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Comment by no_wizard | Hacker News Reader

This is something I never thought I'd see. I hope the GSM association moves fast to make robust E2EE a standard required for proper implementation for carriers. That would go a long way in making a huge improvement over SMS/MMS.

This is a win for RCS, ultimately. Maybe this will kick carriers into high gear to up their messaging standard support game and have standard interop.

I don't think this will lead to a decline in iMessage usage, nor do I think it will be catalyst enough to get people to move to Android, because there are still things RCS won't be able to support[0] but its a big step forward for a more pleasant experience between iOS and Android.

[0]: Memojis, reactions (tapbacks I think their called) and I'm curious about threaded messages. Also, at this time the actual RCS standard does not specificy that messages must be end to end encrypted. iMessage on the other hand has robust E2EE encryption (and you can get even more robust encryption by enabling Advanced Data Protection)

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> I hope the GSM association moves fast to make robust E2EE a standard required for proper implementation for carriers.

This is pretty moot now. Google has effectively turned RCS into a proprietary protocol, they fully control the only relevant server implementation, carriers that want to interconnect have no choice but to deploy Jibe or use Jibe as a service.

This could possibly open an avenue for another party to show up around this. Google de facto having reign on this is because they're the only company in this space that cared enough about it to get it moving.

Apple supporting RCS could create enough interest that it breaks their de facto control of the standard

Yes maybe. While I understand Google's frustration, the number of carriers that implemented Universal Profile independently was not zero though, and in the end it was for nothing.

I know from a friend that Facebook was looking into integrating RCS to Messenger (not Whatsapp somehow) and willing to be part of the Google federated RCS network, that also fell through, but I don't why.

What would that look like? Do you mean having Messenger be the default SMS app for your phone, and having it able to receive RCS? If so, these restrictions in Android would stop it: https://source.android.com/docs/core/connect/ims-single-regi...

I've been trying to gain some insight on why Google is not making it easy (possible?) to implement a third-party RCS app for Android and was reading about these APIs (clearly intended for OEMs).

> This means that third party apps aren't allowed to access RCS single registration APIs as they require carrier certification on the device.

Could just be Google passing the buck here, but this does sound like something the carriers would do, if given the chance.

Apple implementing RCS will surely be a major change to that.

I doubt it. I see no reason for Apple to get involved in the self-inflicted mess between carriers and Google.

Working against a single server implementation with a standardized client provisioning mechanism is much easier too.

> the only relevant server implementation

That's not true. Mavenir offers an RCS platform that T-Mobile has been using up until recently. A renewed interest in RCS due to Apple supporting it might end up with their platform being more sellable.

https://www.lightreading.com/mobile-core/mavenir-t-mobile-co...

You're proving my point. T-Mobile had to switch to Jibe.

I work at a carrier that deployed a solution provided by WIT. Then around 2019-2020 Google decided they weren't interested in an open and interconnected RCS backend anymore.

> I hope the GSM association moves fast to make robust E2EE a standard required for proper implementation for carriers. That would go a long way in making a huge improvement over SMS/MMS.

Can telcos actually offer E2EE given the various lawful intercept statutes that they are usually subject to?

I mean, they're doing it right now.

https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/google-messa...

The telcos don’t actually provide E2EE. That layer is offered by Google itself, and RCS carries encrypted data, last I checked. Not sure if Apple is going to interoperate with it.

> That layer is offered by Google itself > Not sure if Apple is going to interoperate with it.

Only if both users in a 1:1 chat are using Google Messages. E2EE is not possible even with Samsung Messages, so I highly doubt it.

Wait so google doesn’t support e2ee for more than two devices in a chat?

The last time I checked was in 2021 when they launched the feature, and it was only for 1:1 chats. Google might have extended e2ee to group chats (I would hope so).

Pretty sure everyone would still have to use Google Messages.

Yes, it does, as long as everyone is using RCS via Google Messages.

Ok, it's still absurd to me that RCS or Google Messages weren't E2EE from day 1 given even iMessage was doing E2EE group chats almost 5 years before the RCS "universal" profile was released so its not like they didn't have time. Similarly even when google's message platform did add encryption the fact that it wasn't always on is unconscionable.

