The Android developer just published an updated landing page for Google Messages, showing off key features ranging from customization, privacy and security, and, of course, AI.
On this landing page, there are different sections for each feature set, including one for RCS. As spotted by 9to5Google, if you expand this list of RCS features and scroll to the bottom, you see a section on “Coming soon on iOS: Better messaging for all.” That’s no surprise: We’ve known Apple was adopting RCS since November. However, it’s the next line that brings the news: “Apple has announced it will be adopting RCS in the fall of 2024.”
Of course, this does not say a lot as it is “in the fall” which is anywhere over a couple of months, and Google has tried to embarrass Apple into making moves before. I suppose, though, there is the looming court case against Apple which is anyway keeping pressure on Apple. If it were not for the US court case, I would have guessed Apple may have pulled out after the EU had ruled Apple was not a dominant player in the market (although the EU case was looking more at interoperability with WhatsApp and others in Apple Messages).
Of course, with Apple actually including RCS now, they can probably argue that there is interoperability via RCS between their platform and Android too. It must be remembered that in many countries, like mine, SMS’s are paid for so are very expensive to use for any form of chatting, and the costs go up exponentially when you text an international number.
I personally have quite a few issues with interoperability with Apple:
- I still have AirTags from when I had an iPhone and I daily get the audio beeps warning me the AirTags are not connected (I use an Android phone and alternate between an iPad and an Android tablet)
- I can’t wait to sell my AirTags and get the new one’s Google was working on that will interoperate with Apple, but supposedly Apple has been delaying building in that support into their devices (which Google already built into Android for AirTags in 2023)
- Because I was on Apple Messages and my iPad still sometimes connects, I find a message on my iPad that arrived a week ago which I had not seen (I had Beeper which was solving this problem)
Apple is not at all dominant outside the USA, but it makes interacting with Apple users quite a pain, as Apple has gone out of their way to try to keep their users inside the walled garden.
See https://lifehacker.com/tech/google-just-revealed-when-apple-will-officially-adopt-rcs
#technology #RCS #Apple #interoperability
Watch them be pee-yellow bubbles or something, but still not blue, lol.
Honestly they shouldn’t be blue. I don’t say this out of some kind of elitism, I just mean that the different colored chat bubbles are what currently tell you whether you’re using Apple’s E2EE chat function or plain text SMS. RCS would also support encryption, but currently Apple allows you to opt into tighter security controls that hide your iMessage encryption keys even from Apple when your messages are backed up. Your RCS chat partner opens half of the encrypted end to Google’s security policies which you won’t have any control over. So knowing that I’m using RCS when messaging somebody is something I’d want to be aware of.
I’d assume they’d just be green
Apple hasn’t agreed to implement RCS encryption, but maybe they will anyway
Right, consider the case of iMessages being green. If you have an iMessage chat with blue bubbles, but try to text from an area with poor reception, it can fail over to SMS. With this scenario, it’s pretty clear why you still want green bubbles to tell you the chat is degraded
Maybe teal or cyan (green + blue) 😉
I like that idea.
Or maybe they could just allow users to change the colors of their bubbles as a UI preference option.
Probably too complicated. Just not allowing certain settings for that reason is a very Apple thing to do.
Back when the Messages app in macOS supported other services you were able to change the bubble color. But this feature was removed over time…
But what if someone accidentally changes the bubble and text colors to an unreadable combination? No. We must protect our users from this obscene nonsense.
RCS will replace SMS/MMS, not iMessage. Whether it’s encrypted or not, Apple will still regard it as being a tier beneath their own solution. So green is the new green.
I don’t mind the different color. Since SMS or RCS can cost money depending on where you are and which contract you have it’s an important information for me if I’m not using iMessage.
Light gray bubbles, white text
Don’t give them ideas
I hate that so much but you’re probably right 😅
Apple confirmed they’ll be green.
modern features like E2EE
This is false. E2EE is not part of the spec. It’s just a feature of Google’s implementation, which Apple will absolutely not be using.
Incorrect. They’re working with the GSMA on a universal E2EE protocol. They mentioned that we should not expect E2EE in the first release of RCS on iOS.
It’s coming, but since they don’t want the proprietary thing Google has, and they want a standard, it’s coming later.
This is so important.
I read about Apple looking to bring the spec up to par, but I suspect it has a higher chance of being a nothing-burger since carriers haven’t bothered with RCS and Google’s implementation is as controlled/proprietary as iMessage so it will be interesting to see how things go forward.
