Hopefully the EU (or, in an alternate reality, the US) will eventually force Apple to finally implement RCS messages (or, less likely, open up iMessage).
Let the competition dictate it. No need for the government to get involved. Maybe Google can spend $50 billion to create and market an alternative to iMessage if they truly care instead of these half-ass attempts once every 2 years.
Let's be real here. The only reason Google is pushing this is because they're losing Android users to iOS in the US due to the green/blue bubbles. It's a huge thorn for Android in the US. There is absolutely no reason any government, particularly, EU to push private messaging services to open up so Google can make more profit.
It is letting the competition dictate it by leveling the playing field for a behemoth like Apple with every single other messaging app developer/company.
Large tech companies vertically integrating by using their walled gardens as a weapon is literally the point of the EU regulations. For EU regulators, its not taking a side in apple vs google. Its taking a side in mega corporations vs any other company or person
RCS is better than text, but let’s not delude ourselves, it will likely never be better than iMessage or even WhatsApp.
Anyone is a weird way of spelling Google and Apple. Neither Android nor iOS let anyone make an app that can do RCS.
Apple users are as far as I can tell happy the way it is.
Different platforms have become the standard de facto in different regions of the world (iMessage in us, WhatsApp in Europe, WeChat in china, ..).
All of these platforms belong to private companies.
A sane landscape would be having platform interoperability, at least for the most common features and then let companies compete on features, not on user networks.
In Europe it is virtually impossible no to use WhatsApp, especially if you have kids. I don’t like it, but it’s one of the service I use the most, because I’m forced to.
What's the problem exactly?
To have a standard? Isn't that what phone numbers and SMS are if you want a standard way of reaching someone?
If you have other standards, you reduce innovation because in order to change anything, you have to get 100s of companies to agree and comply.
But if Whatsapp, iOS, Viber, WeChat, etc wants to make something better, they can write the code and release it tomorrow.
Users have chosen the private model. It's better. It's faster. It innovates more. If you want a standard, it'll just become like SMS years later. I don't want one single app. Each app does something better.
This is why we have regulated interoperability on many mass-market technologies. Imagine requiring a Ford to use certain gas stations or a Sony TV to view certain channels. There is no upside for the consumer when mass-market products leverage their popularity to create walled gardens.
If you want a group chat with friends, there are a bunch of apps for that. If your friends wants those cool features but refuse to use any one of existing apps besides iMessage to talk to you, then they are not your friends.
Considering the issues folks are mentioning here about moving on to RCS and then possibly being unable to receive messages, etc... Americans can just do what the rest of the world does and use any app available on the app/play stores to chat. Whatsapp, kakaotalk, line, telegram, etc...
Lots of providers implement RCS, lots of people use it. Perhaps none of the people in your particular region/circle of contacts do? My contacts almost all use signal. The exceptions where there are people that don't have any third party messaging apps, they use RCS. To those people, it's "just like a better MMS", they don't know any different, it just improves their messaging with no effort.
At least for the region I know, there are _a lot_ more Android users than iOS users, and third party messaging is really common. In practice, SMS is the last resort if you have nothing else.
Absolutely zero of my contacts use signal. Some use element. Zero use iMessage. Almost 100% use WhatsApp.
I’m in Europe, middle class, family with kids, both parents working here.
I use Google Docs exclusively. Sometimes I'll use Apple's built in document apps for local.
Microsoft probably makes more money having Office on Macs than not having it. Office software competition would have built up from Macs not having MS Office. And MS Office would have stronger competition than today.
Which is why any standard where end to end encryption is not mandatory is unacceptable.