How does google messages (gMessage?) indicate which messages aren't secure?

Google finished rolling out RCS group chat E2EE in August.

Hopefully vendors start putting better fallback into their messaging clients when RCS isn't available.

It's been terrible for all the poor people I know who rarely have working data on their phones, but RCS enabled by default. They can't figure out why they're not sending or receiving any messages and I have to keep disabling it for them.

If you turn off RCS, Google Messages shows you a full screen prompt once a week to turn it back on. Indefinitely.

And of course the prompt has a large blue button to enable, and a very small text underneath to dismiss, making it easy to accidentally enable it. It happened to me a few times already.

It also tells you nothing about the downsides (that you need a data connection, mainly) that would make RCS unusable to certain people... So they trick users into subscribing then users begin experiencing difficulties receiving or sending texts and they don't understand why.

Thank you, Google.

> If you turn off RCS, Google Messages shows you a full screen prompt once a week to turn it back on. Indefinitely.

It doesn't do this on my phones.

Indeed. Currently using an Android 13 Motorola until my Sony is fixed. It's not labeled RCS, but one of the first things I did was disable Messages Settings -> Chat Features -> Enable chat features - Use WiFi or data for messaging when available ...which disabled a bunch of other things. While I don't recall what appeared originally, the Send button for messages is labeled either SMS or MMS, so I suppose that did the trick. No nagging.

I did just find and disable the RCS Config Service, too, and testing that everything still works.

The problem with developers is that we are often isolated from whole sections of the world. The people on the Android team, probably working in SF, have perhaps never been into the hood. Out here there are guys on every street corner stood next to the drug dealers (often it's the same guy) trying to get you to take a free smartphone or a tablet. They get paid some sort of kickback if they can get you to take it -- it comes from this free federal plan:

https://www.fcc.gov/general/lifeline-program-low-income-cons...

The problem is that the phones generally only come with 15GB of data a month, and an average web page can easily run to 200MB now, so usually by the third day of the month they are all out of data.

There is a better federal plan for poor people called ACP which allows you to get your own phone and plan, but it isn't as well-known.

Huh? I rarely use more than 2GB/month...

> and an average web page can easily run to 200MB now

Wait, what? How did it come to that? I thought it was more like 50 MB if not even less. Thank God we have ad blockers.

> guys on every street corner trying to get you to take a free smartphone or a tablet with 15GB of data a month

Would it be possible to get it as a tourist?

As a tourist? No. You need to give your national ID (Social Security Number) to the salespeople so they can check you are receiving some sort of government assistance already.

I'm curious how you can have a phone connection but not a data connection in 2023. I don't think that's happened to me since the days of Edge. Is this a weird American thing? Do you guys still have 2G?

Reactions aren't in RCS? I thought that was one of the main motivators for it.

I thought the primary motivation for RCS was E2EE and secondary motivations were niceties like read receipts, reactions and HQ media. So far this thread has been very illuminating and shocking to me. Especially E2EE being an extension to a standard not a core part of it in 2023.

Can’t they support RCS but still have iPhone users blue ?

Yup. That's exactly what I predict Apple will do. RCS messaging will still have green bubbles. And it will continue to have the same psychological effect as SMS green bubbles do today. I think that's also why GP said there won't be a decline in iMessage usage.

So weird reading this from the transatlantic sidelines, where noone cares one little bit what device a message was sent from.

Nobody does, it’s a bitchy trope.

Green bubbles matter in group chats. You can’t easily change participants and stuff like reactions generate junk messages.

Very much not a trope. I personally know multiple people who refuse to text green bubbles, to the point of refusing dates from people who have Android.

That sounds like a people problem, not a tech problem.

It sort of becomes a people problem as people use messaging to communicate and organize events and exclude you because you'll break group chats.

Probably not a big issue if you already have a solid social circle of old tight friends who don't care about you breaking chats as they can also call you, but it can be huge issue when you move to a new city and trying to make new friend, as any extra friction you add to groups lessens your chances of being accepted and invited further.

Yeah, people can be quite lazy and petty even about such trivial things, when they don't know you and don't have any attachment to you yet, and you breaking group chats won't improve your first impressions and chances of being accepted. Hence the ever increasing loneliness crisis we're facing.

