After a decade of being tone-deaf... what a surprise! Nice to see Apple become smart about politics. It would have been better if Apple had taken part in the design of the standard, but this is good. Much better than being forced as with USB-C, right-to-repair, and soon AppStore alternatives.
Only approx 20% of Android users have access to RCS, and the standard is a hot mess. Apple must be feeling charitable this holiday season.
I know some article said it was claimed, but without any source for it. "Someone said", in other words. I'd consider it a suspect estimate.
Last I recall reading, Google Messages has nearly a billion active users now, so they're doing OK.
Your recollection is not that great. Google themselves said there’s 500 million users, and there’s over 3 billion androids in the world so that’s actually closer to 15%.
Google is obviously not doing “ok” since they’ve been crying in the press for years now over Apple’s blue bubbles and Android market share in decline.
My recollection is great. You're basing your entire argument on what they said over a year and a half ago. Did you purposely avoid more recent announcements, or just didn't want to look for any? Back in May this year Google announced it had risen to 800 million active users.
So here it is 6 months later, and a billion active users is almost certainly on the low side. Not too shabby for a service that's not yet available in every country.
RCS users doubled in a year? Oh sure that doesn’t look suspicious at all?! . Your math is no better than your recollection because even if they had a billion users that’s still less than 30% of Android users.
After a decade of being tone-deaf... what a surprise! Nice to see Apple become smart about politics. It would have been better if Apple had taken part in the design of the standard, but this is good. Much better than being forced as with USB-C, right-to-repair, and soon AppStore alternatives.
Only approx 20% of Android users have access to RCS, and the standard is a hot mess. Apple must be feeling charitable this holiday season.
I know some article said it was claimed, but without any source for it. "Someone said", in other words. I'd consider it a suspect estimate.
Last I recall reading, Google Messages has nearly a billion active users now, so they're doing OK.
Your recollection is not that great. Google themselves said there’s 500 million users, and there’s over 3 billion androids in the world so that’s actually closer to 15%.
Google is obviously not doing “ok” since they’ve been crying in the press for years now over Apple’s blue bubbles and Android market share in decline.
My recollection is great. You're basing your entire argument on what they said over a year and a half ago. Did you purposely avoid more recent announcements, or just didn't want to look for any? Back in May this year Google announced it had risen to 800 million active users.
So here it is 6 months later, and a billion active users is almost certainly on the low side. Not too shabby for a service that's not yet available in every country.
RCS users doubled in a year? Oh sure that doesn’t look suspicious at all?!
If it's a built in feature and enough capable Android phones are sold in a year, then why wouldn't it see large user increases?
Apple likely saw even better iMessage uptake because it's a basic feature of the iPhone and they sell so many iPhones.
After a decade of being tone-deaf... what a surprise! Nice to see Apple become smart about politics. It would have been better if Apple had taken part in the design of the standard, but this is good. Much better than being forced as with USB-C, right-to-repair, and soon AppStore alternatives.
Only approx 20% of Android users have access to RCS, and the standard is a hot mess. Apple must be feeling charitable this holiday season.
I know some article said it was claimed, but without any source for it. "Someone said", in other words. I'd consider it a suspect estimate.
Last I recall reading, Google Messages has nearly a billion active users now, so they're doing OK.
Your recollection is not that great. Google themselves said there’s 500 million users, and there’s over 3 billion androids in the world so that’s actually closer to 15%.
Google is obviously not doing “ok” since they’ve been crying in the press for years now over Apple’s blue bubbles and Android market share in decline.
My recollection is great. You're basing your entire argument on what they said over a year and a half ago. Did you purposely avoid more recent announcements, or just didn't want to look for any? Back in May this year Google announced it had risen to 800 million active users.
So here it is 6 months later, and a billion active users is almost certainly on the low side. Not too shabby for a service that's not yet available in every country.
RCS users doubled in a year? Oh sure that doesn’t look suspicious at all?!
If it's a built in feature and enough capable Android phones are sold in a year, then why wouldn't it see large user increases?
Apple likely saw even better iMessage uptake because it's a basic feature of the iPhone and they sell so many iPhones.
iMessage has a poor takeup in many areas of the world, even though it comes prepackaged. Who besides AI member DeeDee would expect encrypted Google Messages, out for just a year, would already be as successful as decade-old iMessage?
I think they’ll still have blue and green bubbles. It’s just that the green bubble fallback option will be RCS and have more functionality than SMS. They won’t have the same level of encryption or the “surprise and delight” features like Memoji. Hence the need to still distinguish RCS from iMessage.
