There was a time when I really thought Google was going to shake things up. Nexus Phones, Google Fiber, Google Fi, etc all sounded awesome. I bought a Nexus 5, switched to Fi, went through the super fun process of mixing around my google voice numbers, (breaking all kinds of stuff) but eventually I was mostly setup and functional. I'd lost some core parts of gVoice, but I figured it was just a matter of time before it was back up to a similar level.
Having Hangouts as a full featured SMS/Voice/MMS replacement, which also let you do all of those things from your computer was an awesome experience. GV features like Spam filter wasn't supported with Fi, and just accessing your GV account with a Fi subscription on your google account was difficult.
Then they split SMS/Hangouts (although Fi users were somewhat grandfathered in), which broke basically every text convo I had going on, and made it more difficult to text Hangout friends compared with SMS only friends. Then they rolled back the gVoice/Fi plans, and made it clear that Hangouts was going away, and gVoice wasn't going to be an option. Then the Nexus phones started to get worse instead of better. The 6P was mediocre at best, and "Stock" Android was starting to make compromises, while somehow getting worse. The Pixels have continued this trend of decline, Hangouts can't really even send Gifs anymore (size limit of like, 3mb or something) Fi has made almost no progress, and when Hangouts goes away I'll be retiring the last of my Android devices.
Kind of a long rant, but my point is I don't trust google to do anything competent in this space, and even if they did, I wouldn't trust them not to fuck it up 6 months later.
Exactly my experience. I finally bit the bullet and switched to the Apple side. There are things I miss from android but I trust Apple not to self sabotage much more than I trust Google these days. Which is weird, and exactly the opposite of the feeling I had 5 years ago.
I also made the switch somewhat recently, as I've had iPhones as company devices for awhile now. I'm no Apple fan-boy, but at least having a relatively solid feeling device that does what you expect 90% of the time and doesn't change core functionality without at least some warning is a great feeling.
Well hang around long enough and you might see some of that ... but yeah broadly speaking the experience is a lot more stable; you cant take chances with your phone ...
I just replaced my Pixel XL with a used iPhone X last week. One thing that I'm struck by is I don't get the feeling that the device is trying to monopolize my attention. It could just be because I still have more friction with it (due to it being unfamiliar), but I wonder if it's also because Apple and Google have very different business objectives: Apple doesn't have nearly the same interest in the quantity of my engagement with the device.
I have to disagree on that one. One thing iOS does better to not let apps allow notifications by default. But other than that notifications are much better on Android and it's also a lot easier to disable notifications on Android now.
I think it has to do with you being unfamiliar with the phone and more friction that comes with it.
I made the switch a month ago, and while I miss some things from Android (e.g. a clean way to change default apps, and a nice share menu/framework), the overall experience is so much better I am regretting not switching two years ago with a iPhone SE, instead of getting my previous One Plus 5.
And regarding Messaging, in EU the default is pretty much Whatsapp anyway, with some pockets of Viber and Telegram, so iMessage or Google Hangout was never a real option here.
Not the parent, but I recently switched to an iPhone and I'm liking it.
On Android, I was constantly using new Apps, looking at /r/android for release announcements, and getting excited about all the new releases. Then, at some point, I realized I just wanted a phone that works. That's when I switched to Apple. That's not to say my Pixel didn't do everything my iPhone does. It could do it all and in many cases it could even do it better or in a more customized way. But, it also required effort. Effort to learn the new apps, effort to change all the settings, and effort every time Google decided to change something that I thought was already working just fine.
Then I switched to Apple and I realized I didn't want necessarily want to spend all my time learning my phone, I wanted to spent my time USING it. To me, my iPhone is more like an appliance than a new tech gadget. It doesn't necessarily provide you with all the options and capabilities that an Android phone does, but it absolutely nails its core competencies and is very easy to use. I don't spend a single extra second trying to figure out HOW to use it, it just works.
Couldn't you use your Android phone as you are using your iPhone? It was your choice after all to go to /r/Android and try out new apps. I am pretty sure you are using the same 90% of apps on iPhone now that you used on your Android. And for the other 10% you could very well have settled on something and be done with it.
I bet you will be looking at /r/Apple in a few months.
I’ve used non-Google devices most of the time, now trying out an iPhone.
Just did a factory reset and restore via iCloud. My fear of loosing my phone, incomplete backups and messed up restore is gone. Works.
Might be possible with Google phones, too. For all the others it’s just messy.
(I‘d agree with you, until I tried it three weeks ago. Working with computers all day, I need others to take care of my personal and pocket computers...)
I have upgraded from Nexus 4 to Nexus 6p to Pixel 3 and have never started off fresh. Have factory reset my phone a couple of times and have been able to restore where I was. So I can't relate to you to what you are saying.
Sort of unrelated - I hate these kinds of comment chains. One clarifies something, other comes up - what about this though. And this whole chain itself when the article is about RCS.
That's how I tried to use my Pixel but between losing Hangouts, having the UI changed seemingly randomly (how many different homescreen changes are really necessary?), and the constatn bait and switch of Google releasing core apps and dropping them (Allo and Duo), I gave up. Using Nova for my homescreen helped, and I probably could've stuck to Messages but I would lose the ability to see my messages from my computer. I've had my iPhone going on a year now and haven't needed to look at /r/Apple a single time.
I appreciate and agree with lots of your commentary, but just wanted to point out that Messages on the web is a thing now via https://messages.google.com/ and scanning a QR code in the Messages app. (It's one of the things I was looking for after leaving the iMessage ecosystem.)