Apple and others have complained that Google was gatekeeping the RCS encryption plugin, and that it needed to be an open standard. Both Apple and Google are now contributing to and open encryption standard now, which should benefit lots of messaging clients.
That said, the PR folks said late last year that we should not expect encrypted RCS on iOS with release 1 of iOS RCS.
Google’s website is not incorrect. It’s just missing nuance and dates.
So when we use Google messages for RCS it’s E2EE?
Only with other Google messages users (on Carriers who use Google rcs)
oh boy
it’s ironic with all this that Google fi messages on Android still doesn’t support rcs without losing a bunch of other features
What messaging app are you using, because I’ve been using RCS messaging for the past 5 years on Fi.
Google messages. Here is the support article on the tradeoffs: https://support.google.com/fi/answer/6188337
That is using messaging for the web through Google Fi. But there is little reason to do that now as Google messages the app itself can be used through messages.google.com. there are several stand alone computer applications that use the portal as well (messages in the windows store, messages or google-messages package in most distros. Dunno about Mac. Either way, instead of fi being the backend, the app connects directly to your PC. You just have to pair your phone using the app directly.
yeah that works, it’s even the same interface. you just lose out on also making calls and voicemail from web
Well, I’ll be damned.
That article is about Google Messages for Web (aka texting from your computer). It has nothing to do with RCS on your phone.
Also Google Voice doesn’t support RCS at all.
Better yet - Android refuse to support RCS natively in the operaring system itself like it does with SMS since Android ~10.
Yeah, I am not using it until it comes to google free android. How is it “better messaging for all” when you are forced to use google’s proprietary implementation on android?!
Just keep using signal.
The “better” though is over plain text SMS message which we have to pay per message. I use Signal but less than a handful of friends use it so it does not help me much on that front.
What are your other contacts using? They can’t be stuck sending SMS and paying per message surely?
They’re mostly using WhatsApp and I deleted all Meta-owned apps. So, yes if they want to reach me they need to send a text message as most apart from 5 or 10 have never bothered to install Signal, Telegram, SimpleX, Threema, Briar, Jami, etc that I am on.
Where I am the situation is flipped: I get infinite SMS, but have to pay for data i.e pay per message on RCS.
That would be the same data then as WhatsApp, Signal, etc. We pay 100’s of percent more on SMS than data, so although there is a data charge, it is really little compared to SMS.
im curious where you are if you still pay each text
South Africa
It’s not plain text sms in either case. Apple just defaults to iMessage if the “text” is sent ios to ios. At least with signal there’s no chance of it failing back to sms.
From what I understand with Apple’s fallback (or like Google’s Message app does), if RCS is sensed by the other non-iMessage user, then RCS will be used, if not right now it would still default back to text SMS but then lose some features like hi-res photos etc. Just don’t know how it will work for me where I am on iMessage on my iPad, but when out with my Android phone will the iMessage’s wait a week until I turn on my iPad again. Would be nice if there was a proper presence sensing, and it routes to there. That may be possible with RCS, but we won’t know how Apple plans to use it, and they are not going to want it to be as shiny and nice as sending an iMessage…
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Apple is not at all dominant outside the USA
Depends on the country. iOS has over 50% of the mobile market in more nations than you might realize. This is especially true for English speaking countries.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/iphone-market-share-by-country
North Korea going over 80% on ios share was something unexpected.
Probably at least 5 iPhones.
That’s probably reported sales. The majority of phones in the country are likely Android phones smuggled over the northern border.
True, but the big number really is the USA followed maybe by Australia. Entire Middle East, Africa, South America, and Asia are Android. India is also massive (behind China), and India is 95% Android.
iOS has markets that it dominates more than the US. For example, Japan, Denmark and Canada. Japan is particularly unique. It’s just under 70% on iOS, while the US is sub 60%
Yes, but a percentage has to be seen in the context of the total to gauge its impact. India for example is 95% of 1.428 billion people vs Japan is 70% of only 124 million. There are just under 200 countries.
Apple is not at all dominant outside the USA
This is all I was replying too. Just saying there are non US markets that Apple dominates.
You’re talking about one country, worldwide Android has about 70% market share.
one country
?
I’m confused. The point of that link was to show that there are other countries, other than the US, that have most of the nation using iOS.
