Pressure grows on Apple to open up iMessage
Pressure grows on Apple to open up iMessage
Pressure grows on Apple to open up iMessage::Samsung has joined Google’s campaign to force Apple to make iMessage RCS-compatible—but European regulators are more likely to get that job done.
Unless the EU makes them use RCS they never will. In the US iMessage is literally THE REASON people buy the iPhone. It's their main selling point. They don't care how much pressure you place on them, they aren't going to lose those sales willingly.
I have seen people literally say they like that iMessage is exclusive, and they like to keep Android users away/separate
It was reeking of classism in addition to being generally a terrible thing to read
I've heard of people not responding to the wrong colored bubbles or being judgemental, like my $1,200 phone is better than your $1,200 phone?
That's just sad. Not even sports teams or musicians, but over a walled-gardened messaging app?
I knew a 29 y/o woman that switched to iPhone so that others with iPhones would see her text messages bubble as blue instead of green. Imagine blowing over a thousand dollars so that someone else sees blue rather than green in text messages. Meanwhile, I can make the bubble colors whatever color I want on my Android.
Top whack android phones aret really cheaper than iPhones these days so it's not classism as such. Yanks just seem to love to tribalise everything, see masks during Covid as another example. I think it's a result of having a two party political system.
💀
Nothing. Google Messages app has all the same features. The only problem is that Apple refuses to also support RCS (which Google messages uses) and so if an android user sends a message to an iPhone user, the iPhone user gets it as an SMS. If the Android user sends a picture, the iPhone user receives it as an MMS.
In the rest of the world this is not an issue because most people use WhatsApp or Signal or Viber or any other local messaging app. Also most android phones have the Messages app as default which means if you message another Android user they will get it over WiFi/data in the messages app.
But in the US for some reason the iPhone users consider getting an SMS as somehow bad and that the Android user is poor or inferior because they sent an SMS.
It's totally stupid and only a US issue, but it's so strong that teenagers will be bullied if they don't have an iPhone for iMessage. So they all get iPhones in order not to be bullied. And this way Apple makes mega sales.
The fact that other people they know also use it.
The app itself is pretty much the same as any other modern messaging app, but network effects are everything when it comes to messaging services.
This is why you see entire countries where everyone has WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger or Telegram, depending on what other people in the country are using.
Encryption, photos are higher quality through it (this is where "Android cameras are bad" came from,) typing indicators, sending messages over Wi-Fi, iMessage games, and message effects.
The EU has dragged Apple through the mud in order to make them change for the better, they will be able to do the same.
If what the first commenter said is true. They will just implement RCS or an alternative in the EU and make up some reason why they can't or won't for the US market.
USB C was a hardware change. Economically it was not viable to run separate production lines of lightning/ USB-C phones.
RCS is a software issue. Supporting RCS in certain regions but not others (the US for example) is much simpler.
True. So true in fact that I'd be willing to bet that even if the EU made them implement RCS they still wouldn't do it in the US. USB-C only worked because it's a hardware change and maintaining separate lightning and USB-C models and accessory ecosystems doesn't make sense. RCS is a software change that costs them nothing to NOT use in the only market where it would hurt them.
Agreed
In most of Europe, nobody uses an apple phone, so the pressure to get them to use a different protocol is fairly low.
Group chats in RCS weren’t even end-to-end encrypted on Android until August of this year. Green texts are a security risk.
Okay so now that it has encryption, what is the security risk?
😂, a security risk 🤣🤣🤣🤣 Are you Edward Snowden that you think it's such a massive risk?
You are delusional. I use text messages all the time and there is zero risk.
If you're that concerned with security, shouldn't you be using Signal and try to convince others to do so? iMessage is E2E encrypted but Signal is platform-agnostic and has better security/privacy.
My issue with RCS is its only open to other device makers, like you can't make RCS apps cause you need a special license. Its a closed system that on android will likely always depend on google
The idea of making Apple use it is also part of Google giving the operations to carriers, just like SMS, and then gradually replacing SMS altogether. Google isn't even supposed to be running the RCS servers. But they did it in order to get the standard up and running everywhere. It's an open standard, and multiple carriers in several countries are on their way to carrying the burden of the servers, the way the standard is supposed to operate. Once it's operating, all servers can talk to each other, just like you can SMS a person on another carrier line. RCS will allow universal rich texting.