My iPhones usually got janky after using tons of apps but always after jailbreaking them (and installing yet more apps). Same with Android. Stay clean on mobile!
3D Touch is dead. It’s not in any of the current generation phones. Also in iOS 13, undo is swiping three fingers to the left and redo is swiping three fingers to the right. The shake to undo still works.
I actually think it’s easier. It’s hard to do a three finger swipe while holding the phone.
Does the redo gesture double as 'forward' in browsers? My biggest pet peeve with the new Android update is accidentally swiping back on a webpage and not be able to go forward (or if there a way, I haven't figured it out).
I just switched to iPhone after 10 years, and have to say I love it so far.
For me Apple Watch is the star, the battery life is a bit short but it can do everything I need in a wearable device (calendar, notifications, chat) and nothing I don't need which is a bonus.
I would buy a cheaper phone and get the best watch, but your use case might be very different.
Switched about a year ago, very satisfied with that decision and the whole experience.
Everything just works great, I never need to worry about stuff randomly slowing down or my battery dying midway through the day (mind you, my previous device was a flagship android phone Galaxy S8+, so it isn't like I am comparing my iPhone to a cheap entry-level android device).
First week or two were a bit confusing, because the UI/UX shortcuts and flow are so different from android. But after that, I found things to be more intuitive and efficient. The phone displays zero signs of battery degradation or slowing down, everything is just as blazing fast as it was the day I bought it. Battery lasts me easily over a day of normal usage, almost 2 days if I use it lightly.
OS updates arrive fast and to all phones at the same time, without me having to wait 6+ months for my manufacturer to finally push them. With Android, it was extremely annoying to see all those cool new features that people got, but I have to wait many months for (not even talking about security patches). And that's assuming I will ever receive any kind of OS updates on Android 2+ years after the release.
Also, App Store experience is definitely more refined than the garbage pile that Play Store is.
Switching out iPhones is painless too, as all your session data is included in the (encrypted) backups. So you don't need to log-in again into every single app and set up all your custom settings again when you get a new phone. You just wait until the restore from backup completes, and you are set.
I realize that my take might sound a bit biased, and it probably is, but I am just very glad I've made the jump. My last iPhone before going all android until the last year was iPhone 4, and imo it is miles ahead of where it is used to be in terms of overall user experience.
tl;dr: if you want a solid device that just works well and performs exactly as you want it to, you won't be disappointed. If you want to fully customize your phone, sideload a different OS, do some hacky stuff, then Android would be a better choice.
For some context, I switched the other way, and still use both, and ever so slightly prefer the Pixel 2XL to an iPhone XS. It's probably more the integration of google services than anything, and google has taken some major steps backwards, but theres a ton of little silly features that I enjoy about the Goog.
Like it telling me what song is playing from lock screen, while offline. Certain maps and local features are just better.
i've been in that boat, too - inherited a 6S after SO upgraded to an 8 and it does everything i need it to except crap battery life (that's after battery replacement last year). there were a few apps that i missed, but not terribly. it takes calls, it makes calls, google maps work, all of these were not reliable on the nexus 5x i switched from. figured setting up would be about as hard as starting from a wiped android and it's about right.
Pretty much exactly the path I took. I truly believed Google was set to change the world for the better. I had every Nexus device (and pre-Nexus with the Magic and Dream), watched every Google move with anticipation, etc. The 6P was the last Nexus I owned -- miserable battery life and poor experience that it brought -- though I held on with Android a bit longer with the Galaxy line.
I developed several apps on the platform with the motivation that I was helping a good product thrive.
The Pixel line has always been just a sad runner-up to Apple, but always with completely deluded prices. The oft talked about "Reality Distortion Field" best applies to Google's hardware products now, where they've created a succession of miserable entrants at bizarrely unrealistic prices.
Now I'm typing on a Macbook Pro with my iPhone 11 beside it. I use gmail out of legacy inertia, but aside from that Google just is not a compelling part of my life. I once truly believed they were a super innovative company that was trying to escape their ad revenue stream. Now I believe they're a very committed ad company desperately trying to push ads further afield.
We often hear about all the great engineers at Google, but their project managers must be some of the worst in the industry. So many half baked and forgotten projects that wasn't good enough when they came out, left with few and slow upgrades, and then killed off. How many messaging apps have Google launched and killed? How many WearOS watches have they sold? How's the Android tablet ecosystem? How did the Nexus rebranding to Pixel go? They seem to lack any interest in polish and usability, beyond removing features and adding whitespace and larger margins.
You would have to be crazy to adapt any new service from them, be it Messages, Stadia, or buying last year's phone for this year's price.
It appeared that the Android team was kind of forced to support C++ for game developers, and they did an half baked release with Android 2.0.
Using headers and toolchains different than what regular Android (internal Google teams) were using, thus took them all the way up to release 14 to actually provide unified headers.
Bionic wasn't fully ISO C compliant and has been being improved throughout all the NDK and Android releases.
Back when they decided to drop Eclipse there wasn't a roadmap for C++ support going forward, and they were kind of rescued after JetBrains decided to create CLion, which they took up to integrate into Android Studio, almost two years later.
There were two reboots for new build system tools, until they decided to keep ndk-build around and settle with CMake as alternative.
Even though the NDK APIs are written in C++ (or C++ wrappers over JNI calls), they are exposed as extern "C" to userspace, thus being more prone to unsafe coding pratices.
Only now they are starting to think about supporting NDK package management, so far each Android NDK developer using AARs had to come up with in-house solutions to package NDK libraries across projects.
