platform though, if you get someone number you will generally use it to message them on whatsapp. Voice calling would be cellular usually, unless you're old and don't know the call icon in whatsapp calls through whatsapp

 

[mathguru]

Hate to be that guy, but acronyms are killing me in this otherwise great article. Maybe spell them out when first used so folks not familiar with this jargon don't have to go research?

 

[plectrum]

For the record, my current rates on O2 UK are 2p/SMS and 55p/MMS. That’s a tariff no longer available to new customers. The tariff you can get today is 30p/SMS and 55p/MMS. These kinds of rates are not uncommon on pay as you go tariffs (in recent years the main networks have been desperate in trying to get people to pay for a monthly bundle, even on prepay, and jacked up their per-minute/per-SMS rates to punitive levels)

I have never sent an MMS. At this kind of pricing I have no confidence that anything touched by carriers won’t be subject to similar kinds of extortion.

(do networks who offer RCS charge for it like the above?)

 

[coolblue2000]

Too little too late. Outside the US, Android users have already moved on from Google's messaging to other messaging platforms. Inside the US, you're either using an iPhone or desperately pleading with the people you know to use a different messaging platform like WhatsApp before you give up & get an iPhone.

I am not on Whatsapp and never will be. I will never use anything related to Facebook. So built in Messaging in Android is very important to me as it is the only real way I can message people reliably (apart from email). The fact that every messaging app Google have produced has been good but missing features and then instead of updating it with new features they create a whole new app is infuriating! Hangouts was really good. DUO is good, Allo was not bad, they just never stick around long enough for them to actually become mature and well integrated applications... Facetime has stuck around, It has changed and evolved but the name is the same and the general user experience is the same. So "Facetime" is now a common word for a video call. Google seem to ignore this simple marketing fact and prefer to baffle people with many new names for the same general service and change the user experience so no one ever gets used to a single way of doing something. It is clear that higher management in Google is just out of control.

 

[huzzam]

If google had stuck with hangouts they would have been WhatsApp big

Seriously... back when Hangouts was the contender, that was the one and only time i've ever had all my messaging in one place. I could send sms to phones, and gtalk to android users and anyone sitting with their gmail open. I even evangelized it a bit, convincing some friends to install it on their iphones, back in 2009 or whenever that was.

 

[huzzam]

Too little too late. Outside the US, Android users have already moved on from Google's messaging to other messaging platforms. Inside the US, you're either using an iPhone or desperately pleading with the people you know to use a different messaging platform like WhatsApp before you give up & get an iPhone.

I am not on Whatsapp and never will be. I will never use anything related to Facebook. So built in Messaging in Android is very important to me as it is the only real way I can message people reliably (apart from email). The fact that every messaging app Google have produced has been good but missing features and then instead of updating it with new features they create a whole new app is infuriating! Hangouts was really good. DUO is good, Allo was not bad, they just never stick around long enough for them to actually become mature and well integrated applications... Facetime has stuck around, It has changed and evolved but the name is the same and the general user experience is the same. So "Facetime" is now a common word for a video call. Google seem to ignore this simple marketing fact and prefer to baffle people with many new names for the same general service and change the user experience so no one ever gets used to a single way of doing something. It is clear that higher management in Google is just out of control.

So use Signal. it's the most secure and most private, it's cross-platform and open source, has parity of important features with whatsapp and imessage/facetime, and has a decent userbase.

 

[Oliver Weichhold]

Screw Google. You didn't play nice so many times, so why should apple do?

 

[coolblue2000]

Too little too late. Outside the US, Android users have already moved on from Google's messaging to other messaging platforms. Inside the US, you're either using an iPhone or desperately pleading with the people you know to use a different messaging platform like WhatsApp before you give up & get an iPhone.

