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Comment by JohnBooty | Hacker News Reader

Poor technical understanding. It's not "degradation."

They will use the iMessage protocol if supported by all clients. If not, they fall back to the next best thing supported by all clients whether RCS or SMS/MMS. In your case (possibly before iPhones supported RCS) the "next best thing" was apparently SMS/MMS.

This is the correct behavior.

I think you're also falling into the common trap of automatically thinking whatever Android supports is like, the correct and open standard.

In reality, RCS's history was an absolute mess of incompatible implementations, pushed and owned by some of by Apple's direct competitors. It's really not any more the "correct" standard than iMessage is and it does not support E2EE outside of Google's proprietary implementation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Communication_Services#De...

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At least RCS is an attempt at being a cross platform standard, even if it still sucks. iMessage is locked down to Apple devices only. Even if you reverse engineered the protocol you wouldn't be able to get it on Android because Apple will shut you down.

Best option is to just use a different app that just works on all platforms. No RCS, no iMessage.

    At least RCS is an attempt at being a cross platform 
    standard, even if it still sucks.

The E2EE part, which does not exist in the RCS standard itself, is a proprietary Google thing with keys managed by Google. It is not open, and opening it is not trivial because somebody has to be an authoritative key source etc.

If not for that part I'd agree with you.

    Best option is to just use a different app that just works 
    on all platforms. No RCS, no iMessage.

Well, I think there's obviously a huge place for these apps and there always has been. There is certainly nothing stopping you and your buddies from all standardizing on Signal, Telegram, or uh.... buying the rights to ICQ and resurrecting that or whatever.

The value of iMessage/RCS/SMS is that it is effectively universal. I just need somebody's mobile number and I can call or text them. They are (more or less) guaranteed to be able to receive that call or text. I can buy the most advanced iPhone or Pixel and I can send a text message to some dude on a 2001 flip phone in a jungle somewhere. That is a huge huge huge value.

The value you are talking about is all because of SMS. It's the lowest common denominator and IMO shouldn't be combined into a single app.

And there's definitely no reason why either iMessage or RCS E2EE need to be locked to a specific platform. Signal, WhatsApp, etc just work everywhere with no quirks when messaging people on different platforms.

All the other messenger apps you can use on iOS, like whatsapp, telegram, signal, etc, have no degradation with android users present.

Why can't apple publish an iMessage app for linux, windows, and android? Telegram and signal have no trouble maintaining applications for this, and they've got far less money than apple does.

RCS and SMS have been a total mess, yes, but every other chat protocol I've used has been better than iMessage in terms of supporting cross-platform communication. It's only iMessage which fails at this fundamental part of being a communication app, that of being available on multiple platforms.

I know you're going to say "the reason is spam, you need to pay apple $700 to get a device capable of iMessage, and they can ban by device, which deters spam"... which okay, fine, make iMessage be a $15/mo subscription to use on any non-iOS devices, that'd solve the spam problem just fine while still letting android users join back into the family group message chat again.

> All the other messenger apps you can use on iOS, like whatsapp, telegram, signal, etc, have no degradation with android users present

Yes, those all work and each require that you download and install their app, go through setup, potentially some identity verification steps, etc.

If you want that functionality, all of them are available as options.

What would make an Apple iMessage app for Android better than any of them? Unlike today, Android users would have the same experience for any of these other apps - completely excluded from conversations until everyone agrees upon an app, downloads it, creates an account and exchanges whatever addresses, nicknames or QR codes necessary to join a group.

The only thing that an Apple iMessage app buys the group is a better experience for the _Apple_ users. It actually increases lock-in to Apple's services, both because now Android users are signing up for Apple services to to communicate with their groups, and because Apple users know they can just reject other options because the Android people can "make iMessage work".

I want Apple iMessage to be clearer on iOS.

Right now, iOS users can't as easily understand the difference between iMessage and SMS, and I think it would make what's happening clearer to users if the apps were separate.

If you opened the "SMS" app to get your sms 2fa codes and talk to android users, and your "iMessage" app separately to talk to iPhone users, it would make people less mad when they open their iMessage app to iMessage, and instead weirdly get green bubble SMS.

It would be like if when I installed the "firefox" app on iOS it instead installed "safari" and touching the "firefox" icon opened "safari", and didn't have any firefox addons. Oh weird, sorry, bad example.

The point is not that iMessage is better than whatsapp, it's not. The point is that iPhone users try to use iMessage, and right now apple's weird SMS integration with it makes them accidentally use SMS and get annoyed.

    The point is that iPhone users try to use 
    iMessage, and right now apple's weird SMS 
    integration with it makes them accidentally 
    use SMS and get annoyed.

I disagree that the "annoyed" people are "trying to use iMessage." I think they're just trying to message their friends. They are annoyed because the only common protocol supported by all parties in the conversation kind of sucks sometimes.