Small rant, plenty of other stuff to complain about. However I would also like to add that the (apparently) small NDK team has improved the experience a lot, when comparing with what the Android 2.0 NDK state started from.
The 3a is properly priced. I hope they keep the -a thing going. I can't imagine a world where I'd pay $600+ for a phone. We're at the point now where all you're buying is a new battery and 18 more months of security updates. More RAM, faster CPU, what's the point? I'm not playing high end games, content creation, or compiling software on my phone.
If they don't keep -a going, then they've blown it. The Nexus line was great.
They've also already totally blown it with all the texting bullshit. Hangouts is awesome. Carrier based texting is a significant step backwards.
I agree with the sentiment of being down on Google, but I just bought a Pixel 4 XL to replace my Pixel XL. They're not perfect, but they're phones that I can get, unlock, root, and actually have some sense of ownership over without any shenanigans.
Why unlock and root? Because I can take full-disk images and restore the phone to an exact bit-for-bit copy. I can use apps like TitaniumBackup and bring over app+data piecemeal or swap out data profiles. I can use F-Droid to manage open-source apps and know that I'm getting something that I can crack open or modify if needed. I can get real insight into what the phone is doing via something like SystemPanel 2 or, worst-case, adb shell and figuring it out myself. I can copy the database from any app without dealing with Content Providers. I can install Magisk modules that give me a decent native shell and use Termux to install other utilities that I need. And ultimately, if I need something not accommodated by stock, I can install a custom ROM.
I don't know how much of that is possible on an iPhone, but from what I hear, it's not much. That may be an OK option if you're willing to lock into the Apple ecosystem and take whatever they give you in exchange for feeling like your phone "just works", but if it's that important, you don't need to give up control -- just grab a cheap flip phone that will always "just work" while you retain the freedom and ability to get what you need out of your $1k pocket computer.
I think "just works" is way overblown. My friend just got a new iPhone 11 upgrading from 6s. FaceId is great, but you HAVE to swipe up after you unlock. There is no option, no setting to just jump to the home screen. Does it "just work"? I guess if that's the definition of working. It's been just a week and she is can't live with it.
Other "just works" - always deep link to Apple Maps, Safari and other Apple apps. How is this still a thing in a "Pro" phone?
Honestly I have been considering iPhone because of the longevity of their devices now that cameras have caught up with Pixels and added battery capacities but I can't deal with this locked down, spoon fed version of an OS. I think iPhone "just works" the way Apple wants and not how the user wants.
No offense but it shows you haven't actually used one. By default any notifications on the phone are locked down. I can see I got a text message but I can't see the info. If I look at the phone it shows who the text is from and the contents of the text (or whatever notification we're talking about). If I swipe up I can use the phone. This experience is so far above and beyond anything google has offered to date I don't even know where to begin.
Google is so far behind on faceID it's laughable. And this is coming from someone who switched from an iPhone 6 to a Pixel and stuck with google all the way until the Pixel 4. Sorry - the hardware is getting worse, not better. And the spying/data collection has become too much. When you've got a CIO that says he'd let any house guest know he's got devices recording them and would suggest anyone that has google devices in their house do the same - you lost me.
> This experience is so far above and beyond anything google has offered to date I don't even know where to begin.
I know about notifications being hidden when locked and expanded/shown only when you unlock. On Android, you can hide notification details from certain apps and show the details for others. For some apps I am okay to not worry about seeing the details of the notifications without unlocking the device. I don't unlock my phone to only see notifications, I have disabled most of the notifications and I unlock to do something actively. So more often than not, I want to get there without an extra step. So having an option there is the right thing. Pixel phone also gave an option do either - go to home screen or just show notifications.
> Google is so far behind on faceID it's laughable
I actually hate FaceID and like fingerprint unlock better so I don't really care about that. But by so far behind, you mean not caring if the eyes are open, sure they are far behind.
> the hardware is getting worse, not better
I didn't use P1 or P2 and jumped on P3 from 6P, I like it and didn't feel the hardware got worse. P4 battery life is bad (to say the least) but P4XL doesn't seem to have those issues.
You brought up other issues with Android/Pixel but conveniently forgot to respond how iOS is crippling options itself. Don't even want to start with all browsers being wrappers of Safari.
>I actually hate FaceID and like fingerprint unlock better so I don't really care about that. But by so far behind, you mean not caring if the eyes are open, sure they are far behind.
I guess it doesn't really matter if you prefer touch unlock, it's gone from the Pixel 4 with no signs of ever coming back. But with a really, REALLY bad implementation. Oh, someone can murder me and unlock my $1,000+ phone? Solid decision by that product manager...
>You brought up other issues with Android/Pixel but conveniently forgot to respond how iOS is crippling options itself. Don't even want to start with all browsers being wrappers of Safari.
I'm more than happy to give up a little choice in exchange for not having every aspect of my life uploaded to google's servers with a promise they won't do anything I don't like with it.
> I'm more than happy to give up a little choice in exchange for not having every aspect of my life uploaded to google's servers with a promise they won't do anything I don't like with it.
Android is the platform that gives you some actual control over this. Buy a Pixel, trivial bootloader unlock, and then install Replicant [0] or any of the several other privacy-first ROMs.
If you don't want to go that far, you can replace Google's proprietary APIs/system services with components from MicroG [1]. There are many implementations of the location APIs that can be configured to ping back to a personal server or log to a local file rather than submitting the data to Google, for example. Pull up F-Droid and they're all over the place.
