Samsung has released a new video in support of Google’s #GetTheMessage campaign which calls for Apple to adopt RCS or “Rich Communication Services,” the cross-platform protocol pitched as a successor to SMS that adopts many of the features found in modern messaging apps… like Apple’s own iMessage.
My only issue with RCS is that it requires that either LTE or wifi be on. I personally keep those off unless I want to actively use the internet. Not a big deal, minor annoyance though.
No reason to keep either on since they drain the battery even when not actively browsing the net. And if your LTE can’t find a tower to connect, it keeps trying to connect, draining the battery significantly. This was pretty bad for me a couple years ago; not so much anymore since I live in a city now but I still keep both off, mostly habit but also because I like having my battery above 90% while it’s sitting idle.
When I’m at home and want to use the net on my phone, I turn WiFi on, then off once done. When I’m outside the home and need the internet, I turn LTE on and then turn it back off once I’m done.
That’s why we still rely on SMS in rural Canada, most of the time our phones are too far from the tower for LTE to establish a link. Most attempts to use modern SMS replacements have ended in unreliable messaging and me having to support all my neighbours in shutting off the messaging support in their apps so they can use reliable SMS.
I run Pulse SMS on my phone to ensure my SMS is always SMS and will be delivered. Unfortunately I see no path away from reliance on 3G/HSPA as the eye closes on LTE after about 25km, resulting in “bars” on the phone but no ability to transfer data.
the eye closes on LTE after about 25km, resulting in “bars” on the phone but no ability to transfer data.
I've noticed this in the mountains as well, even though I don't think I'm that far from the tower I guess the normal cell signal bounces off the rock and stays readable but the data does not. Usually pretty close that they go out but as I go into a valley/ravine/hollow/canyon I do lose data first, while I still have 3/5 bars.
“What did the EU ever do for us?” in the monthy python mood. After usb c, apple is getting its proprietary model challenged again. When will Apple understand that in the long run it hinders innovation? And that openness and standardisation is a catalyst for it. RCS might not be the interoperable solution the EU pushes though. Anyway that’s the future of not using standards : lemmy.nz/post/2316522
My understanding with RCS is that similar to SMS it uses the infrastructure of your phone carrier. First question: Do all carriers support this? Second question: Is there anything that prevents carriers from eventually monetizing this? At least with some sort of roaming trap when you are abroad…
Most carriers support it. When they don’t, the protocol can use a bridge. Google hosts a bridge. I guess you could also use the bridge if the carrier is trying to charge for it.
Centralized or not, it’s a massive improvement over basic SMS/MMS.
Edit: at least the concept is. Implementation aside, it’s crazy that there isn’t a cross-platform texting option that has more modern capabilities than what we’ve been using for the past couple decades.
Samsung and Google are just now getting around to supporting it
Hey now, I’ve been rocking RCS for three years. The only reason it took so long to begin with is because Google was trying to get service providers to implement it themselves. Google finally said fuck it and started doing it themselves iMessage style and then providers started playing along.
Whole situation reminds me of another one. When Google created their services to be unavailabe to install without root access, while Huawei locked their devices so device owner have no root access that Huawei has remotely.
Then people started blaming regulators for inability to have Play Store on Huawei branded phone, not questioning why blessing from device vendor to install an app is required in the first place.
Apple should support RCS as a cross-platform texting option. It is meant to be implemented by cellular providers, not device manufacturers, and meant to be a more capable replacement for existing texting. It is not under the control of any single software or cloud provider. Think of it as improving “the lowest common denominator”. I don’t see why I would choose to use it but I do want the option.
I was an allo user and that was going to be Google’s big answer and it failed spectacularly. I don’t think chat would fare any better. I think Chat is apart of their enterprise suite now anyway.
Sorry I forgot to actually respond by mentioning the snotty attitude of apple users and their willingness to repeat off the wall technobabble advertisements.
Macintosh phone and laptop are not appropriate. I understand people are free to piss their money away as they wish. But I truly believe iLegacyTech and that absolutely brain damaged touchbar are holding back what could be otherwise productive desktop OS users. Also, it take over five years for apple to fix an emergency dialer unlock bug. It might still be there but I don’t care anymore.
Apple is not going to change this unless legally forced to because it is quite possibly the biggest driver of iPhone sales.
A whopping 87% of American teens use an iPhone, and the green text from Android SMS is the biggest reason. At that age people will do almost anything to fit in and get a date, and the green text was chosen specifically to elicit an “eww” response. Most of those teens will likely will continue to use iPhones as adults because it’s what they know.
Meanwhile outside of the United States basically no one uses iMessage. Precisely because it’s so terrible it interfacing with non-apple devices. Everyone just uses WhatsApp which will work with anything.
Of course WhatsApp’s quite a crap program as well missing basic functionality but at least it’s not device specific.
As someone from the EU, I’m so confused about why this would matter to people. At that age, people will just find any excuse to bully regardless of what it is, it’s why uniforms don’t work either for those purposes. Hell, if someone were to try and shame me for the fucking color of my messages I’d be thankful, they’ve shown me another cunt to avoid associating with. In that sense it might actually be useful. (also, who even uses sms anymore?)
The green text peer pressure means nothing to me, but you are 100% spot on about the ecosystem driving sales. My whole family uses apple and I get left out of so many group chats and face times that I’ve actually considered switching to Apple even though I’m a die hard Note fan. Apples hardware may be nothing special, but they have a killer feature in their seamless, closed ecosystem, and they know it. At the end of the day, a phones job is to communicate, and Apple does that seemlessly- with other Apple devices
It’s a slippery slope though. Unless you own a mac or pay subscribe to icloud storage tranferring photos and other files off your phone is gonna be a pain. Also, unless you get a mac with enough storage space it’s also gonna be a pain because iphotos doesn’t support direct transfer to external drives, so you gotta use image capture which is ridiculously barebones.
That’s what lured me in and also why I left. I wanted devices that worked together for accessibility reasons, not because I wanted to be on some over engineered chat network that only works with itself.
Signal is the way to go. No need to expose metadata to your mobile carrier via RCS. Also, currently you need Google’s proprietary garbage message app to make use of RCS. There’s litterally no reason to do this.
I wish we live in an ideal world where we could have a messaging application which is like email. Anyone can run their server and can have whatever messaging client they want. And everything is interoperable.
I personally had a very bad experience with signal and I don’t think I’ll be using it again. Also now that they cut SMS support I think they only way I’d use it again is if an overwhelming amount of people start using it.
Why was your experience bad? Did you sign up for it when Elon Musk encouraged people to use it? Back then, so many people signed up that their servers were just overloaded. That’s to be expected with a user growth rate of 400% in one week. I’ve been relying on Signal for all of my communications for a year and a half now and I haven’t ever experienced any issues.
I signed up very early and it was based on an episode of All About Android on TWiT. Messages just weren’t going through. Mine out and others in to me. There was an emergency and someone really needed to get ahold of me and I didn’t get the message. After that I dropped signal.
Oh, that’s unfortunate. I understand why you dropped it after that experience. I can only tell you that they have massively improved and the experience is great now.
If it gets immensely popular I’d definitely consider using it again. Without SMS as a backup it isn’t very useful. I converted a few people over to it initially and after that incident we all left. I’m not really interested in playing evangelist again.
Not the same guy but this is basically impossible. I was able to get maybe two of the dozens of people I have to contact regularly to use it, then they dropped SMS support and it’s been dead ever since for me.
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