I am not on Whatsapp and never will be. I will never use anything related to Facebook. So built in Messaging in Android is very important to me as it is the only real way I can message people reliably (apart from email). The fact that every messaging app Google have produced has been good but missing features and then instead of updating it with new features they create a whole new app is infuriating! Hangouts was really good. DUO is good, Allo was not bad, they just never stick around long enough for them to actually become mature and well integrated applications... Facetime has stuck around, It has changed and evolved but the name is the same and the general user experience is the same. So "Facetime" is now a common word for a video call. Google seem to ignore this simple marketing fact and prefer to baffle people with many new names for the same general service and change the user experience so no one ever gets used to a single way of doing something. It is clear that higher management in Google is just out of control.

So use Signal. it's the most secure and most private, it's cross-platform and open source, has parity of important features with whatsapp and imessage/facetime, and has a decent userbase.

Does it have a decent user base among my family and friends and various other people I need to contact though? Nope it does not. Yet everyone has either Google messaging or iMessage. Asking my children's Swimming Coach to sign up to signal just to talk to me is unlikely to go down well...

 

[Thunderracker]

I am going to personally solve texting for Google, by getting rid of my Android device and moving over to an iPhone. I am tired of supporting a company that doesn't care about its customers' privacy, or any personal investment they may have built in the countless services Google has unceramonially cancelled over the years.

Android had a lot of potential, so it is unfortunate that Google MBA'd itself to this extent over the years, but I am not suffering for their shortsightedness any longer.

I think it is important that we look at the relative purposes of the companies when we look at iPhone vs Android. Besides all of the technical and philosophical reasons to choose one platform over another there is this consideration:

Apple is in the business of selling you hardware. Yes they have a walled garden, but the purpose of that garden is to sell you more apple hardware.

Google is an ad company. All of their services are designed to drive a huge market research effort to make their ad platforms more valuable to their customers who are not you, they are companies who want to sell you something.

We forget that before iphone, carriers determined what was on your phone. The iPhone was originally AT&T exclusive because Verizon wasn’t willing to give up control over what was on your phone. Often times carriers would not support updates to phones because screw you, that’s why.

In my view, I want carriers to control as little as possible. I try to reduce my exposure to ad companies. But I can’t get my family and friends to mass adopt signal. So what to do?

Basically I am going to get screwed by someone. So I am choosing to get screwed by Apple since I can at least mildly trust them to try to limit the number of other companies who would try to screw me.

Google would screw me and invite a bunch of other people to have a go.

Meta would put my phone number on the wall at truck stops.

 

[bb-15]

This article reads more like an advertorial for Apple, than a serious analysis of the issue.

There is no serious analysis in your comment.

Instead, Apple would rather use iMessage as a way to confuse their own users into thinking that iMessage "just works"

It’s not confusing at all.
iMessage does work very well.
It is a fact that Google has released several messaging services which has inconvenienced many users as stated in this article comment thread.

they think the reason texts from Android phones look crappy on iMessage,

This is a myth. Texts don’t look crappy on iPhones.
Anyone who is familiar with iPhones knows;
1. iPhone screen quality has improved drastically over the years in terms of pixel density and display quality.
2. All received messages on an iPhone have the same color.
3. The sent messages on the first iPhones all had green text bubbles.
Again, anyone who is familiar with iPhone tech, knows that the readability of all text messages has improved on iPhones over the years.

I think a better startegy for Google would be to treat Apple to a dose of their own medicine. Make Google searches and Gmail and Google Maps worse on iPhones

Nonsense based on wrong information.

Edit; to fix quote format

 

[Edak]

"RCS" is written 27 times in the article, but not once did Ars actually write what the acronym RCS stood for... For those who care, Rich Communication Services.

 

[Thunderracker]

OMG. the bullying nonsense. I actually had a 35+ year olde student tell me he disliked Apple because his friends teased him about not having an iPhone. I told him it sounded to me like the problem was his friends. He just looked at me.

People. If your friends tease you because it is slightly harder to talk to you over texts and you can't give that same shit back to them about being unlocked, paying less, or whatever your reason for being on Android is. And then you all laugh about it because it is BS. They are not your friends.

Also, being lightly mocked is not bullying. And if it is anything more than someone lightly mocking you to get you off your high horse, they are not your friend, so who the fuck cares?