If you want to stop an app from talking to the outside world, get NetGuard (100% free software, buy the pro version instead of chickening out and building it yourself to save 8 bucks) or AFWall+. These are advanced apps that allow users to control and monitor network activity closely, applying rules that allow/disallow network access at given times or on given connections (e.g., "never let Signal use my work's wifi network"), reports consumption, and even allows the user to collect pcaps.
There are many similar options for all kinds of things on Android. I admit that I have never used an iOS device full-time, but it's always because every time I consider it and start to do any of the basic research to see if any of this is tenable, the answer is always an immediate and loud "no, Daddy Apple wouldn't let anything bad happen, so all of that is silly". Please let me know if things have changed.
The point is that it's your choice how much you're going to disclose/transfer on [unlockable] Android hardware. On an iPhone, you are stuck with "Apple knows best". If you actually care about control of your data, it seems you'd prefer the platform that gives you control over it, rather than the one that just says "Hey, we're not as bad as Google, so you can trust us!"
> FaceId is great, but you HAVE to swipe up after you unlock.
No you just swipe up. You don’t unlock and then do something, you just do. That’s the whole point. When I pick up my iPhone I just swipe up. The unlocking of the phone is something that just happens to happen. You don’t pick up the phone “wait” for it to unlock, and then swipe to the home screen. That defeats the whole purpose.
Very similar experience here. I'm gathering energy to try leaving Google/Android all together for whatever awaits me with a pinephone (not yet available afaik). https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/
Thinking that I much prefer an interesting "how to do x thing I want to add to my experience" over an "oh I'm being corralled into undesired xyz by Google again, how to maintain / return to normal functions"
pinephone will be my next phone, ubports on nexus 5 has been pretty good too.
That said I feel like we're going into this weird place where you have to have a cell phone even though every day i feel like wanting to have one less and less.
> That said I feel like we're going into this weird place where you have to have a cell phone even though every day i feel like wanting to have one less and less.
I hear you. I reached that place a couple of years ago.
My current smartphone probably has 2 or 3 years of life left in it, so I'm considering that as a deadline for coming up with an alternate plan. In thinking about it, the main thing I like about having a smartphone is having a personal computer in my pocket. So...
First, I badly want out of the Android ecosystem, so I going to carry a real pocket computer that runs real Linux. That will be my primary device.
I'll supplement that with the dumbest feature phone that I can find that will allow tethering data connections, and use that for texting, backup internet access, and emergency phone calls.
It's not going phoneless, but it's as close to that as I can get without missing out on functionality that matters to me.
Yeah, I'd already investigated that, but it doesn't meet my needs. The Gemini might, but I have to investigate a couple of things. If that doesn't work for me, then I'll just build my own.
When I check for an example of a person participating in society (US) without any phone, I come up empty handed. Then try with me to even describe a setup where a person could reasonably participate but not need a phone. I am vaguely certain this is actually not possible (credit/transportation etc). Perhaps the dire wolf citizen of privacy is pulling this off..but what a high bar to set on an entire population, without their informed consent. Similarly it may be an impossibly high bar on regulators to provide a "life doesn't require a phone number" consumer option.
I guess a person could fashion "phone number to email as a service" where you get an unanswerable "phone number" which just forwards transcribed content to an email?
I actually know a couple of people who simply don't own cell phones at all. They're certainly an extreme minority, but their lives aren't any harder for it. The only repercussion is that they can't get/send calls or texts when they're out and about.
>I guess a person could fashion "phone number to email as a service" where you get an unanswerable "phone number" which just forwards transcribed content to an email?
You've just described how SMS works for me under Voip.ms. All messages are available to be replied to via email, and starting conversations from their (albeit imperfect and slightly clunky) webpage or (much better) Android app
I was, to a lesser degree, on the same path as you (Nexus 4, 5X, Pixel, Pixel 2 currently). Almost signed up for Fi, but decided not to after talking to a few people.
My next phone will be an iPhone, for pretty much the reasons you stated. As soon as they launch 5-6" iPhone with an OLED screen that doesn't have three goofy looking cameras on the back, I'm in.
That may be the case, looking into it again. I might have been mislead by Apple's proprietary marketing terms for their screen (what the hell is "retina" anyway?)
> which also let you do all of those things from your computer was an awesome experience
FWIW this has been replaced by https://messages.google.com, but you have to use the messages app, and the phone has to be online. It's still way better than texting on a touch keyboard.
I owned several Nexus phones (the ones that were properly priced) and overall it was clear that Google never cared to launch a finished product, all of them showing some serious software bugs, and sometimes even hardware issues. I assumed it was part of the deal, and Google has pretty generous customer service policies at least.
Sadly the situation hasn't really improved with the Pixels and I can't justify buying such half-assed phones. Not at these prices at least.
I bought an Essential when Amazon was clearing their inventory but I wonder what I'll get next. Nokia's are almost there but not quite. Unfortunately I cannot stand iOS and the iPhone lineup so that's not an option.
I've owned a number of OnePlus phones - 3 or 4 at this point - and am tapping this post out on a new OP7 Pro. I really like the hardware, and no device has ever felt poorly made or unfinished, nor have they broken down on me. OS updates are relatively fast for a non-Google manufacturer, too, though they could be faster. The price has been creeping up as the rest of the market gets more premium, but even this new flagship phone is significantly cheaper than an equivalent iPhone.
I'm resigned to OP beaming everything I do to PLA military intelligence or whatever, but frankly I don't do much on my phone anyway besides surf and YouTube.
Customer service has been great whenever I've needed it, which hasn't been much.
