It’s happening!!!
Now, if only Google wasn’t a cunt about allowing other apps for rcs, that would be great
Imagine cross-platform RCS support built into Signal. 🥹💭
Man that would be nice. Could finally have it be all in one again like Google Hangouts before it was killed.
I still miss Hangouts + Voice
Same I legit think it could’ve been Google’s actual competition to iMessage but they fumbled the bag so badly it’s crazy.
Oh that’d be nice but since no more SMS in Signal I can’t see it going back in (unless they reversed course?)
IIRC their point was that SMS is insecure, so they don’t want people using SMS in Signal to think that this is Signal. With RCS, they could do what Apple will - be interoperable while providing extras with own platform (iMessage).
Admittedly, that doesn’t sound like enough reason to reimplement SMS and RCS alone would still be kind of inconvenient.
they could go the apple route and just make sms messages an ugly color
Why not have separate apps so users can opt to install one or the other?
Why do you use two apps for SMS or iMessage now.
I don’t understand. I don’t do that. But I have Whatsapp, telegram, signal and discord installed, and those are all quite separate apps.
The point being, why would I want my Whatsapp install to come integrated with a whole discord client? I can already just install both, which is much easier and keeps things separate.
The point is getting adoption. Especially in the US, where people actually use iPhone, no one wants to download a second app because iMessage is ‘good enough’ 99% of the time.
Samsung Messages is the only other, right?
Technically anyone who makes an android device could have their own. The API is a system-level API, so any app signed with system certificates (aka, any app packaged with your phone) can use it. Any app you download from the play store can’t.
Afaik, yeah
I have faith in Apple, it’ll be difficult but they’ll find a way to do this that still maintains all the toxicity towards green bubbles that they’ve worked so hard to cultivate.
They are literally keeping the green bubbles for RCS users lmao
Right, but the features will be mostly on-par with iMessage. The only thing you’d be missing out on are chat effects and the 3D avatar things. The stigma will stay for a little bit, but probably die out over time because the stigma developed in the first place not due to the color of the bubble, but because the color of the bubble meant worse features.
Yep
Exactly, some of my iPhone-using friends don’t care about the color itself, just that sending a video via MMS results in a 240p mess. Being able to properly RCS videos, and multiple photos, will alleviate all actual concerns. They don’t care about message reactions, and I don’t know a single person who uses the avatar things (I’m in my early 30s in NY)
RCS supports message reactions, just not the crazy iMessage effects.
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This would be great if I could actually use it in AOSP without Google’s own app, and view/reply to RCS conversations on my laptop using a 3rd party application. Open the APIs, Google, or you’re just blowing hot air.
+1 And why XMPP was always a better answer.
Yeah, I have a lot of mixed feelings about it, but I’m tending towards some forced adherence to standards. Or at least interoperability through open federation.
The standard RCS lacks e2e encryption. You wouldn’t have been able to use other clients with the google messages app either way even if they were developed.
That’s why we need them to open up the APIs in the short term, but the long term goal should be to get the Universal Profile advanced, and move away from a Google-centric implementation.
Which, to be fair, Google really did seem to want carriers implementing their own interoperable RCS solutions. But they needed shit to be done, so they ended up doing it themselves.
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Google uses the Signal protocol for encryption and they do intend to allow for interoperability:
https://9to5google.com/2023/07/19/google-messages-mls-encrypted/
This is not something Google was ever against doing
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I have no doubts it will be implemented in a way that still benefits Apple and its ecosystem. Also to help their cause to keep iMessage locked into Apple devices with that EU ruling. Still, this is great news.
I don’t think Apple will need (or want) to do anything “malicious” since Apple is implementing RCS the standard which between the carriers and Google mismanaging and fragmenting messaging for years - see: X carrier phones can only send RCS messages to X carrier phones, Google’s implementation is not the RCS standard and is partially proprietary - it’ll take a while to get S.S. RCS, The Standard steered right.
I hope Apple’s involvement is ironically a kick in the butt to get everyone on the same page and get a standard rather than the current “Google iMessage” solution.
Edit: Typo
Are there any FOSS RCS apps? Should this be the ‘open’ standard the EU are enforcing?
would much prefer matrix as the standard
If they did, it wouldn’t work on Android. There’s no user-level API. So only apps that come bundled with the phone can use the API.
Someone pinch me?
Now we wait another 10 years for Apple to support third-party RCS apps I guess?
What is rcs?
RCS is like sms2.0, it supports better group chats, larger higher quality file transfers, read receipts… That sorta thing
For carriers it is a way to extend the (in my opinion outdated) idea of carrier-based chat system.
For Google it is a way to switch messaging on Android to their proprietary app, at least for some time, as other of their projects falied.
For users it is a way for people using Android certified by Google to normally message people using iPhone and it’s preinstalled chat app.
Google got jealous of iMessage and remade iMessage, but Android with the promise of making it more open.
They haven’t followed through on ‘more open’ until just now.
Rcs officially works on 2 apps. iMessage still has just 1.
But hopefully Rcs will actually become open in the future. Allowing anyone to make an Rcs app, like they can with SMS
That doesn’t answer my question at all.
It’s a protocol that implements modern text messaging features for sms, similar to imessage on ios. Since nobody has used sms since the nineties it’s probably useless for most of us but it’s interesting to see what tech giants fight about.
Believe it or not, millions if not hundreds of millions use SMS every day.
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RCS is open protocol, but has no open implementation and Android has no native support (only by Google Messages app that act as a bridge to Google Jibe RCS servers).
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It’s more likely Google has paid them.
There would have to be a court case and ruling before Apple could be threatened with a fine. For messaging this isn’t the case (so far). Apple doesn’t restrict access to messaging apps. You can install iMessage competitors.
The RCS apple is implementing is Google’s standard. That they control and have restricted access to. So far only Google, Samsung and Apple have been allowed to use it.
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Google probably isn’t paying enough.
Long overdue, but this will be a benefit for all.
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confused messengers user noises
Which messenger?
Anything but mobile-only vendor-specific ones. Telegram rocks.
Telegram has the best client and there is no arguing about that. But it is specific to particular provider, which in my opinion is not a great one…
I bet they do some thing like make it optional on the iPhone and the user needs to turn that setting on to get RCS. Obviously most users don’t care and will never look. 
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