Ok, this is totally yelling at kids to get off my lawn, but I was literally hunted by drunk mullet heads, because I had the audacity to yell back at them after they yelled insults and threw eggs at me (because of the way I looked). As in there were 5 of them in a car and I was by myself in a small town at 1AM. They spent 30-45 minutes looking for me. This wasn't a one time occurrence. It happened on a regular basis. I still get shit screamed at me on a fairly regular basis (because I don't look or dress normal).

Does it suck that someone says, man, all of my group texts work and everyone gets my emoji, except you, you android freak? yes! But if you can't come right back at them and say, well my android and everyone I know on android can do XYZ (X being customize your screen layout exactly how you want it, Y being able to automate all the things that iPhones still lag at, and Z being thrifty), then maybe you shouldn't be on Android, cause you have no clear idea why you are. And also that is not bullying, in the way I have understood it.

To be honest that is true about a lot of things. I grew up poor in the late 80’s. Kids were cracking on me because I wore old army/navy surplus or thrift store clothes (seriously a WWII Eisenhower jacket was plenty warm and I always thought looked cool.) and Converse all stars to school. Where they were spending $150-300 on Air Jordan’s.

The point is we were all growing. I grew 18 inches between 8th and 11 grade. My parents were both working and struggling to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table.

The best day ever was when I realized that I really didn’t care what my idiot peers thought. The second best day was when a guy at my new school thought he could bully me just because he was bigger than me. Sure he gave me a black eye. But it took him 25 minutes to fight me because I wouldn’t quit, he ripped up clothes and got a broken nose for his trouble. All because I followed the don’t start a fight, but finish it every time. Over time, they learn not to mess with me.

Being a bully is wrong. Being bullied is horrible. Don’t do it around me. But if you tell me that you are being bullied because your message bubble is green on some obnoxious idiots phone, I humbly suggest you reevaluate your priorities because that is some weaksauce right there.

 

[jasonmicron]

I logged in to Gmail yesterday and was asked if I wanted to use Chat or Hangouts or both as my chat option in Gmail.

I am tech savvy and keep up with tech news. I chose neither. Normal users that don't really keep up with tech news won't know which one to choose and the query wasn't very clear that you could choose neither. And most haven't heard of either.

What is Google trying to do here, exactly? I only mentioned this because it seemed related. Or at the very least, the question I saw in Gmail was weirdly timed with this story.

 

[MalEbenSo]

Google begging for mercy has echoes of Microsoft begging for mercy with a native YouTube app for Windows Phone circa 2012. Google even made sure to deprecate Microsoft's homemade app for YouTube when the former wouldn't bother with it.

Suck it, Google. What goes around comes around.

Precisely!

I very much want a world of interoperability, but it has to be a two-way street. Google cannot leverage its services to kill competing platforms, and then complain when their platform's adoption gets limited by the same strategy.

The EU is looking at mandating interoperability. A complex venture.

https://www.eff.org/de/deeplinks/2022/0 ... eed-raises

 

[Thunderracker]

Do green bubble people even have opinions??? Lol. Sorry. Couldn’t resist.

Seriously though, Google should have bought what’s app when they had the chance.

You do know they tried, right?

I disagree. They offered 10 billion. Facebook offered 16. Of Google really wanted WhatsApp, they would have WhatsApp. Ostensibly a messaging platform that is number 1 in most places could have been theirs for as little as $17 billion.

They weren't worth 16, let alone 10 billion. And besides, they would have ruined it in a few years.

I agree with both your points. However I submit that the fact that they would have killed it eventually means that it was worth more.

In the circle of life for business you either develop your own strategy, you buy someone else and use theirs, or you get bought.

Google can’t do the first two very well and they are too big for option number 3.

But outside of Google, would you pay $17 billion in 201whatever for a platform that 80-85 percent of the world uses? What would the market cap of whatsapp be by itself now?

 

[bb-15]

OMG. the bullying nonsense. I actually had a 35+ year olde student tell me he disliked Apple because his friends teased him about not having an iPhone. I told him it sounded to me like the problem was his friends. He just looked at me.