I went the Hangouts+pure data plan route, 10 bucks per month and I've had spam filtering and a single and/IM/video call/voice call/phone call account available on any device I sign into regardless if my phone was turned off 3 states over or not.
It sucks they are dropping it and there is nothing like this experience available. Even Apple requires pairing to a phone (that is actively online) to send SMS.
Not to mention the fact that the pixel 4 looks to be a big disappointment for the money. I was planning on getting a pixel as I don't want another Samsung (vendor crap-ware and bixby drives me insane), but now that I've seen it... looks like I'll be going back to Apple again after five years of Android.
I guess you're on apple stuff then? my nexus 6 just broke and im on an old 5x thats barely funtional. the pixels all look atrocious with no end in sight.
The pixel 3a has been a pretty nice device at a good price (299 with Google Fi - you can cancel the latter after one day and still keep the discount according to their reps). It is a mid-range device though.
The 5X is probably the worst Nexus ever, it was a low end device that is so frustrating to use that it probably made many people to switch to iPhone :-).
Can anyone confirm the biggest issue (in my opinion) with RCS? It's not end-to-end encrypted.
Update: Confirmed it myself [1]. End-to-end encryption is not even an option. Which is perfect for the data addicts like Google. But honestly I would never ever recommend this as an avenue for people to use over something like WhatsApp.
It's almost certainly the carriers imposing this restriction. The reason these features took so long is because, as they did for SMS, every single carrier across the world has to get on board with this. , so I'm sure that's the reason it's not encrypted. The Messages app might be a Google product, but the underlying transport has to be implemented by carriers, and I'm sure there are many, many carriers who aren't interested in encrypting the messages that are carried across their networks (either because they don't have the technical competency, they want the data for themselves, or they have to comply with local law enforcement regulations about texting).
This is not to excuse the lack of encryption, but the finger should probably be pointed more at carriers (and maybe OEMs) than at Google.
One question I have is whether Google-account to Google-account messages will be encrypted, like how Apple does it with their iMessage/SMS boundary within the same app...
Encryption can be done on device. Google as the major player could simply implement it without carriers' approval and without changing underlying protocols. Instead they have chosen to route unencrypted messages through their servers.
> or they have to comply with local law enforcement regulations about texting.
Carriers can record encrypted messages and provide them to police and courts.
Is there any reason someone couldn't make an sms client that gives the option of encryption assuming the person you are conversing with was using a client following the same encryption protocol? It would require a few automated texts to exchange keys but would allow encrypted communication over sms easily.
I'm guessing there just isn't a big enough market for it given that people are willing to create an account with WhatsApp to get the same thing.
That's exactly what TextSecure (now Signal) used to do[0]. Since the code is open-source, somebody has forked the SMS code and apparently kept it alive[1]. (It's even on both F-Droid and Google Play.)
Indeed, this seems to be needlessly kicking life back into SMS when it was already being replaced by better systems that respect privacy.
Of course the decentralized nature of SMS is a good benefit but given how most telecoms are oligopolies disinterested in customers concerns about privacy (and plenty of other things like customer service) it pretty much defeats the value in it.
It's a phone based messaging medium. If you have a phone number, you can send a message. That's not nothing. I know the phone numbers of far more people than I know the name of their apple account, or google account, or facebook account, or whatever.
The general answer to that is to exchange account information, but the easiest way to do that is through SMS... and here we are. Upgrading SMS so it's better. It's not perfect, but I'm happy for any advances they can make to it.
And as for why it's not encrypted end-to-end, the spec started back in 2008. That wasn't even on most people's radar back then. It's possible once we see some actual uptake of the protocol, we might see some more movement towards adding features (continuously adding features before something is in use is just a good way to make sure it never actually makes it into use).
Knowing someone's phone number means you can reach them on WhatsApp. At least, that's true for 2B (out of 5B) of phone numbers, which is likely to be 1,000 times the number of RCS users.
The second and most important advantage of WhatsApp is that you don't have to maintain an address book anymore. People change phone numbers and the new number is automatically reflected in WhatsApp. It's quite likely that address books on phones are outdated and thus stale.
> Knowing someone's phone number means you can reach them on WhatsApp
...that would be super useful if I had WhatsApp installed. It also means that WhatsApp is tracking the phone number of all the people and doing selective (assuming only your friends can see it) publishing of it. I guess that's usually okay, but it also kinda wierds me out that it leaks info that way.
My phone number is already managed by me, I've given it to the people I want to have it. This really just limits any WhatsApp messaging I would to to entities that I want to have my phone number. It's probably much easier to block WhatsApp accounts (and attempted messages) than calls (phone calls which are synchronous communication have a much higher urgency to me than some random phone ding that's async).
Sure, agreed it's useful as a backbone sort of system like phones.
Which will always be the biggest fundamental flaw with something like Signal or WhatsApp (the need for centralized servers, the requirement to install 3rd party software).
There may be a role for these telecom services to exist perpetually as a backup services, while everyone still uses apps as their primary communication method. But RCS seems to be trying to bring SMS to parity with messaging apps supporting emoticons and media-heavy content, the intention is the same "conversations with friends" use-case as the messaging apps.
There may even be an argument to keep SMS dumb and simple like phone lines. Especially if they aren't going to adopt encryption with the rest.
> But RCS seems to be trying to bring SMS to parity with messaging apps supporting emoticons and media-heavy content
I think it's more that RCS is attempting to bring SMS into the 21st century, if barely. Those aren't exactly amazing features, they're the lowest bar for entry you could meet for a messaging app in 2010. 2019 has a much higher bar, as everyone here is noting.