But yes, Android dominates worldwide installs. I’m not debating that, and that link also very clearly shows that.
So basically what everyone predicted when Apple said it would occur in 2024.
Major new features are always in the n.0.0 fall releases. No way this was going to be bundled with a late in life iOS 17 bug and security update.
So is this going to be standard RCS, which has no encryption and the telcos need to support, or the Googlified version that does E2E encryption but requires storing keys on Google’s servers?
RCS has interoperability issues itself and Google hasn’t been making the situation better.
Apple is apparently working on getting encryption added to the standard
In a background briefing with reporters, Apple spokespeople touted the company’s recent announcement that it will support the RCS messaging standard for iMessage sometime during 2024. In order to attend Apple’s briefing and view a background document, we had to agree to paraphrase the company’s remarks instead of quoting them directly.
Apple clarified that it is not implementing RCS as it exists today because it doesn’t believe the standard offers enough privacy and security. Apple said it is working with a standards body—this is likely a reference to the GSMA—to ensure that the version of RCS it eventually implements will support encryption and strong privacy and security.
Apple said that once it adopts RCS, iPhone and non-iPhone users will be able to exchange messages with higher-resolution photos and videos, and will experience improved group texting. Apple said it hasn’t brought its own message app to non-Apple devices because the user experience wouldn’t meet the company’s standards and that it cannot ensure that a third-party device’s encryption and authentication are secure enough.
I suspected this is what was going on because of the way some of the documents were worded, but I can’t find any direct reference to it. Do you have any? Re: storing encryption keys on google’s servers.
On my phone, so links may come later. It’s hard to find solid documentation on it, since their encryption extension is proprietary, but it’s been referenced as being based on the Signal Protocol. The Signal Protocol, or every implementation of it that I’ve seen, uses a central “trusted” repository of public keys to tell message originators query to encrypt the message to. For Signal, and I assume Google RCS, that central repository is Google. The protocol doesn’t allow for federation, so any system that is interoperable with Google RCS will rely on Google as the trusted authority.
The private key part I’m much less sure of, since both the Signal and Google RCS clients are closed source. Signal makes you jump through hoops to add a new client, involving one of your currently installed clients. This suggests that Signal isn’t in possession of your private keys. On the other hand, all you need to set up a new Google client is your account password. This suggests that either your keys are held by Google (perhaps encrypted by your account password) or that new keys can be added without needing explicit involvement from current keys.
Of course this is all speculation because the implementations aren’t available for inspection.
“Fall of 20xx” is when Apple usually releases new versions of iOS, so it wouldn’t be a stretch to assume that iOS18 will be the release.
But will they fix my Pixel 8 just missing and failing to send RCS messages?
A problem I’ve noticed is I’ve had one person using RCS, then a month or two later I noticed they’d reverted to text. They seemed to know nothing about RCS and claims they never disabled it. So not sure if that was maybe a phone upgrade. Others I’ve not had issues with.
Then:
Being left behind because you don’t use Apple approved device, operating system and proprietary app.Now:
Being left behind because you don’t use Apple or Google approved device, operating system and proprietary app.RCS should not really be a proprietary app in the sense of a 3rd part installable app. It is normally carrier provided just like SMS works. On Apple the default SMS/Messenger is Apple’s Messages app. On Pixel that is Google Messages and on Samsung phones they have their own one. It has a carrier hook and is apparently tied to the number.
RCS should not really be a proprietary app in the sense of a 3rd part installable app.
But it is. SMS works via operating system exposing an API for developers for the phone modem interface. Google Messages is just an internet messaging app, just instead of using Internet standards like XMPP (from creators of Email and IP) it uses carrier’s standards which are mainly made with carriers being required in mind.
If you don’t believe me get a blocklist for all Google’s IP addresses and you’ll see Google Messages would stop working. Or just do anything with root account and Google server would stop allowing the app to work (https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/1/24087418/google-messages-blocking-rcs-on-rooted-android-devices).
The implementation in the real world is a mess, especially because the carriers have basically outsourced implementation to Google rather than trying to actually implement it themselves.
Right now, Google controls the entire stack (mobile OS, specific app, service provider). Still, once Apple implements a service provider (and locks it to their own mobile OS and app), that should allow for an opportunity for another to set up their own service provider that interfaces properly with either Google or Apple servers. And then that service provider would be able to provide an interface for any OS, any app, through an open API.
