Apple gets the message, RCS coming to iPhone in 2024 with same Universal Profile as Android
Apple announced (via 9to5Mac) today that it's adding RCS support to the iPhone in a great boost to Android-iOS messaging...
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. 🥹💭
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
What do you think Apple will do? 😁
Cue several years of Google and Apple pointing at each other and shouting "see, they don't want to be compatible with us!"
RCS was an idiotic take from the start. It should've been a layer of encryption over SMS and remain otherwise stateless and platform agnostic.
But of course companies and governments don't really want encryption. So it became something that's trivially easy to subvert by each company that implements it, because it needs to pass through servers, and who controls the servers gets to be an ass about it.
RCS was an idiotic take from the start.
It's origin came from a good place. The wireless industry, not Google, started driving the standard to retire/replace SMS/MMS. However, then the wireless industry was reduced to a duo-culture and Google decided to drive RCS after many years of carriers/manufacturers trying to do their own thing to little success.
Another route: MMS could be enhanced to have some modern features while still being backwards-compatible. The datagrams are just XML and the syntax is akin to E-Mail. Larger message sizes could be supported, while the gateways still handle resize/reformat for older device backwards compatibility. There was even a format for a few minutes in the early aughts called EMS that had some promise but it died from disuse. Message delivery confirmation has existed since GSM and CDMA.
There's even a standard for IMS video calls that has been in the 3GPP stack since the 1999 release that would've allowed universal standard video calls. Since carriers hated building data networks and consumers weren't ready for video calls, it just sat stagnant until iChat AV/FaceTime came along and popularized video calls. It's still there, it could still be used.
Somewhere along the way, standards-based universal calls, video, and messaging took a back seat to tech bros and their proprietary stacks, and governments (at least the US) were too stupid and incompetent to understand what regulation was necessary to correct this path we are now on. Hopefully the EU can continue to help fix this.
It should've been a layer of encryption over SMS and remain otherwise stateless and platform agnostic.
Umm what?
SMS has a very short size limit. Implementing RCS as an encryption layer on top of it would require devices to send several messages just to cover a short one-word reply. They also often come out of order so they would need to include a numbering system so the client could piece them back together.
Granted that is already how SMS works on modern devices, but the underlying protocol is woefully inept at modern messaging and completely unviable for what you're proposing.
How should media attachments work? I assume you expect that to just use encryption built on MMS? So media can come through even more compressed than basic MMS? None of the actual benefits of RCS would be possible if it was built on top of the existing ancient standards.
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.
It's going to be irrelevant. It will still be separate from iMessage. Different bubbles will still exist. People who aren't using SMS now (Europe) will continue to not use RCS either. And Apple's implementation of RCS will be independent from Goggle's and not 100% compatible.
In fact I suspect the whole thing is an attempt to skirt the upcoming EU interconnection regulations. Apple thinks that if they say "look we've implemented RCS and it's technically interoperable with other RCS implementations" they'll get a pass — or be able to assign blame on other vendors for not interconnecting with them and drag the whole thing for a few more years.
Glad that you emphasized Europe. Here in the states where iMessage is dominant, it'll make a difference.
At the end of the day it's not a bad thing. I'm also waiting for details with compatibility to be ironed out, but it's a start.
Just surprised at the whole negative energy with this announcement considering this was a "when pigs fly" or "when hell freezes over" sorta thing. Again, it's a start and hopefully Google opens it up (even if forcibly by the EU) down the road.
I'm just extremely skeptical of anything that looks too good to be true coming from any of the incumbent tech giants. Call me cynical.
I care. Switched to iPhone and RCS is the one thing I miss.
Exactly. It's in no way a bad thing for anyone. We'll see the way that it's implemented. It's the first step. r/Android is rearing its head here. Let's enjoy this for the moment
People who aren’t using SMS now (Europe) will continue to not use RCS either.
We're all already on RCS in Europe. And you know what? Nobody cares. Or truly knows. Nobody opens their Messages, iMessage, whateveritbemessage.
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.
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?
There aren't any because there's no point. And no, I hope this won't be the standard.
There are two things called "RCS": there's a theoretical specification; and exactly one implementation that has managed to get any real traction, and that's purely because it's pushed by Google.
The RCS spec was attempted by various companies and all implementations died when they figured out they'd have to make them compatible and open their servers to each other. Even if they wanted to it would be a mess.
SMS succeeded because it doesn't need servers, it's just pieces of text being sent around.
Google is the only one still pushing their RCS because they figure if they tie their version of it into Android they will own the messaging on Android forever. They don't want interoperability either.
If Google gets their way and their RCS becomes the EU standard it will lock the EU into a proprietary platform from one of the most vile data predators in the world.
There's no point in making a FOSS implementation of RCS because the spec is highly dependent on who runs the servers. The only way it would make sense is if the EU would dictate a spec and force everybody to follow it and open their servers. In that take on things FOSS would be ideal.
Is the Google version of RCS not compatible with someone else's RCS, then?
As in, I take it nobody else wants to run a server because it costs money, right? But suppose I did, and I had an RCS app to run with it. Would someone using my app be able to send a message to an Android user using Google Messages?
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
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. 
That sucks. I was hoping for a open standard that wasn't dependent on Google