Surely XMPP and other standards are different and I would prefer any other than something championed by Google. But the truth is, that the other standards aren't invited to sit at the right tables and don't offer the same “replace SMS once and for all” potential the way RCS does. XMPP for example is super expensive to escalate and like almost all of the traffic is just presence messaging, which is super wasteful and energy intensive on servers. RCS is not the best, but it's one that all carriers and telecommunications agencies are on board for replacing the archaic SMS. And it doesn't preclude using other protocols. Like, WhatsApp, Signal, Matrix and Telegram will still continue to exist.
I'm not so sure about the special license thing. The limit on 3rd party apps is because there isn't an API in Android that exposes RCS to users, only OEMs (which is how Samsung can do it). If Google flipped that switch and made the API public, 3rd party apps would be able to use it just as easily as they do SMS without paying extra or obtaining a license. It's an open standard.
Only Google knows why they haven't done this already.
Because RCS is provisioned by the telcos and the telcos won’t let them.
Want end to end encryption, have to use Google Messages, not Samsung Messages, both RCS. How’s that for interop?
RCS is a mess and not the savior.
Also, encryption is a mixed bag depending upon the client, and you need a phone number. Using iMessage with an email address is quite nice.
"Lol, no." -Tim Cook, probably.
"Hell yes" - the EU, definitely
"Too bad" -the EU, as well
I remember Steve Jobs stating on stage that the protocol will be opened up when iMessage was revealed. Apparently this statement surprised the developers of it, because they didn’t know anything about that (based on some rumors).
Then that statement was silently ignored.
It was FaceTime, not iMessage. The reason the developers were surprised was that they didn’t own the tech, and Apple lost a patent lawsuit about it and almost had to remove FaceTime entirely. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-20236114 https://www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/apple-s-facetime-open-standard-never-happened
They aren't going to budge, at least not willingly.
a la USB-C
This is where the EU could really make it a reality.
....or even better: end iMsg
I have zero interest in using any Apple service. I've never needed to, and I never will.
They can keep their imessage thing, I hadn't even heard of it until just now. I'm good.
Surely that’s a people problem, not a technical one?
Nobody I know uses iMessage (or RCS for that matter) here in Germany. Most people use WhatsApp.
I think this is an American problem
Not nobody, it's number three after WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger (both owned by Meta).
So yeah, the EU is definitely focusing on Meta, but iMessage, Signal and RCS (Google) are large enough to all be in scope of the regulation.
I don't know if things like Snapchat are also in scope.
Edit: got corrected below. WhatsApp and Messenger are in scope, iMessage is being reviewed.
the EU is definitely focusing on Meta, but iMessage, Signal and RCS (Google) are large enough to all be in scope of the regulation.
Signal and RCS are not in scope. You can see the targeted services here, for communication it's currently just WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. iMessage is being discussed but that's it. Signal and RCS don't have a large enough share, Signal is tiny and RCS is not even a blip on the radar. If anything it's going to be Viber and Telegram next. Viber has a 25x larger userbase than Signal, Telegram about 10x, and WhatsApp is about 75x. Here's a chart to give you some idea.
Funnily enough, here in Scandinavia next to nobody uses WhatsApp, we pretty much exclusively use sms/RCS/iMessage and Snapchat. Sometimes Messanger. Weird how different it is
People keep getting messages the app and iMessage the protocol confused. While never written that way (as far as naming goes), I’ve seen nothing to indicate that the EU isn’t just saying that Messages the app doesn’t just need hooks to allow third party apps to integrate into the one interface. It’s about adding more bubble colors as it were. So stuff like WhatsApp would just pop up in the same feed over whatever protocol it uses.
But that would still be easier to convince someone to sign up for Signal or whatever other app if it came in a unified inbox. I just started using Beeper a couple of months ago, because while the security concerns are valid, it is really damn convenient.
Oh agreed. I think (if I’m right, I’m not a lawyer just a programmer who reads all this from a highly Apple centric technical background) it would make for a much improved messaging experience. Like this with RCS, I don’t care if Apple implements it themselves. I do think the carriers apps should though and those messages should just show up like any others in Messages. Same with say WhatsApp providing its messages. Ideally they’d handle their own encryption/keys/requirements basically externally to Messages itself, like many of the other apps that provide system wide extensions do.
Anyway here’s hoping 🤷♂️
As OP said, Apple can open up the iMessage protocol and still mark the non-iMessage mesagges inside their app as they used to. Apple didn't create the green/bubble class divide, but they sure are enjoying the ride and can claim they're innocent (since it's technically the users, not the company discriminating).
Anyways, I'm all for open protocols and cross-platform compatibility. If some iUsers decide to ghost me because my Signal message appears in a different color, then screw them. Can I make them purple or orange?