Thank fuck I live in Europe where nobody uses iMessage for group chats. Honestly fuck Apple for creating that unnecessary friction, it's not like they couldn't have accommodated blue bubbles to not break group chats but it's more profitable to emotionally extort people to buy your iJunk by making them feel outsiders.

> it can be huge issue when you move to a new city and trying to make new friend

Meh. I'm not interested in being part of a social circle that is as petty as that.

There's 40 million American teenagers who are very interested in being a part of petty social circles.

Pretty much. Peer pressure is an insanely powerful thing when you're young and trying to fit in and Apple knows teens aren't gonna die on the "stick to an Android to stick it to them" hill.

I was assuming this discussion was about adults, not children. Teenagers have always found petty reasons to reject others, but they usually grow up and learn better. This seems no different, so that part doesn't concern me much. If adults are doing it, though, that's entirely different.

Is the argument you're making that the people complaining about this on HN are American teenagers?

Seems like a completely different situation.... and really, again, a people problem.

People rightly criticise social media companies for the behaviour their platforms encourage, and iMessage encourages this behaviour as much as twitter encourages outrage.

I still believe that's a people problem.

On Twitter you can easily curate Twitter lists of people to follow without being forced to use the generated feed. I'm rarely if ever outraged or otherwise emotionally charged when I'm using it. (Maybe except when I come across reply-bots)

And as I said elsewhere in the thread, I've never experienced that problem with any friend groups when it comes to iMessage.

And I know multiple people who refuse dates from those who have a zodiac sign that is “incompatible” with theirs. I think we can safely disregard that as a factor, despite how relatively not-that-rare it could be.

Yeah but bubbles sound like a class difference, astrology is just pseudoscience. People seldom get mocked for being a libra, but they often get prejudiced for having less money.

Given that there are Android phones on the market as or more expensive than iPhones, how can these people tell which Android users are poor?

Sure, but there are no dirt cheap iPhones, unlike Android phones. There doesn't have to be 100% correlation before people start making assumptions.

There’s literally no difference in price. The only difference is that people more receptive to retail sales pitch buy androids as the reps get spiffs to move them.

Only for top of the line android phones. There exists a huge lower-tier android market that iPhone doesn't compete in.

I mean, the argument isn't that they should accept the date (on the contrary, these signs are actually beneficial for staying the fuck away from these people), the argument, or rather statement is that this sort of "tech jewelry" is very embedded in modern society, with Apple being the frontrunner.

And this has real effects. For example, Im forced to use a piece of shit Macbook at work, where literally everything else in our cloud runs on linux, because the company issues Macs as a way of attracting talent since "tech" people also want tech jewelry.

> the company issues Macs as a way of attracting talent since "tech" people also want tech jewelry.

Only a very specific demographic, though. Such companies are missing out on a lot of talented tech people.

This is not even among the top five weirdest things I have heard some base a dating decision on. People are complicated.

> I personally know multiple people who refuse to text green bubbles, to the point of refusing dates from people who have Android.

Those people don't sound like people worth knowing. Ignorant and judgy to say the least.

Life isn't so simple. What if that person is your boss or your client, or someone you love?

I mean the comment I replied to mentioned refusing dates from people with green text bubbles.

If it's a boss or someone I love and they want to ignore my messages that's on them. If it's a work issue possibly HR could be involved as discrimination or outright ignoring messages based on device wouldn't really fly.

> Those people don't sound like people worth knowing.

My boss could be refusing dates from people that have green bubbles, but not ignoring my messages. Same with a family member for example. Your comment says they aren't worth knowing either way.

I mean, sure if they are not ignoring your messages and you need or want to know them that's fine, but if they are still being that judgy for something so petty they seem like shitty people regardless.

Someone you love? If the affection is mutual they're not going to cut off communication with you because your phone doesn't run their favorite chat app.

A good friend doesn't have phone number for reasons that important to her.

She's not "cut off", but it requires a conscious effort to contact her. So while I may be keeping a group of people up to date or inviting folks for a bbq, open house, etc casually, I need to specifically invite her via some other channel.

Sometimes I forget. Feelings are hurt. I'm a single parent with a demanding job. Low friction rules the roost for me, and our group of friends all sort of support each other with these types of things and do alot of ad-hoc stuff.

