I’m not a fan of the “war” between Android and Apple when it comes to SMS/texting. The rest of the world doesn’t use SMS/RCS/iMessage as much as WhatsApp and the like, so the US is pretty much lagging behind everyone else on this anyway.
That being said, I have to admit Android did a good job with this!
Give google a break, its hard for them to keep track of what message backend is in which app. They have created and killed 5 messaging apps in the time I wrote out this comment, how can you expect them to know whats going on?
This kind of shit is why I’ve been working on replacing things, and leaving their ecosystem. There are 57 ways to do everything, and nothing ever works properly.
I am all about tweaking and changing things, or adopting something new, but that’s all under the assumption that it works. One of the reason why people like iMessage is because they don’t have to fuck with thirdparty apps, half of which can’t even receive a text message without issues
I’m not using RCS until it is available with no vendor lock-in. Call me when third-party apps like Textra can use it, and I don’t need to use Google’s relay.
Canadian carriers did, but they since have started moving towards Google’s RCS servers instead. Probably realized it wasn’t worth hosting a server, and then maintaining it. I remember some carriers wouldn’t update their servers, so not all RCS features would be available to them.
The rest of the world doesn’t use SMS/RCS/iMessage as much as WhatsApp and the like
SMSes use a standard available to any app. WhatsApp is controlled by a single company.
If you were arguing that XMPP or something like that should be used instead of SMS, okay, that’s one thing, but I have a hard time favoring a walled garden.
Ok, I’m gonna get into this.
2005: Google Talk released.
2013: Google Hangouts released.
2015: Google announces Google Talk shutting down, encourages people to move to Hangouts.
2016: Despite Hangouts being a one stop shop for SMS and Chat, Google discourages people from using it for SMS, asking people to use the Google Messages app instead.
2016: Google Allo released.
2016: RCS adoption begins.
2017: Google Talk shuts down.
2017: Google Chat released.
2017: Hangouts is re-targeted for business and moves to some sort of consumer freemium model?
~2018(?): YouTube Chat released, a 1:1 messaging system inside of YouTube. No idea when it was discontinued but it didn’t last long.
2019: Google Allo discontinued.
2022: Whatever was left of Hangouts is discontinued.
2023: RCS through Google Messenger is now default instead of SMS and group messages are finally encrypted.
Compare this to:
2011: iMessage released. As far as I can tell, it’s been e2e encrypted since at least 2012 and potentially since release.
Google, you have no fucking leg to stand on. Get your shit together. If you had had a coherent messaging strategy, maybe Apple would have been amenable to working with you, but what incentive do they have right now? For all anyone knows, you’ll drop RCS by 2026 in favor of moving everyone to Google Heythere, the new ridiculous app for messaging!
Your comment is disingenuous.
Adding the 2018 YouTube Chat isn’t fair. Google has products that allow communicating between users. It was never meant to be any replacement for SMS, it was simply a chat system within YouTube. You know, the same YouTube that has had DM’s since day 1?
You also said in 2016 Google encourages people to use the Google Messages app. The same app being used today.
Google also launched other apps around the same time. Apps that were in development for a while. Then they shut them down, to focus all of the features/time into Google Messages.
You’re also adding very specific apps that Google never intended to make into an SMS app. Like Google Chat or Hangouts Rebrand.
Your timeline is disingenuous. Essentially from 2016 - NOW Google has been working on making Google Messages the one stop shop. Only 5 years less than Apple has been making iMessage.
Can some custom rom group do the same type of video but about Google not allowing third party sms apps to use RCS?
Signal. Use Signal.
Signal removed SMS integration, making adoption less likely.
When I could install Signal on my parents phones, and they could SMS and Signal message in the same app, it was great. Especially since any contacts that happened to have Signal, it just worked. My parents didn’t have to do anything.
After Signal removed SMS, my parents just open up Google Messages and message everyone from there. They don’t want to juggle two apps. They also don’t really understand it. They just go back to the “main menu”, select their friends name, and type. Signal shot themselves in the foot.