I hope this is right
I don't get why people like RCS in this context. It has the same problem as iMessage.
On Android you have to use Google Messages to get it. Third party apps don't work with it because Google never opened it up to them. How common is RCS without Google Messages? Even on Samsung phones it goes via Google.
How common is iMessage without an Apple product?
Why does Google want them to use iMessage? Probably since the data would flow through them.
Same shiz, different company.
RCS is just a standard, much like how SMS is just a standard. Google's Messaging app is just one implementation of it, though it probably is the most popular in the US it is not the only one, nor is Google able to decide who cannot use it. Carriers typically have their own, though you may have recently heard that T-Mobile decided to switch over to Google's.
As someone else said RCS is just the new global standard replacing SMS that apple does not want to support because it weakens their walled garden.
RCS is an open standard created by GSMA, not a Google product. Google and Samsung just have the most popular "flavours" of RCS
Samsung Messages supports RCS if carrier enables it: https://www.androidcentral.com/how-set-rcs-chat-samsung-phones
That’s why Apple has been cagey about the whole thing. It’s Google’s tech. Their patents. Their way. Of course they are going to weaponize it because that’s where we are with software these days.
The answer isn’t RCS and Apple knows it. It’s trading iMessage for a merger with gMessage, a hybrid of the two with Apple losing half of its control. For a pretty meek gain.
The answer is to come up with an open standard that all messaging apps adopt and build on. So we can eventually move away from shitty SMS. Neither Google, or Apple should control the framework.
Because most people don't really understand the specifics of what they are railing against and/or arguing for. They just read "big bad Apple is being eViL" and get on the complaint train without really understanding what they are advocating for.
In my opinion Google should really being trying to push Chat as the default for Android instead. It is no more walled off than Googles RCS implementation, and unlike RCS they don't need Apple to bake it into their messaging app to attract users.
The fact that they care more about their RCS implementation for this purpose instead of Chat or just the basic RCS protocol as the standard tells me Google is more interested in the easy road to being the technical foundation of texting for reasons other than the universal convince of customers or the proliferation of standards.
In reality they probably want this so bad because if they were to get it it would make it effectively impossible for the average person to avoid Google services on some level, which is good for their data mining empire.
What happended with forcing interoperability with different services like WhatsApp and Messenger? Would be great if we could just have one app for all messages like on Windows Phone back in the day 🙏
Matrix has good interop, you can use it.
I’ve looked into using Matrix bridge to be able to communicate with iMessage groups from Android. There’s a repo / company called Beeper that seems to maintain some bridges.
But tbh haven’t spent enough time with it. Looks like a lot of setup and maintenance. Would LOVE to be able to talk to iMessage from android
I miss the old days of Trillian, a single pane of glass UI for all the major IM networks, cross-service meta contacts, and the messaage history was kept client side.
I would love if they would just roll out an iMessage app to android. Ideally free.
I could realistically see them roll out an apple subscription pack to android eventually. Give users a way to access Apple Music, Fitness, etc. May even allow android users make use of Apple Watch.
I’m not an Apple fan boy, but this seems like a decent compromise from a business perspective. This meets a need and I don’t think there’s a decent enough argument that it would cannibalize iPhone sales (flagship models anyway)
I'll just carry on using whatapps and people on iPhones can either download it or put up with my different coloured bubbles if they don't want too. Luckily people in the UK are all mostly on WhatsApp anyway, this who text message colours is a very yank centric problem.
Signal or at least Telegram or Viber. Fuck WhatsApp, I'd like at least my messenger app to not belong to Facebook of all companies.
I tried to use it a few months ago. It would not let me use it unless I gave it access to all my contacts' information. I denied the permission request and it wouldn't work.
How in the hell are you okay with that?
That would make the problem worse, it would be just another centralized chat app you need to install. We would get from "what about people not using iOS" to "what about people not using iOS or Google Android".
I ain't paying a one time or subscription to get fucking blue or green bubbles. Hell with that.
FaceTime would be nice to have on Android as well, I know it technically works via a browser, if you get an invite from an iPhone user, but it's such a bad experience for everyone. And I'm sure they do that because it's easy peer pressure "advertising" from Apple users who want to video call with Android users, but can't be bothered to put any work into using a compatible app, and instead blame Android users for the incompatibility.