People. If your friends tease you because it is slightly harder to talk to you over texts and you can't give that same shit back to them about being unlocked, paying less, or whatever your reason for being on Android is. And then you all laugh about it because it is BS. They are not your friends.

Also, being lightly mocked is not bullying. And if it is anything more than someone lightly mocking you to get you off your high horse, they are not your friend, so who the fuck cares?

Ok, this is totally yelling at kids to get off my lawn, but I was literally hunted by drunk mullet heads, because I had the audacity to yell back at them after they yelled insults and threw eggs at me (because of the way I looked). As in there were 5 of them in a car and I was by myself in a small town at 1AM. They spent 30-45 minutes looking for me. This wasn't a one time occurrence. It happened on a regular basis. I still get shit screamed at me on a fairly regular basis (because I don't look or dress normal).

Does it suck that someone says, man, all of my group texts work and everyone gets my emoji, except you, you android freak? yes! But if you can't come right back at them and say, well my android and everyone I know on android can do XYZ (X being customize your screen layout exactly how you want it, Y being able to automate all the things that iPhones still lag at, and Z being thrifty), then maybe you shouldn't be on Android, cause you have no clear idea why you are. And also that is not bullying, in the way I have understood it.

To be honest that is true about a lot of things. I grew up poor in the late 80’s. Kids were cracking on me because I wore old army/navy surplus or thrift store clothes (seriously a WWII Eisenhower jacket was plenty warm and I always thought looked cool.) and Converse all stars to school. Where they were spending $150-300 on Air Jordan’s.

The point is we were all growing. I grew 18 inches between 8th and 11 grade. My parents were both working and struggling to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table.

The best day ever was when I realized that I really didn’t care what my idiot peers thought. The second best day was when a guy at my new school thought he could bully me just because he was bigger than me. Sure he gave me a black eye. But it took him 25 minutes to fight me because I wouldn’t quit, he ripped up clothes and got a broken nose for his trouble. All because I followed the don’t start a fight, but finish it every time. Over time, they learn not to mess with me.

Being a bully is wrong. Being bullied is horrible. Don’t do it around me. But if you tell me that you are being bullied because your message bubble is green on some obnoxious idiots phone, I humbly suggest you reevaluate your priorities because that is some weaksauce right there.

I agree that bullying due to a choice of technology is wrong.
Unfortunately, many Mac users have been bullied, teased, hassled for decades by DOS & later Windows PC users.

As for your anecdotes about being bullied over clothes, that happened in my school to me and many others. I’m sure it happens in many schools around the world unfortunately.

Back to tech choices. Mac users, including me, being the minority received abuse for many years. It happened in online discussions. It was a common attitude in IS departments where I worked.
It still takes place in some YouTube comments. There are YouTube channels who cater to the anti Apple crowd.

Was there any feedback that such criticism of Mac users was wrong? Not much.
The hassling of Mac users was accepted in the tech community for years before the iPhone.
The arrival of the iPhone began to change things where the two sides became more equally balanced regarding tech hostility.

 

[weilawei]

OMG. the bullying nonsense. I actually had a 35+ year olde student tell me he disliked Apple because his friends teased him about not having an iPhone. I told him it sounded to me like the problem was his friends. He just looked at me.

People. If your friends tease you because it is slightly harder to talk to you over texts and you can't give that same shit back to them about being unlocked, paying less, or whatever your reason for being on Android is. And then you all laugh about it because it is BS. They are not your friends.

Also, being lightly mocked is not bullying. And if it is anything more than someone lightly mocking you to get you off your high horse, they are not your friend, so who the fuck cares?

Ok, this is totally yelling at kids to get off my lawn, but I was literally hunted by drunk mullet heads, because I had the audacity to yell back at them after they yelled insults and threw eggs at me (because of the way I looked). As in there were 5 of them in a car and I was by myself in a small town at 1AM. They spent 30-45 minutes looking for me. This wasn't a one time occurrence. It happened on a regular basis. I still get shit screamed at me on a fairly regular basis (because I don't look or dress normal).