It's not just the features but them combined with a very cleanly designed messaging app ala WhatsApp. They aren't amazing or new on their own but they've become standard and essential in the 3rd party messaging apps.
There's a lot RCS is going to do to make SMS difficult to distinguish from WhatsApp for most people, especially these days as they've matured and everyone has finished copying the other guy.
To be clear, I was saying the RCS features aren't exactly amazing, and are 2010 level standard, not that WhatsApp's features aren't good.
If the base level RCS features make it hard for WhatsApp to stand out, and the base level RCS features are really fairly poor in comparison to what can be offered, that begs the question of what WhatsApp is bringing that's worth it's use. End-to-end encryption is the answer, but there's other apps that may do that better.
If the real big differentiator is end-to-end encryption, then I think the solution isn't to push people to not use RCS, which has inherent qualities that mean it will always have at least some market, but after it's here we immediately push for extensions to it that allow end-to-end encryption. If that's accomplished, that immediately sets the real floor for every messaging app, and if they aren't offering the same the two questions are why bother with it at all if the built in stuff is better, and why aren't they doing it if it's the market floor, what are they gaining from being able to see the messages?
SMS is the lowest common denominator of messaging. RCS will be the lowest common denominator of messaging. We should use this opportunity to cement that, and then keep the momentum up and use it to push for other essential features like encryption.
* With a free service, the data is the asset which the company obtains by offering the service.
* With whatever service, the company may receive a subpoena, an NSL, etc. It's easier to comply when you have the data than to prove that you can't comply because you only transfer the encrypted packets, and have no way to bug the client devices, too.
If you want end-to-end encryption, run your own Signal server, or something, and hope that you're flying below radars.
> With a free service, the data is the asset which the company obtains by offering the service.
RCS competes with iMessage and WhatsApp, which are both "free" services (IIRC WhatsApp business model is paid commercial messaging customers and iMessage business model is paid devices). Both of those offer encryption features.
They don’t have to. As long as they keep the color differences between iMessage and non encrypted messages people will learn. Everyone smokes or does something technically illegal. They just have to be told that the middle men archive all text messages.
One really obvious thing for Apple to do, which has always been a really obvious thing for Apple to do, would be to distribute a version of iMessage on Android.
> "iMessage is literally the single most important selling point of iPhones in the US."
Given the lack of emphasis Apple puts on iMessage in their marketing, it seems unlikely it's the single most important selling point. On the opening page for the newest iPhone, it's mentioned in a single sentence in a paragraph on Security down near the bottom of the page, hardly pride of place.
Granted, I don't see Apple opening iMessage for other platforms for a number of reasons, including product differentiation, but at least Apple seems to think there are many more features to highlight before getting around to iMessage.
Does Google doing this essentially mean they've gotten sick of waiting for the carriers and decided to bypass them entirely? If so, the carriers can't be happy about that.
Google was trying to market Jibe as a service carriers could pay for to handle their RCS messaging for them. When carriers announced CCMI, they made it clear they weren't interested in paying for Jibe. https://jibe.google.com/jibe-platform/
Clearly, Google wants the data badly enough to provide said messaging services for free, and doesn't want carriers to keep the data to themselves. But they were hoping carriers would pay them and that they'd also get the data.
Let me see if I understand the strategic landscape around RCS correctly...
* To the extent RCS:
a) makes it easier for users to switch between mobile providers and keep advanced features that used to be offered for lock-in or more $$, or
b) makes it easier for users to switch between the old SMS network and wifi - then, it's not good for mobile telco provider's business models.
* To the extent RCS increases privacy for users (E2E encryption, etc) - then, it's not good for Google's business models.
* To the extent it allows feature-rich messaging to work across ALL major platforms (Android, Web & iOS)- then, it's not good for Apple's platform lock-in.
While I agree that an open, extensible, feature-rich, privacy-aware, cross-platform, cross-network messaging standard is highly desirable - is it correct that RCS (as currently formulated) is a non-starter and, from a strategic perspective, always was?
I remember this the last time around, with MMS 20 years ago. It was a non-starter then and I’ve seen little this time around to give me confidence this will be different. The Google thing is a novel digression, but from where I’m sitting it looks like they’re just trying to fence off a section of the market for themselves and adding little else besides.
I have a Pixel 3XL on Google Fi. Every time I try to enable Chat Features on Messages, it just grays out on "Setting up ...". If I try too many times in a day, it locks me out for 24 hours.
If Google can't figure out how to make it work _on their own phone carrier_, I really do not have much hope for Android's messaging strategy.
The protocol is from 2008. None of the carriers were getting around to supporting it (since it's federates to AT&T and Verizon have to have their own servers that talk to each other), so Google is publishing a "universal profile" so Android can talk to Android at least. This is really just Google kicking the carriers kicking and screaming into 2010 level technology. As a standalone protocol, it's not great. As an upgrade to SMS it's long overdue.
They did: Google Talk/gChat, Hangouts, Allo, Duo, Wave (I think it did messaging, I don't really know). There's probably more I forgot.
Google Talk notably supported tons of mobile platforms and was XMPP based and had federation, before they started down their path of reinventing messaging over and over.
Sure they created a lot of apps but they never replicated THE key feature of iMessage which is seamless SMS fallback within the same app. You don't have to even think about "Oh this person doesn't use such and such app"
Allo came the closest but messages sent to phone numbers not on Allo were sent through some proxy number so the recipient ended up getting the message as from some random google phone number.