I don’t think that works, since why would people want yet another chat app to deal with. I tried several but usually gave them up because iMessage does what I need it to and I don’t want to check many
Having everyone support RCS, as an update from SMS, gives that interoperability, along with improving the SMS experience
I was a huge fan of what Pigeon tried to do, but I’m Apple-centric these days and have no idea what the state of that is
You can do apple music on android
Apple Music on android is shit
People actually use that? Everybody I know is using whatsapp and/or signal. Nobody bothers about proprietary crap.
What is your demo? In my world it's quite different. Isn't Whatsapp proprietary? And I know few that will bother with signal these days. I've started getting obvious spam invites on it as well so...
RCS should just be the standard. There is no reason to argue that.. it doesn't end the apps you use but many of us are tired of multiple apps.
Is RCS encrypted? I still prefer signal above everything else. Whatsapp seems to be passable privacy wise, but it's Facebook so I don't trust it one bit.
One way or another, Whatsapp is the standard around the world and it for sure beats SMS.
Whatsapp is using the signal protocol, which is open. So the app itself might be proprietary, but not the implementation.
Never looked into it, what's so bad about RCS besides it being proprietary? Way better than SMS in my experience.
There is exactly one app that can use rcs. No better than apple
Confidently incorrect but ok.
The whole point of RCS is that it's a protocol so there demonstrably would be other apps. It's like saying there's only one app for SMS, it isn't true.
RCS seems to be pretty openly licensed out to other OEMs, definitely a lot better than iMessage.
It's still proprietary though, a far cry from something like Matrix.
Doesn’t the EU DMA would eventually force Apple, Whatsapp… to open up ?
iMessage was excluded because nobody uses it here
They did fully not exclude it from legislation yet. Apple simply contested their iMessage's as a gatekeeper under the definition used in the act, and the Commission is in the process of determining whether or not that is true. If iMessage is determined to be a gatekeeper, Apple will only have bought themselves a few more months before they have to comply with the DMA.
What’s here ? I’m French and I think 90% iPhone users use it. For what I see, Whatsapp here is more, of an app dedicated to family groups and travelling abroad
I’d love to see an open, secure, universal rich messaging standard adopted by everyone but we know that’s not gonna happen.
Carriers have literally no incentive to improve on SMS, I doubt they’ll lose any customers because of a lack of RCS adoption.
Do I like the locked in nature of iMessage? Not really, but it’s honestly not that big of a deal here (UK).
I just don’t like how Google talks about their proprietary messaging service as though it’s an industry standard. It’s not. Google RCS is not RCS.
Citation needed on the Google RCS not being RCS
RCS was meant to be a SMS replacement spec for carriers to implement but it never reached ubiquity like SMS did.
And of the carriers that rolled it out, not all of them rolled it out to the same spec either so they’re not even completely interoperable.
Then there’s the fact that many of the Google Messages features such as E2E encryption aren’t a part of the RCS Spec. They were built on top of it by Google.
And unless you’re Samsung, good luck on building a messaging app that’s interoperable with the Google version of RCS they use in messages.
In short, Google RCS runs through Google’s servers, not the carriers like it was designed for. As far as I see it, it’s just the Google version of iMessage.
If you want to download the actual RCS universal profile spec as defined by GSMA you can find it here, missing quite a few things from the Google version you see in Messages:
I don't want next-gen SMS. I want adoption of Internet based and democratic standard instead.
I honestly think the odds of Apple making an iMessage app for Windows/Android/Linux is more likely than that sadly
David Meyer put a lot of effort into this story and it shows.
Who is he again?
I care. The majority of countries are heavily dependent on WhatsApp and that's not good!
Ever think the US based company is trying to do something for it's American user's? Makes sense to me. Almost nobody in America uses WhatsApp or other messaging apps, at least in my experience so far.
or imessage
Uh oh class!
Let’s be real: there’s a lot of self-interested whining from Samsung and Google, but there isn’t any pressure.
Apple doesn’t want to that because they make money from iMessage. Android wouldn’t want you to do that if they had iMessage. If you use Android and have RCS then you don’t need iMessage because you already have the features you want. Android only wants iMessage be opened so Apple makes less money. Don’t get caught up in their war. Use your RCS messenger and don’t be worried about what Apple has.
Who fucking cares, it’s a private company they’ll do what they want more power to em
Apple has a better solution. Why should they adopt an inferior one?
Do people forget about SMS? Apple's solution uses that too. It's shit. This is about replacing SMS with RCS. It's hard to argue that Apple's solution is better if you can only use it within Apple's ecosystem.
