Calling this anti-consumer is rather subjective.
And nonetheless there's demonstrable harm to the broader industry being caused despite their lack of care about it. Corporate misbehavior you're not consciously aware of can still cause you harm despite not being consciously aware of it.
It doesn't if it can't reliably do basic things like sending e2ee messages to people using smartphones from other brands with its default messaging app.
google implemented the exact minimum they'd need to give them a foot to cry on in the courts, and no further. and now that there is a mandate to implement RCS, they almost certainly will choose to kill google voice rather than implement it. I am already planning my exit strategy, because otherwise they'll take my phone number with it. and this is not trivial, we are talking about buying another phone (hopefully it will make it until the next-gen iphone with N3E) and paying for two lines for a couple of months. This is a pain in the ass for me.
and google has already embrace-extend-extinguished the standard - their encryption implementation is proprietary and they've refused to let anyone interop, so essentially they have put themselves as imessage 2.0 but with google as the man in the middle this time.
> If you are texting with somebody who isn’t using Android Messages (say, somebody using Samsung Messages or an iPhone), the fallback to either less-encrypted RCS chat or SMS will still work just fine.
Sounds like Samsung users need to separately download Android Messages to get E2EE.
Quotes from https://www.theverge.com/2020/11/19/21574451/android-rcs-enc... which is cited by Wikpedia on RCS.
You're framing it in a nefarious way as if Apple is flat out denying it. They didn't. They would have to LOWER security in iPhones by implementing RCS because iMessages have E2EE but RCS doesn't. Which is something all you anti-Apple people seem to conveniently leave out, because you know nobody would take it seriously if you said it.
Google's interop "solution" with the Samsung messages app is by not using encryption. Apple has that same level of support coming to iOS next year, and has also announced plans to work with GSMA on adding standardized encryption to RCS.
Google made a copy of iMessage since it is closed source and can talk to only to the same app. How is that better?
But you know what I mean - E2EE of Google Messages is closed solution.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/16/23964171/apple-iphone-rc...
What is good about whataboutism again ?
OP didn't say they tinkered on their phone - actually the total opposite. Read it again.
"I do more than enough tinkering but my phone‘s supposed to just work."
Anyway, you've missed the point that at the end of the day there's real-world benefits to many of the things people complain about. The FindMy lockout prevents phone theft (and has strong reductions in theft rates for these users). Serializing parts prevents thieves from stripping stolen phones and selling for parts. Having only one app store prevents large players with high network effect (tencent, facebook, etc) from demanding you install their app store to bypass the Apple's review/permissions process to spy on you (FB already got caught using dev credentials to do it anyway). Etc.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/01/facebook-and-google-...
I tend to agree, that a phone is not where I care to tinker in my life. Having it be secure and well-integrated is more important to me, I have a PC if I want to tinker. I can sign and sideload apps already if I want to try something (for 7 days), or getting an official dev credential extends this to 30 days. Android phones have a real problem with OS support lifespan and OEM parts availability, and I have no desire to install third-party ROMs and then spoof safetynet so I can run my bank app. Assuming that's even an option at all - Sony for example will wipe the camera's firmware when you unlock the bootloader, so it degrades a premium cameraphone to flip-phone levels.
"Not everyone wants to be stallman trying to figure out how to root their phone and spoof safetynet" is actually a great way to put it.
The fake spam complaint is addressed in the article.
Why hyperbolize things and spread outright nonsense? To what possible end?
The size limit destroys decent looking pictures and basically prevents movies from even being an option with how grainy they appear stretched out on our 4k screens.
This is ignoring all the other interactive elements that are just table stakes in any kind of messaging application that make SMS absolutely terrible in comparison.
Sure and it is absolutely obvious on my side because these contacts don’t show blue messages. Take that away and the situation turns worse because now I‘d have to guess.
Edit: don’t get me wrong - I don‘t send broken messages, I just contact them on other messengers instead.
How exactly is Beeper worsening the iPhone experience?
This is the entire fiasco distilled down to what is the root of the issue: to apple, non-apple users are not consumers. Substandard. This is the exact sentiment behind "Buy your mom an iPhone"
Messaging is by definition something that needs interop. This is why Apple (begrudgingly) supports at least SMS and MMS, because obviously you need to interop with "the others." It's also why they're being dragged kicking and screaming into RCS, which in all likelihood, they'll make equally shitty.
The fact that one company can dictate the terms of that interoperability, and make it as excruciating and inferior as possible, tells you all you need to know. But if you're the "in group" you can't even see what the issue even is.
On the other hand, this doesn’t exactly inspire confidence that it is going to be a polished experience: „Not all RCS functions defined in the standard are offered by every network and every client; only the services that are available to two communication partners are also offered in the client.“ (translated from the German Wikipedia article).
Also, some of my friends and family aren't on those apps and exclusively use SMS/iMessage.
From what I have understood in the first beeper mini anonucement, iMessage spam does already exist.
Also I never received spam on any open source messaging app, even when they were interconnected with gmail and facebook (xmpp). I've never received spam from telegram either, despite clients, protocol and API being open source. I have received less than a handful of spam on Whatsapp in more than 10 years. The only platform where I have received spam in their messaging app was instagram (I left in the meantime). It would be the same for iMessage. As long as spam is bound to a phone number, spammers will be banned the minute they start sending messages to people and will never reach you.
Spam however is a big deal on SMS, which if I understand correctly end up on iMessage on Apple devices.
So basically the Apple way is the worse way to deal with spam as all end up on the same app while on most other smartphone OS spam end up in the dedicated SMS messaging app that you can just totally ignore and disable notifications for. Apple does make it worse for its user in that context.
Anyone unsure what this means: it's a popular meme where the future of cloud/online gaming will degrade to cross-sell products maliciously. (Requiring the user to drink a sugary soft drink to continue using the product).