So I've read an interesting perspective on Apple and RCS this morning, courtesy of Gruber and PED.
While many here assume Apple's announcement of RCS coming to iMessage was in response to the EU's DMA, it might actually be due to China. Unlike European regulators who Apple feels free to argue with or if need be "maliciously comply", China is in the process of mandating RCS (without encryption for obvious reasons) despite Apple's preferences.They are a government that when they tell Apple to jump it's only a question of how high. There is no such thing as malicious compliance with China's mandates.
Without integrating RCS, Apple would be banned from China's smartphone market sometime later this year. It wasn't because of the EU if Gruber's sources are to be believed. Further, if those sources are correct I would not hold out hope for E2EE coming to the service with iMessage either even if it makes it into the standard. China requires source code be submitted for inspection in order to "ensure the security and privacy" of the algorithms used before that encryption method is permitted in the country.
It's not any government that will dictate whether Apple have to adopt RCS...
That is not the same as forcing Apple to support RCS by opening up iMessage or Apple Messages. Apple could satisfy the RCS requirement by letting the carrier install their own RCS client in iOS. The same as what the telecoms did with SMS.
The same as … what exactly? Apple never allowed any third-Party sms clients — or perhaps, it’s just that no one ever offered one. SMS is part of the basic cellphone protocol. Apple could support it in 2007 — or not have text messaging. No telecoms provider forced anything.
But this doesn't mean that China will allow Apple to use their own RCS client. China telecoms can easily force Apple .... Yada yada
David, did you research any of this before posting as though it's fact? It does not appear you did.
If you read the China proposed regulation I linked earlier (it will translate to English) you would understand it is Apple's responsibility to include it prior to certification by Chinese regulators and not the carriers post-certification. That's common sense since there would have been no reason for it if the carriers could already mandate it.
Number two, and answered with a simple question: Are there carriers who offer their own RCS services on Android devices they sell? The answer is yes. And how could that be if Google has forced them to use only Google Messages? Because Google hasn't forced them to do anything. Google contributed the Android RCS client protocol to the GSMA in 2016, free for them to include under the RCS standard. You're confusing basic RCS with the end-to-end encryption and other advanced features built on top of it.
Here's how to think about it David: It's akin to iMessage built on top of Messages. The encryption and certain other advanced features come from iMessage. You can use other apps to send texts from your iPhone, but if you want to use all of iMessage's features, you must use the Messages app.
The carriers are not currently interested in E2EE RCS, so that's put on Google's back via Google Messages.
It's only been somewhat recently that the big three US carriers decided to move their in-house RCS services over to Google Jibe, I'd guess for simplicity and economics. Many, many carriers don't preload Google Messages as their default, yet still offer RCS services. No one is forced. But China can certainly force whatever they wish, and they are. Apple has no say in the matter other than they could choose to leave China's smartphone market.
So I've read an interesting perspective on Apple and RCS this morning, courtesy of Gruber and PED.
While many here assume Apple's announcement of RCS coming to iMessage was in response to the EU's DMA, it might actually be due to China. Unlike European regulators who Apple feels free to argue with or if need be "maliciously comply", China is in the process of mandating RCS (without encryption for obvious reasons) despite Apple's preferences.They are a government that when they tell Apple to jump it's only a question of how high. There is no such thing as malicious compliance with China's mandates.
Without integrating RCS, Apple would be banned from China's smartphone market sometime later this year. It wasn't because of the EU if Gruber's sources are to be believed. Further, if those sources are correct I would not hold out hope for E2EE coming to the service with iMessage either even if it makes it into the standard. China requires source code be submitted for inspection in order to "ensure the security and privacy" of the algorithms used before that encryption method is permitted in the country.
It's not any government that will dictate whether Apple have to adopt RCS...
That is not the same as forcing Apple to support RCS by opening up iMessage or Apple Messages. Apple could satisfy the RCS requirement by letting the carrier install their own RCS client in iOS. The same as what the telecoms did with SMS.
The same as … what exactly? Apple never allowed any third-Party sms clients — or perhaps, it’s just that no one ever offered one. SMS is part of the basic cellphone protocol. Apple could support it in 2007 — or not have text messaging. No telecoms provider forced anything.
No way that any mobile carriers would support any mobile phone that did not allow SMS messaging. Remember in 2007, the mobile carriers were making a lot of money with text messaging. Texting was not free. But mobile carriers usually offered limited amount of free texting with each plan and offered unlimited monthly texting plans. If Apple did not develop their own SMS and have all the carriers agree to use Apple Text (now Apple Messages) as the default SMS client on iPhones, the carrier would need to install their own SMS client.
If Apple had not added SMS messaging, their phone would not have had any phone-to-phone messaging at all. SMS (and its cousin MMS) was literally the only text messaging service available to cellphones at the time (apart from BBM, which was Blackberry-only).
I'm not sure about the U.S., but SMS was extremely widely used in Europe at the time, and not including an SMS client would have killed the iPhone.
Nobody needed to "force" Apple to support it, because nobody would have bought in iPhone, had it been missing one of the two basic functions of cellphones at the time.
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If you read the China proposed regulation I linked earlier (it will translate to English) you would understand it is Apple's responsibility to include it prior to certification by Chinese regulators and not the carriers post-certification. That's common sense since there would have been no reason for it if the carriers could already mandate it.
Number two, and answered with a simple question: Are there carriers who offer their own RCS services on Android devices they sell? The answer is yes. And how could that be if Google has forced them to use only Google Messages? Because Google hasn't forced them to do anything.
Google contributed the Android RCS client protocol to the GSMA in 2016, free for them to include under the RCS standard. You're confusing basic RCS with the end-to-end encryption and other advanced features built on top of it.
Here's how to think about it David: It's akin to iMessage built on top of Messages. The encryption and certain other advanced features come from iMessage. You can use other apps to send texts from your iPhone, but if you want to use all of iMessage's features, you must use the Messages app.
The carriers are not currently interested in E2EE RCS, so that's put on Google's back via Google Messages.
It's only been somewhat recently that the big three US carriers decided to move their in-house RCS services over to Google Jibe, I'd guess for simplicity and economics. Many, many carriers don't preload Google Messages as their default, yet still offer RCS services. No one is forced. But China can certainly force whatever they wish, and they are. Apple has no say in the matter other than they could choose to leave China's smartphone market.
The two situations are not comparable. At all.
I'm not sure about the U.S., but SMS was extremely widely used in Europe at the time, and not including an SMS client would have killed the iPhone.