The pressure doesn't matter, apple makes a legitimate amount of money from people scared of being a different colored bubble. Unless someone actually writes it into law and makes a provision that all the bubbles must appear the same, nothing will change
This is weirdly only a thing in America. In Europe, where I live, iMessage isn’t that popular and iPhone users never seem to care about the bubble colour (likely because WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, Element, and Threema are so popular, everyone is used to using multiple chat apps anyway).
Edit: Also I’m not sure why everyone is championing RCS - it’s yet another proprietary communication standard like iMessage and isn’t open thus can’t be easily implemented in other chat apps.
Rather then pressure Apple to support and further popularise another closed protocol, we should be pushing for something open like Matrix or Signal.
RCS is an implementation of GSMA Universal Profile and is interoperable with it
I have never heard of anyone in the U.S. who cares about the bubble color either. The only reason I ever cared was that it used to mean there was a good chance it wouldn't get through if it was a green bubble, but that doesn't seem to be the case anymore. I've gotten iPhone-to-iPhone green bubbles when there's been some sort of communication difficulty to Apple's servers and it had to go straight SMS.
I have to say that in Denmark at least, iMessage seems to thrive quite well. There are quite a lot using Facebook messenger, but SMS and iMessage is a close second. This is entirely from my point of view. Never met anyone using the examples you mention, unless they are communicating with foreigners on a daily basis.
My guy, this entire article is about Google and Samsung trying to convince Apple to adopt RCS.
Is a completely open standard better? Yeah, absolutely.
Would RCS basically create unified rich communication for virtually everyone? Also yes.
It is proprietary but at least it will interoperable with other phones and carriers.
Two related issues are being confused/conflated here.
The first is the American cultural significance of the green and blue bubbles. This is the thing that Europeans generally don't care about as most are using WhatsApp et. al.
The second is the lack of interoperability between chat protocols such that it degrades the experience for everyone. This is what the EU is targeting.
I don't think the colours of chat bubbles for specific devices as displayed by other specific devices falls under that remit. The implementor must comply with providing the same service level though. Whether or not this will lead to less cultural significance for bubble hues in the US remains to be seen.
It won't be with RCS. The "gatekeeper" criteria applies to interoperation between dominant technologies. RCS has very small adoption in Europe. If iMessage will make the cut it will have to integrate with Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger and Signal.
Edit: I should clarify, there's RCS the standard and there's Google's implementation. Google's RCS is too small to be considered for itntegration. The standard on the other hand would be nice, in an ideal world; however, merging proprietary networks into an open standard is a very high goal and goes beyond what the EU wants to attempt at this time. Instead it will let the tech owners achieve interoperability in any way they want and can.
I don’t get why more people don’t understand this. There is literally no way Apple is going to ditch iMessage or open it up voluntarily.
Cue the EU.
They already got Apple on USB-C, repairability and RCS are next.
I’m pretty confident the blue and green colors have nothing to do with it. It’s simply the difficulties of using sms (or at least how Apple implements sms). iMessage allows much higher quality videos/images to be sent and enables group chats to be dynamic where people can be added and removed at will. On iOS sms group chats have to be made with every member in it at creation, if you want to add another person or remove a person then you have to make a whole new group chat. Compound this with iPhone dominance in North America it often presents an annoyance where the single android user forces all the iPhone users to use sms and all the difficulties/reduced features it comes with.
WhatsApp, Telegram, and whatever chat app isn’t used in NA because it’s just harder to convince someone to download and make an account. Why should a user download another chat app? Why isn’t iMessage (sms) app good enough? Usually I’ve seen people just use instagram to chat with android users because sms is just so bad (at least on iOS, I’ve heard some things about how android works around the limitations).
Yes Apple could implement better sms features but they won’t.
So don’t just parrot “it’s because of the colors” it’s most likely due to users association with past experiences of “green chat bubbles”.
Apple is still to blame here but it’s not because users are scared. Most iPhone users or phone users in general just want it to work and never think about what features they’re missing. Asking/convincing someone to download yet another app and set up yet another account to yet again be spammed by emails, texts, phone calls is just too much for a majority of people who are used to the simplicity of iMessage. It comes with your phone, you make a single Apple account, and it just works™.
You'd be surprised. A lot of girls won't date someone if they don't have the right colored chat bubbles.
"Where every single android user forces iPhone uses to use sms" Apple forces this, they are very happy to do this, to make iPhone users hate the different colored bubbles and for people to absolutely not want to be the different colored bubbles.
It's everything to do with the bubbles. You can't say it isn't. People literally talk about this.
I agree.
Apple has nothing to do with the SMS junk other than allowing that junk to work because it is legacy.