Not having a phone number is much more unusual than having a phone that can do SMS but not iMessage. It adds considerably more friction; e.g. it makes some of the most popular third-party messaging apps like Signal and WhatsApp difficult or impossible to access as well.

If your boss refuses to talk to you because of something as petty as imessage bubbles, they're petty enough to fire you for any number of reasons. That person is a horrible boss no matter what you do.

> to the point of refusing dates from people who have Android.

The people who were refused dates dodged bullets, then.

Some mental illnesses can't be cured I guess.

> I personally know multiple people who refuse to text green bubbles, to the point of refusing dates from people who have Android.

Sounds like not dating them is dodging a real bullet if they're that shallow.

It’s more than that. Videos and pictures sent via SMS absolutely suck because they were designed for 2004 era quality standards.

I agree RCS will stay green. It will have text, good quality media, maybe read receipts.

And that’s it. No E2EE or other extensions. Apple is fixing one issue (bad media quality) and taking away a disingenuous Google talking point. Perhaps this is also an argument to legislators that they don’t need to open iMessage.

They’re never going to go out of their way to make it preferable in any way.

Media quality would be a start, at least. The only other thing I'd love for them to "fix" is the inability to add non-iPhone users to existing group chats. With those two things I -- and probably most Android users -- would be at a "don't care, this is good enough for me" state.

You can “add” SMS users to iMessage groups, if the group consists entirely of phone numbers and you’re on a device that supports SMS.

The newly created SMS group doesn’t replace the thread associated with the original group, though, so it’s easy for the group to fork when this happens.

Unlikely this will change with RCS.

I live in America and literally nobody I know cares about this.

Unfortunately I think it's just the typical remnant of the old Mac vs Windows haters who come out of the woodwork online to make it sound like a problem.

I care, actually a fair bit, but only because I work in a building that has two areas that are complete dead zones for cellular reception, and our IT department blocks WiFi calling (but not iMessage data). Blue bubbles can message me in those areas; green cannot.

It's not at all unusual for my phone to explode in dinging when I leave one of those areas.

I wish they didn't block WiFi calling, because my cellular reception at home isn't great, and I'd use it there. We have an internal WiFi network separate from the public one, with per-user authentication, so you don't have to worry about visitors overloading the infrastructure (it's a hospital, lots of families and patients in addition to the staff).

> Blue bubbles can message me in those areas; green cannot.

They can, but one or both parties is refusing to use any of the numerous alternative messaging options like WhatsApp.

I'm one guy. Six years ago, there were two of us out of ~30 that used Android. Both of us switched in the next year or so because nobody else would use a different app just to talk to us. So we were missing out on fairly critical information, and forget anything time-sensitive.

On Android, it wasn't an issue to use Signal, because it will communicate securely if it can and by SMS if it can't. So you can still text anyone from the app. On iOS, not so much.

I'd stay away from Whatsapp just to keep away from Meta.

> I'd stay away from Whatsapp just to keep away from Meta.

This seems prejudiced. If one company supports end-to-end encrypted chats with everyone, and the other only with people who buy their devices, I think it's clear who cares more about privacy.

It is prejudiced. I assume Meta is going to make me the product.

Signal does E2EE. They have not yet done anything to jeopardize the trust they have earned. Some do not like them, and that’s fine. I have a different view.

Apple is right now making you the product in a way that limits your privacy, telling other people that they have to buy an apple device if they want encrypted communications with you.

Is using Signal on iOS not as secure as using it on Android?

No, they just have to use something other than iMessage. But they won’t.

1. Kids care about it. Why? Because you can use iMessage via iPad without needing a phone number, and this is how lots of tweens get started with messaging.

2. Any Android users with iPhone friends trying to use iMessage for group chat cares about it. It's impossible to add Android users to an existing group chat... and any time you have a mixed iPhone + Android group chat it degrades a number of the iMessage group chat features normally accessible to iPhone users.

3. Any Android users receiving media over SMS/MMS from an iPhone user cares. They'll be receiving images & videos that look like they were shot with a potato.

The blue vs green color doesn't matter, but the effects mixed platform chatting has on both iPhone & Android users is significant.

