Why is the iPhone app called Signal whereas the Android app is called RedPhone?
(as an aside, I love the screenshots for RedPhone https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.thoughtcri...)
(as an aside, I love the screenshots for RedPhone https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.thoughtcri...)
On Android you can use RedPhone for secure calls and TextSecure for secure text messages. These calls and text messages are compatible with calls and text messages in Signal iOS. Someday TextSecure and RedPhone on Android will be integrated into one unified product called Signal.
The TextSecure brand is unfortunately dead to me. Although I liked the idea in theory of the SMS backwards compatibilty layer, in practice it confused people and caused technical problems which stopped many of my friends using it.
With a reboot as a product with the new name Signal, I can market it again. Needs an Android version first though!
Nobody needs SMS if everyone could just use the same app. But my brother uses a dumbphone and my mother uses an iPhone with nothing but iMessage and I use an Android and don't really feel like installing whatsapp or whatever the latest fad is just because one or two of my friends has it. Over SMS I can communicate with them all, and if any of them ever install textsecure I get encryption as a bonus.
Signal is a rebranding that began with the first app on the iOS platform, which happened to be the voice app. However, Signal is intended to be a fully "integrated" app, that will include text, voice, photo/video attachments, and hopefully video-chatting eventually, too, to take on Skype.
The Android version of Signal will probably arrive this year, too, and when it does TextSecure and RedPhone should be gone from the Play Store.