Does it suck that someone says, man, all of my group texts work and everyone gets my emoji, except you, you android freak? yes! But if you can't come right back at them and say, well my android and everyone I know on android can do XYZ (X being customize your screen layout exactly how you want it, Y being able to automate all the things that iPhones still lag at, and Z being thrifty), then maybe you shouldn't be on Android, cause you have no clear idea why you are. And also that is not bullying, in the way I have understood it.

To be honest that is true about a lot of things. I grew up poor in the late 80’s. Kids were cracking on me because I wore old army/navy surplus or thrift store clothes (seriously a WWII Eisenhower jacket was plenty warm and I always thought looked cool.) and Converse all stars to school. Where they were spending $150-300 on Air Jordan’s.

The point is we were all growing. I grew 18 inches between 8th and 11 grade. My parents were both working and struggling to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table.

The best day ever was when I realized that I really didn’t care what my idiot peers thought. The second best day was when a guy at my new school thought he could bully me just because he was bigger than me. Sure he gave me a black eye. But it took him 25 minutes to fight me because I wouldn’t quit, he ripped up clothes and got a broken nose for his trouble. All because I followed the don’t start a fight, but finish it every time. Over time, they learn not to mess with me.

Being a bully is wrong. Being bullied is horrible. Don’t do it around me. But if you tell me that you are being bullied because your message bubble is green on some obnoxious idiots phone, I humbly suggest you reevaluate your priorities because that is some weaksauce right there.

I went to schools with Zero Tolerance policies (both military schools under DODDS, and civilian public schools later), and quickly learned that what it means is Maximum Violence. See, I got suspended for a kid walking up behind me and punching me in the back of the head--and instead of fighting him, I reported it. He got away with it, I got suspended because I was the only one who "admitted" to, "being involved in an altercation."

Turns out, Zero Tolerance is a synonym for Victim Blaming. I learned real quick that I'd get worse, or the exact same punishment, for being ambushed from behind and not even defending myself. Naturally, the next kid who thought it was a good idea got stabbed with a pencil in the throat. Bullying stopped immediately because now I was "the crazy kid".

You don't want people to fight back, don't blame the victims.

 

[macchinario]

To all the "get Signal" apologists, get real. WhatsApp is the defacto messaging standard in most places of the world now. Cutting it out doesn't mean to get your family to change, but getting a whole country to change as well. I don't know a single business that doesn't uses WhatsApp for a quick chat with customers, specially small ones. Even governments uses WhatsApp in its services. It's a really powerful tool ingrained in people's culture, to the point that doesn't having it becomes a true handicap daily.

It sucks, but that's how it is.

 

[educated_foo]

RCS is a desperate bandaid to a dire situation for Google.

...
Email is the other alternative - but with spam getting worse it's becoming less of an option. Often it just doesn't arrive, or people don't read it when it does.

Spam getting worse?! What is this, 2002? Almost 100% of spam I see on my family's phones are self-inflicted messages from vendors that would stop sending messages if you just click on 'unsubscribe'.

Also, people prefer messaging because it has more of a real-time, impermanent feel.

Is there anything technical stopping email from being used as a instant messaging platform?

Yes and no. It’s a dead-simple protocol for messages that are composed and then delivered, like letters. IM requires an always-on connection where you stab at a piece of glass with your thumbs instead of using your highly-evolved vocal cords.

 

[fknuckles]

Signal.

I have zero interest in reading or typing a message on my phone when I'm sitting at my desk with a keyboard and large screen. I also want to be able to send messages with my watch when I don't have my phone on me - because I like not having my phone on me all the time.

Signal has promised multi-device support for eight years. At this point it's time to stop waiting and pick another service.

Not sure what you're smoking, but Signal has desktop apps that work quite well and I use them daily... not that it matters, because everyone I know and their dog are using whatsapp.