RCS is the closest Google has ever come to the effortlessness of iMessage in terms of having a single app you can message anyone with, and incidentally there are some benefits if the other person is using a compatible app but regardless the message will get through (and from your number) one way or another.
> Sure they created a lot of apps but they never replicated THE key feature of iMessage which is seamless SMS fallback within the same app. You don't have to even think about "Oh this person doesn't use such and such app"
To be fair, while Google certainly could have had a better strategy, replicating Apple's would probably have been a failure.
For several reasons, iMessage's success is very US-centric. SMS fall-back is really not an option in countries where unlimited SMS isn't the norm. Google should have tried harder to acquire Whatsapp, or at least grab another big fish in this space (like Viber).
RCS is going to benefit carriers more than Google, since they might claim back some of the IM traffic. Google realizes it can at least try to control the app (Messages) which will be deployed to most low and mid-range Android phones, that are running stock or close to stock Android.
iMessage was launched in 2011. It's been 8 years and still no real solution for Android phones. RCS isn't encrypted, which is insane, and there's still massive infighting between carriers and Google. And even if RCS actually launches in the next year or so in the U.S., there's zero mention of iMessage interop (and zero interest from Apple), which means 45% of your contacts will still fall back to basic SMS/MMS. And who knows what the international situation will be like.
This realistically means the current crazy messaging situation is going to remain for the next 5 to 10 years.
Isn't RCS invented to let mobile carriers take back the market of mobile messaging from messengers like Telegram or Whatsapp? There will be no encryption, it won't work without Internet and users can be charged for every message.
Of course, no sane person will want to use it so Google will have to add something that will be available only to RCS and not to other messengers.
I am very curious how carriers will respond to Google deciding to preempt them by pushing an app update to redirect all text messaging straight to Google servers versus the carriers. Google seemed like it was respecting the carriers' involvement, right up until carriers announced plans to build their own RCS system that didn't give Google the data. Suddenly, Google is turning on RCS?
Presumably Google was hoping it could convince carriers to pay Google to host their messaging platforms, and when Google lost that gamble, they decided they still wanted the data either way.
This is the sort of coup I half-wonder if carriers would drop the Android platform over. (At the very least, I think four more large companies will be vocally supporting the DOJ's antitrust investigation.)
To be honest, I think they might find after it's turned on that the limitation to the Google Messages app (which is not the default on Samsung devices and hence represents very little in terms of market share) doesn't move the needle at all and makes very little difference. Certainly, the impact of turning it on on the UK market seems to have been zero.
If Google follows through by enabling it system wide in future OS versions that might change a little, but Android being as it is that will take a long, long time, and the carriers probably suspect their own RCS implementations will have worked before then, or Whatsapp will just take over the US too and RCS will be dead.
I do use the Google Messages app, but I don't plan to enable RCS any time soon. The main reason is that I use the "SMS Backup & Restore" app to back up my SMSes & MMSes, and it's unable to back up RCS messages because they're stored in a separate DB that currently has no system API access.
So chalk that up as perhaps another reason why some people won't "upgrade".
I doubt Whatsapp will take over US too, the network effect is probably too strong for that to happen. For the same reason FB Messenger seems to still dominate some markets and Telegram others, even if theoretically Whatsapp could take both over because neighbouring countries are using them.
I've only got a cursory understanding of RCS, but in what way is this good for consumers? I can understand how it's good for Google, but aside from Google it's unclear how anyone benefits.
RCS was the next version of SMS from the telecoms. Of course, while sms was a defacto standard across carriers, RCS fragmented. They made it only work within your specific carrier with their own text app.
This next RCS is a deriguer standard called RCS UniversalProfile. Google has pushed to get a wide group of carriers on board. It's been a long time, but it seems to be getting there...... maybe....
Given that lots of people use the SMS app that comes with their phone (which often isn't Android Messenger) I suspect it is more the case that if Google doesn't allow 3rd party apps to integrate then Google's RCS is doomed.
Would this work where mobile internet is slow or non existent? Would this break dependence on having Firebase as the power-efficicent centralized push system? Will this have delivery receipts? Can this be used as a transport for E2EE apps?
How is there not an uproar over the lack of E2E encryption? With all the headlines lately around Cambridge Analytica and Snowden and Facebook - who in their right mind is okay with letting Google read their text messages? It's insane.
I'm the same. Use other messaging apps for E2EE and other advanced features, fall back to SMS of there's no data connection or to ensure compatibility with the person on the other end.
The call network side is universal. Messaging apps aren't. It's really that simple for me.
With SMS, I don't have to agree with the other parties about what app we're going to use. We can just exchange messages without a hassle.
The only downside is the lack of encryption, but I can live with that.
Another consideration, and this is why I'm resistant to RCS, is that I actively don't want all the bells and whistles that messaging apps have. All I want to do is be able to exchange short plain text messages.
There are people who do not want to install four hundred messaging apps. There are even people who do not want to install one messaging app. Calls and texts are included in phone plans, and despite Facebook's marketing, there are still more SMS users than Whatsapp users.
There is no ideal cellular messaging protocol. People aren't going to change programs because some computer person is enamored with a specific encryption platform.
What's interesting is that in other countries such as Mexico, there is no such thing as SMS. Yes, SMS exists but nobody uses it. Nobody. You either send a WhatsApp message or you can't communicate.
It's the same situation in Japan. I've lived here for 5 years and literally never, not once, sent or received a message to anyone else here in Japan using the iOS Messages app. LINE messenger penetration is 100%. You don't ask for someone's phone number, you ask for their LINE username. And if you want to call them you use LINE's voice calling feature (which uses data so doesn't cost you minutes). I don't have anyone's personal phone number aside from my wife. Even my elderly mother-in-law makes calls using LINE.
