Hopefully they'll plug all the loopholes and actually enforce it.
I don't understand how anyone can defend business practices like this, which are exclusively there for the purpose of platform lock-in.
I think Tim Cook is spot on here. Get an iPhone for your grandma if she wants the user experience that iMessages provide. Otherwise, you can get her signal or snapchat or one of the 4,225 secure messaging ecosystems.
They don't. But that's not necessarily the complaint either.
The argument is that they do have an obligation to not intentionally break the native cell service you paid for, which is exactly what they're doing by ignoring the RCS portion of modern LTE (GSMA) spec.
It's got nothing to do with iMessage in truth. iMessage is simply how Apple has chosen to frame their excuse for intentionally breaking your cell service.
And that right there is the real problem. There are a lot of messaging apps, but most of them don't interoperate with each other. So if you want to use the same app for communicating with everyone, you either need to somehow convince everyone to install your app of choice, (and in the case of iMessage buy the same kind of phone) or use SMS/MMS. And by not supporting RCS, Apple is effectively crippling that between iPhones and Android.
Apple iMessage
Message content limited. Subpoena: can render basic subscriber information. 18 USC §2703(d): can render 25 days of iMessage lookups and from a target number. Pen Register: no capability. *Search Warrant: can render backups of a target device; if target uses iCloud backup, the encryption keys should also be provided with content return can also acquire iMessages from iCloud returns if target has enabled Messages in iCloud.
It's not Apple's obligation to force Google to submit to Apple's encryption protocols, and it's not Apple's obligation to force SMS standards to comply with their standard.
Your concern was about bullying. Would it be better if Apple simply did away with the colors and notified you that "THIS MESSAGE IS UNENCRYPTED."?
And if iMessages supported RCS, then messages to Android could be encrypted too, but Apple chooses not to support that.
Apple does provide an alternative way to use the iPhone for maximum security with a tradeoff in inconvenience which most would consider unacceptable. Google, Samsung, etc. offers nothing of the sort, and I do wonder whether phone vendors would ever be interested in investing in a feature which essentially destroys the convenience of using your phone.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32003756
The EFF considers Apple's messaging to be end-to-end encrypted. You could choose to not use iCloud, in which case the only practical way to obtain your messages would be to seize your phone. But since they are end-to-end encrypted, if an Apple employee were able to intercept and decrypt messages, then that would be big security news. If for whatever reason your concept of security is narrowly focused on resisting judicial warrants or state actors, then Android would only be worse here.
> And if iMessages supported RCS, then messages to Android could be encrypted too, but Apple chooses not to support that.
The RCS you mention is essentially Google's own standard, one which US carriers have chosen to reject. If Google could reach consensus with carriers and major phone vendors on a new standard, Apple would likely be forced to accept the new standard. Then RCS would become the true successor to SMS.
There are also other phone apps which use their own custom protocol. In some countries, WhatsApp is the most prominent messaging app.
second it's not apples obligation to force encryption, but if they really cared about your privacy it's as easy as releasing iMessage for Android.
Apple won't even talk about compatibility for Android so technically it is on Apple to offer a solution if they really cared
Third you brought up encryption not me
Then, suddenly, no iPhone user could send messages to me anymore, because Apple remembered that I was on iMessage and all the SMS messages sent to me would be redirected to iMessage. Android users were obviously unaffected. I'd send SMS to someone with an iPhone, they would reply, and it would go into a black hole. Took several weeks to resolve. My opinion of Apple as "company making stuff for basic people, like Justin Bieber" shifted towards "incompetent and/or evil lock-in, like North Korea" ;)
And that’s just Google’s collection of messaging systems!
Also, isn't it my understanding that in EU most people use other messaging apps already?
"During a close to 8-hour long trilogue (three-way talks between Parliament, Council and Commission), EU lawmakers agreed that the largest messaging services (such as Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger or iMessage) will have to open up and interoperate with smaller messaging platforms, if they so request. Users of small or big platforms would then be able to exchange messages, send files or make video calls across messaging apps, thus giving them more choice."
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/nl/press-room/20220315IP...
(iMessage can interoperate with Android, it just changes the formatting. Show me where the EU lawmakers determine CSS policy).
The reporter had a huge missed opportunity not to bring this up. If you want to have adults peer pressure each other with emotional manipulation to buy your product, that's disgusting, but fine, you have the right to do that. However there's a huge ethical line that gets crossed when that's done to children. Teaching kids and teens that brand loyalty is necessary to maintain friendships and an identity is extremely toxic and stupid.
I think the bigger issue is that we let kids create their own social structure in schools (in the US) where in-group out-group dynamics include bullying over what color your texts are, what clothes you are wearing, what songs you listen to... etc.
School culture should be about academic achievement, and controlled and led by teachers. It works that way in other schools systems. Grown ups actually place limits on bad behaviors of children, with the full support of parents.
In this case, that might mean not giving kids personal multimedia devices, and not permitting their use on school grounds at all.
Wouldn't it be amazing if you could message all your friends in a single App, without having to think about what platform they're using? If you could just see and respond to all their messages in a single thread, one for each friend?
The number of messengers I have installed on my phone (and I'm forced to use regularly because they're not interoperable) is madness.
I like the EU using their market position to remedy this
But aside from that it doesn't reach an antitrust issue because Apple didnt need to do anything, the people chose to associate the unencrypted message with Android and a perceived inferiority - and nobody actually cares that RCS got implemented to supersede SMS and MMS at some random time over the last decade
a) developing a messaging product, then not porting it to your biggest competitor?
b) declining to implement a mediocre standard at your biggest competitor's behest? The last major US carrier finally deployed RCS this year, some smaller carriers around the world still do not support it, and it notably requires carrier participation, unlike iMessage.
c) ???
It isn't as if Apple is blocking communication with non-Apple devices.
If Apple is somehow legally forced to spend the time and effort to implement RCS, then I would hope they would still find a way to make it clear at a glance when I'm sending a message via iMessage vs RCS or whatever else.
I can't use new carrier-dependent features when texting Android phones, but Verizon Android users couldn't use those new features either until a couple of months ago, so I'm not sure how upset I should be about Apple still not supporting that. I don't think I would call it "cumbersome," let alone "extremely cumbersome."
I see no artificial restrictions on communicating with Android devices. Nothing is blocked, nothing is available but restricted, so I don't think "kneecapped" is the right word here.
They are not investing the effort to support a new thing, Google's umpteenth effort at messaging, which requires carrier dependence and undermines end-to-end encryption. Some people might find that unfortunate, but I don't think "refusing to implement new service" is the same as "kneecapping communication," personally.
I don't agree. Waiting ten plus seconds for each text to send is not a viable way to have a conversation. Anything beyond 5 or so texts becomes unbearbale.
Unless...are you perhaps talking about when someone with whom you previously used iMessage is offline, or switches away from iOS, and the Messages app first tries iMessage, and only when that fails, falls back to SMS? Because that process includes a delay (while it tries to establish an iMessage link). But that should only happen in very limited circumstances for a very limited period of time. That's the only thing other than service issues I can think of that you might mean.
There is normally no delay for SMS messages for me. Again, I can text phones running Android just fine.