 

[fknuckles]

For the record, my current rates on O2 UK are 2p/SMS and 55p/MMS. That’s a tariff no longer available to new customers. The tariff you can get today is 30p/SMS and 55p/MMS. These kinds of rates are not uncommon on pay as you go tariffs (in recent years the main networks have been desperate in trying to get people to pay for a monthly bundle, even on prepay, and jacked up their per-minute/per-SMS rates to punitive levels)

I have never sent an MMS. At this kind of pricing I have no confidence that anything touched by carriers won’t be subject to similar kinds of extortion.

(do networks who offer RCS charge for it like the above?)

RCS are not billed per message. They use your data connection, and will fallback to SMS/MMS as needed.

Pay as you Go is no longer a money-saving move, in almost all cases, you're better off getting a sim-only contract. You can get some as cheap as £6 a month if you are not a heavy mobile data user, and unless it's a sim you intend to stick into an IOT device that barely uses any data, it will be cheaper than trying to do pay as you go.

 

[weilawei]

For the record, my current rates on O2 UK are 2p/SMS and 55p/MMS. That’s a tariff no longer available to new customers. The tariff you can get today is 30p/SMS and 55p/MMS. These kinds of rates are not uncommon on pay as you go tariffs (in recent years the main networks have been desperate in trying to get people to pay for a monthly bundle, even on prepay, and jacked up their per-minute/per-SMS rates to punitive levels)

I have never sent an MMS. At this kind of pricing I have no confidence that anything touched by carriers won’t be subject to similar kinds of extortion.

(do networks who offer RCS charge for it like the above?)

RCS are not billed per message. They use your data connection, and will fallback to SMS/MMS as needed.

Pay as you Go is no longer a money-saving move, in almost all cases, you're better off getting a sim-only contract. You can get some as cheap as £6 a month if you are not a heavy mobile data user, and unless it's a sim you intend to stick into an IOT device that barely uses any data, it will be cheaper than trying to do pay as you go.

Mobile data is basically the *only* thing I use.

I hate talking on the phone, and I hate voicemail, because I'm significantly hearing impaired. It's the worst for me.

What I do use are mobile data, or preferentially wifi if available (and then the phone goes on Airplane Mode), Signal, and email (Protonmail ftw) for communications. I'm happy to pay for a data plan, but I have essentially zero use for SMS/MMS. 2FA? I have the TOTP keys to generate them locally or I can get an email from everyone I visit. Media? More data.

Also someone said that basically everyone is using Whatsapp and you *have* to have it. No, no I don't. I don't have Facebook, I don't have Whatsapp, I don't have GMail..

And yet, somehow, my family, friends, co-workers, government, and businesses can all interact with me just fine.

 

[DriveBy]

I see a lot of dismissive comments about the color coding, but I find the green ones hard to read due to the significantly worse contrast ratio. I’m all for distinguishing SMS. I also find it overwhelmingly likely that Apple went with a poor presentation intentionally for non iMessage. Darkening that green slightly to improve readability would have been pretty darn obvious.

Why are you reading messages you've sent? Shouldn't you be reading the ones you get back?

Oh wait, this is just anti-Apple FUD, never mind. If this were Apple wanting Google to make changes to their messaging platform, you jerks would be all over it and you know it. Just get over yourselves.

 

[...m...]

Given that WhatsApp is owned by Meta, an alternative would be nice. That is of interest to me. I don't really care if my non iFriends have a green or a blue texting bubble.

...folks still use whatsapp?..i thought pretty much its entire userbase migrated over to signal after the facebook acquisition...

 

[DriveBy]

Apple is essentially leveraging their closed ecosystem to make Android look bad, Google can play the same game.

Pleas explain how “all SMS, even between iPhones, is displayed with green text, as it has been since before Android even existed” is “making Android look bad”.

Yeah, agreed, really I never understood who gave a **** about that except some iPhone users with their heads so far up their ***.

Seriously, who CARES? If you buy an iPhone or shame people for not having one because of stupid color bubbles, you're a moron.

If you actually read what's going on here, it's the non-iPhone users who are whining. Try and keep up, I know it's complicated.

 

[weilawei]

Apple is essentially leveraging their closed ecosystem to make Android look bad, Google can play the same game.