I would advocate for the path forward to be truly federated RCS providers being able to operate at will, where the accountholder of any phone number could affirmatively choose which RCS service provider to use (akin to how a domain owner can configure their domain to use a specific server for email to that domain, whether it’s self hosted or a cloud service provided by a big tech corporation like Google or Microsoft, or a smaller provider like Proton). Or at least, with number portability, let people choose small phone providers (like MVNOs) that compete on RCS implementation.
But I’m not holding my breath for that. I’d assume we’re currently on a path towards a duopoly, where Google provides the service for everyone on Android, and Apple provides the service for everyone on iPhones. Not clear what happens with “landline”/VOIP providers not locked to mobile devices, though, especially the commercial systems for corporate/enterprise users.
Google’s own one may be, and that is their right, but it is an open standard so anyone can produce their own RCS app like Samsung has done, and the same way Apple is building support into their exiting app. Nothing should stop a 3rd party developer looking at the standard, and producing an open source RCS app?
anyone can produce their own RCS app
Yes, but Google basically owns all the servers. That’s why Apple didn’t want to join it.
Also the fact that nobody outside of the US cares about SMS or RCS, we never use it for anything else than getting appointment notifications from systems without apps and outdated 2FA.
Not really so, as MSMS is a major thing by us (outside the US) for most notifications from banks, gov, transactions, visit to pharmacy, etc. Incoming is fine apart from fact it is all open for anyone to read, but replies cost money. Also, where people are not using the same messenger, then it is sms text messages, each costing money. For pre-paid phone accounts, those SMSS messages cost even a bit more. SMS today is still the common denominator everything falls back on. It is very expensive when you consider what is paid, and it is only around 140 characters vs data.
As it is now the word “standard” is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Google themselves aren’t even done with the specs so it’s not trivial to support all functions when they are not described. So there’s plenty of problems for 3rd party. A bit of info here.
It is certainly not where it needs to be yet.
Love the bottom line in the posting title. Thank you.
ITT: Americans talking about bubble colours and the rest of the world going “just use Telegram, Signal or Whatsapp like the rest of us”?
Not as simple as that as many did ditch WahtsApp for Meta’s documented privacy violations, and their ongoing T&C which passes the WhatsApp metadata upstream to Meta and others. A lot of people also only use one messenger, and right now nothing connects them together yet. So I have masses of family and friends that only use WhatsApp, and I now only have SMS contact with them. About 8% to 10% do have multiple messengers so I see some on Signal and Telegram.
The last thing the world needs, is for WhatsApp to become the default dominant standard. That is a company that can be least trusted out of everyone worldwide, based on their history. With the app installed, the metadata includes constant location, usage, contacts, messages to who, etc.
RCS is a minor improvement, but it’s still shit. Matrix needs to be the standard.
They’re not really equivalent.
RCS replaces SMS, and thus for users will effectively function like a peer to peer message delivery system based on phone numbers.
Matrix is an account-based client-server system with federation capabilities, meaning it has more in common with email.
The benefit of SMS/RCS is that the ability to use them simply comes with your phone number/SIM.
While account-based chat system like Matrix have obvious benefits provided by the fact that they work through an account on a server, an open standard like SMS used to be, but with modern capabilities, is needed.
iMessage, being a closed-off obfuscated mess sitting between those two approaches, needs to go.
Matrix still needs to be the standard.
For what?
We use different things for different things.
Matrix cannot do peer-to-peer message delivery, so it literally can’t be the standard.
And I for one don’t want matrix to become the new email, either. Can you imagine email spam, but in your DMs?
I’ll happily let it replace iMessage, Discord, Slack, WhatsApp and Telegram, tho.
Might surprise you, but with RCS you have to have an account - but one that your phone operator manages. You have to use a server - just one that your operator choose and usually they lent them from Google. And you have to use an app - just one baked in the modem that you cannot update or change yourself.
There is no peer-to-peer in RCS like with SMS, there is a remote account you create and connect to when launching Google Messages app. It’s just a chat app with additional steps.
P.S. Guy who created Matrix was originally working on RCS and left.
They’re working on peer to peer and if you need that use it. Matrix works fine for 95% of people
Yes, clients do need settings to mute invites. And do you not get SMS spam all the time?
Yes Discord can suck my massive cock. I agree.
Ok, but it’s still never going to become the go-to mobile client-carrier inter-carrier protocol, which is what SMS and RCS are.
