> I don't want to use yet another messaging service that they've built.
You literally wouldn't be. You would keep using iMessage. All that would be different is that you could now send images and videos to Android users. Right now you have to switch to another app to do that.
This is not a '"standard" they've created', this is a GSM Association standard, and it would be Apple, not Google, implementing it.
Apple turns texts between iPhones and Android phones into SMS and MMS, out-of-date technologies from the 90s and 00s. But Apple can adopt RCS—the modern industry standard—for these threads instead. Solving the problem without changing your iPhone to iPhone conversations and making messaging better for everyone.
At some point we should require people to tell us whether they have read the link or not so we can know if it's worth taking their opinions into account.
> Apple turns texts between iPhones and Android phones into SMS and MMS, out-of-date technologies from the 90s and 00s.
Your first paragraph is copied verbatim from Google's marketing material[0] without attribution. I just wanted to point out for anyone out there if you google that phrase you will find it verbatim repeated across the internet. I know this isn't an academic environment - who cares about plagiarism - but just to highlight it as part of media literacy. Your comment is part of a media/marketing campaign, it is not an actual back-and-forth dialogue that one would expect on HN.
> But Apple can adopt RCS—the modern industry standard—for these threads instead.
Ah, yes, the “industry standard” which relies on proprietary extensions made by Google which are only implemented in one of Google’s applications, and whose carrier adoption figures are based on Google hosting the servers.
RCS is better, but don’t oversell this as more than Google’s attempt to pressure Apple into helping them recover from repeated self-inflicted damage. If they hadn’t screwed up their messaging strategy so many times since the 2000s nobody would care about iMessage. We could be using an open cross-platform system if they hadn’t killed that concept trying to force people to use Google+.
Indeed. Ron Amadeo has done a lot of in-depth coverage of Google's RCS push the past few years, and he brings up some very good points I didn't see talked about much. Here's the latest article about Google's new campaign:
I said in another comment that Google continuing to call RCS a "standard" is disingenuous. What they're really pushing for is Apple implementing Google's proprietary fork of RCS, where most messages are routed through their own servers. That doesn't sound like a standard to me and I don't see why Apple would/should go for that.
It’s also telling how they punted on the things people want like support for all of their devices or need, like E2E for all chats rather than just one on one.
Imagine an alternate universe where they backed a dump truck full of cash over to the Signal Foundation and said “hire all of the developers you need to make first-class desktop clients and add federation for people willing to meet CA-level requirements. We’ll ship integration in Messenger and Gmail this year.” Apple would have a lot more pressure from something which is open and better rather than a marketing play for a Google subsidiary.
You literally wouldn't be. You would keep using iMessage. All that would be different is that you could now send images and videos to Android users. Right now you have to switch to another app to do that.
This is not a '"standard" they've created', this is a GSM Association standard, and it would be Apple, not Google, implementing it.