It wasn’t done for marketing purposes. It was done to distinguish the difference between iMessage and SMS/MMS. The bubbles were all green originally.
Exactly, because the iPhone user needs to know what messaging protocol is being used for a conversation so they can decide what's appropriate to say in that conversation (e.g., you probably don't want to share a password when seeing green bubbles).
I think they will go with a third color in the red family, with pink being the most likely. If the RCS standard gets E2EE, there might be a 4th color (purple?) that denotes that. Why 2 different colors for RCS? Because older implementations that don't support E2EE will still be around for quite a while and you need to be able to distinguish them from those that do.
You understand that Apple's implementation will be the unencrypted one, left in the hands of carriers to manage? That will mean you as an iPhone user are not the only one who should know what protocol is being used. When you're in a conversation with Google RCS users, their messages may not be as private as they otherwise would be would be due to your RCS exposing them to carrier snooping.
But at the moment the only way to E2E encrypt your RCS messages will be for Apple to secure them on Apple servers or use Google to do so. It doesn't appear Apple wants to go to that trouble and expense and will wait out carriers to take responsibility for it whenever GSM finalizes.
It'll work both ways. Sure, iPhone users who use RCS to message Android users won't be able to encrypt their messages, but the same goes for Android users who message iPhone users. So it's both Apple and Google won't pay for the server costs required to do E2E encryption for messages sent to the other's platform.
I've seen a couple of posts making this mistake.
E2EE does not require anything from the servers-- it runs over the top (the messages are encrypted and decrypted on device, the network/servers have nothing to do with it, they just deliver/route the encrypted text the same why they would any unencrypted text). The only thing required is that both ends of the conversation speak the same E2EE protocol, which will be established by the regular RCS capability exchange between the RCS messaging clients.
When E2EE is added to the RCS standard, which it will be because Apple have explicitly mentioned they will push for it, then all RCS messaging clients will be able adopt the same protocol.
After a decade of being tone-deaf... what a surprise! Nice to see Apple become smart about politics. It would have been better if Apple had taken part in the design of the standard, but this is good. Much better than being forced as with USB-C, right-to-repair, and soon AppStore alternatives.
Only approx 20% of Android users have access to RCS, and the standard is a hot mess. Apple must be feeling charitable this holiday season.
I know some article said it was claimed, but without any source for it. "Someone said", in other words. I'd consider it a suspect estimate.
Last I recall reading, Google Messages has nearly a billion active users now, so they're doing OK.
Your recollection is not that great. Google themselves said there’s 500 million users, and there’s over 3 billion androids in the world so that’s actually closer to 15%.
Google is obviously not doing “ok” since they’ve been crying in the press for years now over Apple’s blue bubbles and Android market share in decline.
My recollection is great. You're basing your entire argument on what they said over a year and a half ago. Did you purposely avoid more recent announcements, or just didn't want to look for any? Back in May this year Google announced it had risen to 800 million active users.
So here it is 6 months later, and a billion active users is almost certainly on the low side. Not too shabby for a service that's not yet available in every country.
RCS users doubled in a year? Oh sure that doesn’t look suspicious at all?!
If it's a built in feature and enough capable Android phones are sold in a year, then why wouldn't it see large user increases?
Apple likely saw even better iMessage uptake because it's a basic feature of the iPhone and they sell so many iPhones.
If it were that easy then what have Google been doing for the past decade? Why are they crying to the EU regulators to open up iMessage? Do they really think this is going to stop the decline of Android?
After a decade of being tone-deaf... what a surprise! Nice to see Apple become smart about politics. It would have been better if Apple had taken part in the design of the standard, but this is good. Much better than being forced as with USB-C, right-to-repair, and soon AppStore alternatives.
Only approx 20% of Android users have access to RCS, and the standard is a hot mess. Apple must be feeling charitable this holiday season.
I know some article said it was claimed, but without any source for it. "Someone said", in other words. I'd consider it a suspect estimate.
Last I recall reading, Google Messages has nearly a billion active users now, so they're doing OK.
Your recollection is not that great. Google themselves said there’s 500 million users, and there’s over 3 billion androids in the world so that’s actually closer to 15%.
Google is obviously not doing “ok” since they’ve been crying in the press for years now over Apple’s blue bubbles and Android market share in decline.
My recollection is great. You're basing your entire argument on what they said over a year and a half ago. Did you purposely avoid more recent announcements, or just didn't want to look for any? Back in May this year Google announced it had risen to 800 million active users.
So here it is 6 months later, and a billion active users is almost certainly on the low side. Not too shabby for a service that's not yet available in every country.