Apple has made the correct set of trade offs. If you just want to send a text message and don't care about the particulars you can do that and you'll automagically get the best possible experience based on the best lowest common denominator protocol whether it is iMessage, RCS, or SMS.

And if you and your buddies are savvy enough to want more than that you can install Signal or Whatsapp or whatever.

But that baseline out-of-the-box experience for mobile phones has always been "if I have somebody's number I can text/call them using my phone's out-of-the-box functionality and the network sorts out the details."

I think it's kind of nuts to throw that in the trash and you don't appreciate what a huge step backwards that would be for most of the people who buy and use phones.

Also, would you not agree that out of the box E2EE is a huge deal!?

But the keys and key exchange protocol for E2EE have to be managed by somebody. Signal, Google, Apple, whoever.

Indeed. Pretty much everyone I know is "texting" with their friends and using whatever is the default app on their phone. Some people will use Whatsapp for specific groups/events, but that default text app is very commonly used.

This reminds me of a conversation with an iPhone-using elderly relative who wanted to text friends in their retirement home:

ER: Why is it that when I send text messages to my friends they sometimes never get them?

Me: When you get messages are the bubbles green?

ER: Yes.

Me: Is there bad phone signal in this area?

ER: Yes.

Me: OK, that means your friends are using Android phones, so your messages are being sent by a method called 'SMS' which isn't very reliable, particularly when phone signal is poor.

ER: I don't really understand that. What I can I do to fix it?

Me: You and your friends could install an app such as Whatsapp or Signal and send your texts with that.

ER: No, I'm not installing an app!

Me: You could persuade your friends to buy iPhones.

ER: They won't do that.

Me: You could wait a few months and Apple will most likely activate a new system called "RCS" on iPhones which might make messages with your friends a bit more reliable.

ER: That's no good, I need to fix it now.

etc. etc.

being sent by a method called 'SMS' which isn't very reliable, particularly when phone signal is poor...

Not that it is relevant to overall point, but this is the exact opposite of my experience. I've been in plenty of situations where it is impossible to make calls because the signal is so bad, but communicating with SMS has worked perfectly. As my signal gets weaker and weaker, SMS is always the last thing to fail.

Interesting. I don't think I've noticed that, but I have run into various issues with SMS when there's poor signal. On one occasion I could receive but could not send, just at the perfect time when someone was waiting for me and I was unable to get to them.

> They will use the iMessage protocol if supported by all clients.

Which would be perfectly reasonable if they allowed clients on other platforms. It just happens that the only clients are the ones that require buying Apple hardware. If the iMessage ptotocol is so great (I don't know enough about it to say), then great - either release an app for Android, or let others do it. Until then it's not a standard, open or otherwise.

    If the iMessage ptotocol is so great (I don't know enough about it to say),

Well, it supports bigger images, read statuses, and fun effects that aren't a part of SMS. But what's important to a lot of people like me is that it's automatically E2EE if all recipients are on iMessage.

I would hope that anybody on HN considers that rather important.

Silicon Valley and engineers in general have really fucking changed if having a large portion of the phone-using population getting automagical E2EE is no longer a big deal.

    Until then it's not a standard, open or otherwise.

Are you holding Google to this same standard? RCS is open-ish, but the E2EE extensions are proprietary and the key exchange is managed by Google. They are not opening that up, or at least they have not said that they are.

E2EE is not exactly trivial to make "open" because somebody has got to manage the key exchange. This is true for Signal, etc.... Signal handles the key exchange.

I would have a problem with Apple's conduct here if they locked you out of alternatives.

But I think their approach is correct. You get a default E2EE experience that works between Apple devices. But you are not prevented from any other messaging network you might want to use.

In some ways this is admittedly like Microsoft enforcing their web monopoly by making Internet Explorer the default browser back in the day, but I think it is different in crucial ways and I think E2EE is a worthy and necessary goal.

> Well, it supports bigger images, read statuses, and fun effects that aren't a part of SMS. But what's important to a lot of people like me is that it's automatically E2EE if all recipients are on iMessage.

Yes, obviously it's better than SMS. That's a 40-year old standard. I don't think I've sent an SMS to a human in over a decade. I mean is it better than other modern messenger protocols.

> Are you holding Google to this same standard? RCS is open-ish, but the E2EE extensions are proprietary and the key exchange is managed by Google. They are not opening that up, or at least they have not said that they are.

My objection to iMessage isn't that it's proprietary. It's that it's closed, and restricted to one platform.

> But I think their approach is correct. You get a default E2EE experience that works between Apple devices. But you are not prevented from any other messaging network you might want to use.

There is no way to justify restricting it to Apple devices aside from vendor lock-in. They say they care about E2EE, but then make it impossible to work with conversations with most devices in the world.

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