My iOS Messages app is just pages and pages of phone number verification and 2FA texts, and then one group chat with remote coworkers abroad.
Most people use sub-$200 handsets, so the penetration of iPhones is very low and only the high class uses them. Within small social circles (mostly within the family), they use iMessage. But to communicate with anyone else, they use WhatsApp. I know a few high powered lawyers. They use WhatsApp exclusively.
WhatsApp penetration in Mexico must be about 99% in my estimation.
Those are nice features, but half the people I talk to use iOS so I'm not going to use any of them. Trying to remember who has what is too much hassle.
It's an industry standard, but if Apple doesn't implement it in iOS then it's only useable from one Android device to another.
That effectively makes it into crappy iMessage for Android. Only works within one OS ecosystem, but it's unencrypted, managed by your carrier, and limited to the one cellular device itself instead of also working directly on your wifi-connected tablet and computer.
It would be nice of Apple to support this if it's an improvement over SMS/MMS, but Apple drags their feet on supporting any sort of standards that they didn't create. And even some that they did (pour one out for OpenCL).
I don’t see Apple supporting this if end-to-end encryption isn’t in place, they’ve been more and more positioning privacy as a competitive advantage for their services.
Apple already supports SMS to their Messages app. Those communication threads fall back to SMS rather than their proprietary protocol, I imagine. RCS equipped message apps will probably fall back to regular SMS when sending to Apple Messages equipped phones, maybe?
> It would be nice of Apple to support this if it's an improvement over SMS/MMS
I think another issue is that Apple just doesn't care about the user experience of anyone who isn't using an iPhone, to the point that I feel like they pretend non-Apple products don't even exist. I bet many iPhone users would like to be able to send encrypted messages and non-horribly-pixelated video to their friends who use Android (for example), but Apple acts like they don't even consider that as a use case.
It definitely is a standard, defined by 3GPP. Apple alone doesn't get to decide what is a standard.
Google's Messaging app is just one implementation of the protocol. There are other implementations, that are actually used. Samsung have their own, some carriers have their own. It really is an ecosystem.
That's very depend on country, and user segment. You'll read stories like "You must have Whatsapp to communicate in Europe", but in countries like Denmark, it's just SMS (unless you're on an iPhone that will automatically use iMessage).
For my circles of friends and family it's either SMS or iMessage and iMessage is only because most people don't realise that it's not SMS.
I am a little confused as to why they don't simple sneak RCS in, like Apple have done with iMessage. Just upgrade the users to RCS if available and fallback to SMS if not.
I'm a 20 something in tech circles in the West Coast of the US and I use SMS
at least some of the time to communicate with:
* Brother
* Mother
* Father
* Uncle 1
* Uncle 2
* Roommate 1
* Roommate 2
* Friend of roommate
* Cousin
* Business partner
All of that is in just the last week. SMS is the first messaging system softened mentioned when meeting new people. Because it's a lowest common demoninator.
Why am I not cool enough to hang out with Whatsapp-using people? Joking....
The reason you don't use WhatsApp is that the people you communicate with don't use WhatsApp. The reason they don't use WhatsApp is that the people they communicate with (this includes you) don't use WhatsApp.
This is called "network effect", where the value of the product for you is amplified as more and more other people use the same product. You can get a value out of a microwave oven, even if no other people ever use it; you can't get a value out of WhatsApp if other people don't use it, since there's not much value in WhatsApp-ing yourself.
The question, then, becomes: Why the US doesn't get value out of WhatsApp?, and this has to do with history.
As people started to use messaging (only SMS existed at that point) instead of calling, the US carriers responded by increasing the basic subscription price while including unlimited messaging (SMS). The relatively rich US population could bear this added cost. This, however, was not the situation in pretty much the rest of the world, where the SMS was either an expensive "added value service" (not good for the customer), or "unlimited within provider" (again, not good for the customer who has to guess whether their SMS is going to be free or not).
As of 2010, when WhatsApp started gaining popularity, its value in the US was questionable, since no-additional-price unlimited SMS was a viable alternative (as it still is). The rest of the world have seen a tremendous value in unlimited and free alternative to the expensive SMS. (WhatsApp pricing was $0 for unlimited messaging in the first year, and $1 per year after that.) With that value, the rest of the world switched swiftly. Not all of them went to WhatsApp, as Viber seems to be the most popular in Eastern Europe and LINE in Japan.
Having Hangouts as a full featured SMS/Voice/MMS replacement, which also let you do all of those things from your computer was an awesome experience. GV features like Spam filter wasn't supported with Fi, and just accessing your GV account with a Fi subscription on your google account was difficult.
Then they split SMS/Hangouts (although Fi users were somewhat grandfathered in), which broke basically every text convo I had going on, and made it more difficult to text Hangout friends compared with SMS only friends. Then they rolled back the gVoice/Fi plans, and made it clear that Hangouts was going away, and gVoice wasn't going to be an option. Then the Nexus phones started to get worse instead of better. The 6P was mediocre at best, and "Stock" Android was starting to make compromises, while somehow getting worse. The Pixels have continued this trend of decline, Hangouts can't really even send Gifs anymore (size limit of like, 3mb or something) Fi has made almost no progress, and when Hangouts goes away I'll be retiring the last of my Android devices.
Kind of a long rant, but my point is I don't trust google to do anything competent in this space, and even if they did, I wouldn't trust them not to fuck it up 6 months later.