RCS users doubled in a year? Oh sure that doesn’t look suspicious at all?!
If it's a built in feature and enough capable Android phones are sold in a year, then why wouldn't it see large user increases?
Apple likely saw even better iMessage uptake because it's a basic feature of the iPhone and they sell so many iPhones.
If it were that easy then what have Google been doing for the past decade? Why are they crying to the EU regulators to open up iMessage? Do they really think this is going to stop the decline of Android?
What decline? It's doing just fine isn't it?
Google want Apple to adopt RCS because that means Android users have greater capability in comms with iPhone users, as well as security if Apple adopt an encrypted approach.
They want Apple to open up iMessage because that means Android users have secure comms with iPhone users in lieu of Apple adopting a secure RCS, which until the past week Apple had shown no appetite to do. They probably enjoy taking a pot shot at a competitor, though I doubt that's the principal reason give the aforementioned.
It's also an improvement for iPhone users, whose privacy and security is compromised every time they message someone through Messages who is not using an iPhone.
After a decade of being tone-deaf... what a surprise! Nice to see Apple become smart about politics. It would have been better if Apple had taken part in the design of the standard, but this is good. Much better than being forced as with USB-C, right-to-repair, and soon AppStore alternatives.
Only approx 20% of Android users have access to RCS, and the standard is a hot mess. Apple must be feeling charitable this holiday season.
I know some article said it was claimed, but without any source for it. "Someone said", in other words. I'd consider it a suspect estimate.
Last I recall reading, Google Messages has nearly a billion active users now, so they're doing OK.
Your recollection is not that great. Google themselves said there’s 500 million users, and there’s over 3 billion androids in the world so that’s actually closer to 15%.
Google is obviously not doing “ok” since they’ve been crying in the press for years now over Apple’s blue bubbles and Android market share in decline.
My recollection is great. You're basing your entire argument on what they said over a year and a half ago. Did you purposely avoid more recent announcements, or just didn't want to look for any? Back in May this year Google announced it had risen to 800 million active users.
So here it is 6 months later, and a billion active users is almost certainly on the low side. Not too shabby for a service that's not yet available in every country.
RCS users doubled in a year? Oh sure that doesn’t look suspicious at all?!
If it's a built in feature and enough capable Android phones are sold in a year, then why wouldn't it see large user increases?
Apple likely saw even better iMessage uptake because it's a basic feature of the iPhone and they sell so many iPhones.
If it were that easy then what have Google been doing for the past decade? Why are they crying to the EU regulators to open up iMessage? Do they really think this is going to stop the decline of Android?
What decline? It's doing just fine isn't it?
Google want Apple to adopt RCS because that means Android users have greater capability in comms with iPhone users, as well as security if Apple adopt an encrypted approach.
They want Apple to open up iMessage because that means Android users have secure comms with iPhone users in lieu of Apple adopting a secure RCS, which until the past week Apple had shown no appetite to do. They probably enjoy taking a pot shot at a competitor, though I doubt that's the principal reason give the aforementioned.
Not sure what's so difficult to understand here.
Android is not doing great. It’s been in decline for 5 straight years. This is why they all of a sudden “care” about this, and they aren’t helping by only implementing encryption on their own version of messages.
Google cares so much about encryption they decided to make it the default way back in -checks notes - 2023. Spare me.
If you want to text securely between phone types then just get WhatsApp. Simple.
Apple like making walled garden features to distinguish their product from others. Google has a shitty messaging service so of course they want integration with iMessage. Apple doesn’t have a shitty messaging service so of course they don’t care about Android.
Comments
Apple likely saw even better iMessage uptake because it's a basic feature of the iPhone and they sell so many iPhones.
E2EE does not require anything from the servers-- it runs over the top (the messages are encrypted and decrypted on device, the network/servers have nothing to do with it, they just deliver/route the encrypted text the same why they would any unencrypted text). The only thing required is that both ends of the conversation speak the same E2EE protocol, which will be established by the regular RCS capability exchange between the RCS messaging clients.
When E2EE is added to the RCS standard, which it will be because Apple have explicitly mentioned they will push for it, then all RCS messaging clients will be able adopt the same protocol.
Google want Apple to adopt RCS because that means Android users have greater capability in comms with iPhone users, as well as security if Apple adopt an encrypted approach.
They want Apple to open up iMessage because that means Android users have secure comms with iPhone users in lieu of Apple adopting a secure RCS, which until the past week Apple had shown no appetite to do. They probably enjoy taking a pot shot at a competitor, though I doubt that's the principal reason give the aforementioned.
Not sure what's so difficult to understand here.