Pleas explain how “all SMS, even between iPhones, is displayed with green text, as it has been since before Android even existed” is “making Android look bad”.

Yeah, agreed, really I never understood who gave a **** about that except some iPhone users with their heads so far up their ***.

Seriously, who CARES? If you buy an iPhone or shame people for not having one because of stupid color bubbles, you're a moron.

If you actually read what's going on here, it's the non-iPhone users who are whining. Try and keep up, I know it's complicated.

Oi, then people are even dumber than I'd given them credit for. If you wanted a device that produced a certain color, you should've bought that device. It seems really dumb to buy a product that doesn't do what you want, and only after purchase, whine about it not doing the thing.

Saying this an an Android user who thinks the whole color bubble thing is absurd even on the face of it.

I mean, it's exactly the kind of thing that we see between Elon and Twitter. He signed the contract to buy it, despite everyone telling him it wasn't a good deal, and now that he's forced them to sell, he doesn't want it Because Reasons.

 

[deadmanwalking]

I keep hearing about this, but I have never, ever met a single person who cares what color my texts are. And until today, I never knew this was an issue. And I work in an office with 20 other people, at least 15 of which use iphones. (I use android).

I mean seriously, are there really people out there who actually give a shit if your texts are coming through imessage or SMS? Are there really people out there who are making fun of others because "their texts are green and mine is blue"?

This sounds to me like a whole bunch of people who are blowing a complete non-issue out of proportion. I am willing to bet that 99% of users couldn't give half a shit less.

 

[Publius Enigma]

What specifically do people find lacking about Google's RCS? I honestly don't understand why Ron is poopooing it. As far as I'm concerned it has been a terrific seamless messenger with virtually all of the features I'd seen in iMessage.

Ron talks about wanting APIs. What would these APIs do? Wouldn't they just centralize control over RCS in Google hands? To my eye it seems better to have an open standard with open source implementations. Frequently that removes the need for APIs. Is the real complaint that Google hasn't open sourced enough of their client and server?

It's about an Google on one hand claiming that RCS is an open standard, while having a proprietary fork it that's not an open standard.

It's Google standing behind the pretense of an "open standard," while actually trying to pressure Apple into adopting a proprietary protocol that will only benefit Google. If Google wants to use their proprietary protocol in their own messaging apps, that's fine, but to complain that Apple is using their own proprietary protocol instead of Google's is hypocritical

BTW, "open standard" isn't the same as "open source." PDF is an open standard, but Adobe Acrobat is closed-source. It's about making the APIs and whatever else is necessary to use the protocol free* and in the clear for everyone to use.

If Google wants their version of RCS to be adopted, they need to do the necessary steps to make it an open standard. As it is they're just whining that Apple isn't making it easier for Google to monopolize messaging.

*Or at least extremely reasonably priced.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonabl ... _licensing

Almost in the same way that Android was sold as being an open-source operating system, and used that to gain market share, but then proceeded to make it increasingly closed through all sorts of devious means? (Restricting access to Google Play and Google Play Services to only authorised Android devices, ceasing development of core AOSP applications).

 

[ryanja]

Given that WhatsApp is owned by Meta, an alternative would be nice. That is of interest to me. I don't really care if my non iFriends have a green or a blue texting bubble.

...folks still use whatsapp?..i thought pretty much its entire userbase migrated over to signal after the facebook acquisition...

This is actually leading to a problem with messaging services. When Hangouts was king, many people were pushed to use it, from friends, colleagues, family members, etc. When it started to fall apart, people were pushed to Whatsapp. Then Facebook bought it, so people jumped to Signal or Snapchat or some other one that popped up.

People are tired of having to change messaging apps every couple years for one reason or another. It doesn't make any sense to the average user, and for people trying to "lead the way" by having them try a new thing, it kind of ruins any credibility they may have in trying to get people to try the next shiny new messaging app. I'll just stick with SMS or email, since having to chase people across so many messaging apps and creating accounts for all of them just to make accounts for each one that is used when they come out just doesn't make any sense.