These are fantastic points, all of which I have personally experienced as an Android user with many iPhone family members.

Apple adopting RCS won't solve #1, and is unlikely to solve #2, but solving #3 is a great start, and if the Apple faithful continue to give feedback to Apple that they care about fixing #2, we might see it one day.

I agree. Solving #3 is terrific (because it frequently bites you when the sender is someone you don't know particularly well... certainly not well enough to ask them to resend using a third party messaging app). I don't really care about #1, although I guess Google's answer would be "use Chat", which is absolutely ridiculous since it no longer has an interface to SMS/RCS like Hangouts did. This is a gaping hole in their product strategy, imho. #2 could be solved by Apple if they want to, or else we'll just continue to struggle along with a need for several different messaging apps for different social contexts. It's not like Whatsapp, Telegram, Signal, etc don't work.

Another solution Google could perhaps pursue would be to license one or multiple of those to include in the default Android install, but I don't see that happening without regulatory interference.

I have a feeling with the EU's DMA this will just become more prevalent with every messaging platform forced to "open up"

FB Messenger will have a "green bubble" for messages to people using whatever other app they're forced to integrate. Same with Whatsapp, Telegram, etc...

I care. It's fucking annoying when someone joins a group chat on Android and all of a sudden I can no longer access it from my computer, iPad or over WiFi.

Yes. In Europe it's common to use superior text messages like Signal. Even Whatsapp is better than iMessage.

Because everyone uses WhatsApp, because Apple did not reach enough market share early enough to push iMessage. That's lucky, I don't think europeans would be less susceptible to this kind of psychological manipulation.

To be frank, a lot of my WhatsApp-using friends were very upset that it was bought by Facebook. Fortunately they generally transitioned to Signal or Telegram, not iMessage due to significant Android market share.

I suspect Apple will still allow fallback to SMS and green bubbles, iMessage will be blue ansd RCS will be a new colour

The important thing (to me) isn't the bubble color, but that conversations between Android and iOS users with RCS won't degrade media down to Game Boy Color quality. At least, that's what I hope the outcome of this move is.

Yeah, I assume SMS, RCS and iMessage messages will have different colors, like green, red, and blue.

RCS is such carrier-dependent crap.

The only reason they'd move to E2EE would be if Apple forced them.

Looking at / selling message contents is a large potential revenue source for all the other major players.

Lets hope they will. Apple is a bit of a forcing function in the cellular industry, especially in the US.

I am fairly certain that it's illegal to sell the content of SMS messages in the United States at least. The metadata like who is messaging who and timestamps and best guess locations maybe is sold though. But the contents can be obtained by law enforcement. However, I think the contents are purged after some expiration time.

> … fairly certain that it's illegal to sell the content of SMS messages in the United States at least

There will be some ridiculous loophole like leasing will be allowed of all vowels on Mondays, and all consonants on Tuesdays.

Well, here's Verizon's privacy policy:

https://www.verizon.com/about/privacy/full-privacy-policy

They definitely sell things like your real-time location (you can opt out by turning your phone off, or if they're legally obligated to let you), who you contact, what websites you visit, what DNS entries your phone looks up, your subscriber information (assuming they can link it to an advertising ID that other apps are using), and what TV shows you watch, joined with all the stuff you use your broadband and phone for.

As for communications content, it's fuzzy.

My reading of it says that they can aggregate that all together in a way that is only personally identifiable to their internal marketing team and their partners (i.e., anyone that pays them and also signs a contract), so I guess it's not "for sale"? So, for instance, they could take all the RCS messages in the US, cluster them, and sell the cluster to, say, meta. Then, meta could use it for ad targeting of third party ads, but they wouldn't be able to resell the raw data unless they first de-anonymized it.

I could be wrong though. The privacy policy is very long and incredibly vague. Maybe they don't share the contents of your private communications with their "trusted partners" or internal advertising division yet.

The only way this sort of crap will get better is if the US passes a right to privacy constitutional amendment. (Of course, congress is more likely to pass laws that somehow make it worse.)

They don’t need to sell the content: imagine if they ran a classifier on everything and added it to the information they send to advertisers? They’d be able to say they sold the actual messages, just the profile they’d built of your interests.

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