I’ve abandoned SMS already, and won’t be benefitting from apple adopting RCS, as I live in a country that has moved on from carrier-provided messaging.
But a lot of the world hasn’t, and hence RCS is necessary.
I look forward to the day when everyone has a matrix address, the same as email, but I’m in no hurry to get there so long as the tools to manage what incoming communication actually gets through to you, do not exist.
And it shouldn’t be. It’s Internet based an explicitly is designed that way.
True and Matrix is very versatile if you look at what Beeper achieved. Yet it has been around a long time and has never gone big time. The thing though with replacing text SMS, is it has to also comply with what the mobile phone companies use at that level, and I don’t Matrix has ever pitched that to them? This is not about the high level messaging we do at app level.
The mobile companies will not use it. Ideally there’d only be data and emergency line access.
The whole point of RCS was to replace text SMS. The last year or two has seen one mobile provider after the next adopting it. That was the point of RCS, to get beyond a zero encryption text message and text messages that are very expensive in 3rd world countries. So a lot of it was focussed on mobile operators. It has to be enabled actually by mobile operators to work.
I could be wrong, but I don’t think it’s a replacement the way you want it to be. RCS requires Wi-Fi or data. SMS can go over voice channels. Google messages will fail back to SMS if data and Wi-Fi are not available.
Certainly not now as a replacement but I understand that is the longer term intention. There is a lot of older infrastructure carriers need to unload and move on (lime dismantling 2G and 3G etc), and they often pay negotiated Inter-carrier fees. If it is to replace SMS I understand carriers can zero rate whatever data they want to, so it will be cheaper for them to not charge any data charges on RCS than to actually keep providing text SMS. RCS also uses exiting modern network technologies so there is nothing extra, or outdated, that has to be maintained.
RCS, as adopted by GSMA , is zero encryption text messaging. RCS with encryption is a proprietary Google product and relies on Google servers.
It is not zero encryption, like SMS, though? All GSMA-compliant RCS implementations must use TLS to encrypt data transfer between your device and the carrier’s server. While recommended by GSMA, E2EE is an optional feature that carriers can choose to implement or not. So carriers can implement it. I’m pretty sure that as adoption goes mainstream, a “monopoly” on the server side is going to get broken up.
Google didnt reveal anything officially. This was probably a mistake because the info is gone from website: https://www.android.com/google-messages/
Hence word “official” not being mentioned. As I recall it was spotted in the code.
Lmao finally the shit phones are improving, few years late to the party as usual 😂 We all use apps to chat now!
The thing also is we can’t replace text SMS unless that mode can be phased out, so it needs everyone to adopt whatever the next step is.
It won’t be adopted by everyone like SMS anyway
It will be when SMS s phased out. That was why it has been a long, uphill battle to get the mobile phone providers to buy in. That has to happen before SMS can disappear. That is why no other “messenger/chat apps” need mobile provider buy-in. RCS happens at carrier level, and not as an installable 3rd party app. It’s exactly why it will be adopted by everyone as it is designed to replace SMS.
There is no need for carrier based messaging anyway. It’s like with fax machines, sure there can be new Internet based protocol for fax machines that phone/fax carriers would start to support and new printers being forced to adopt, but if it’s Internet based why not just use email.
At least SMS is using voice PSTN network and is purely device-to-device, so it can stay for emergencies. But RCS is purelt Internet based messenging that was abandoned because of no benefit over what we already have like XMPP, until Google started forcing it. Right now Google Messages are the only RCS app on the market and the only one available to support it, because carriers just delegate servers to Google for hosting.
RCS is carrier based though, which is why the carriers had to buy into it, and they turn it on, not Google. Many in 3rd World countries don’t have e-mail. Many legal notices are today still sent out by text SMS. I get them all the time for bank transactions, government notices, etc. Actually, Samsung’s Message app also supports RCS, and this is what Apple is building into their Apple Messages app too.
Both Samsung and Apple are doing it with tight cooperation with Google. Most carriers are using Google Jibe service for their RCS servers.
It is in fact carrier based at the fundamentals, it’s true. But it still is passed trough regular IP network and in practice there is nothing special in RCS compared to internet standards like XMPP other than connection with phone number being required instead of optional.
The GSMA does need to work harder at ensuring true interoperability between carriers, esp for E2EE. I’m expecting that the Google “monopoly” will get broken up at some point. I would have hoped that Apple insisted on hosting their own RCS (standards compliant) server.
