Why would you turn it off? What if you hire a contractor for some work and they need to send you pictures/video from an Android? Or a realtor, mechanic, craigslist seller, or just someone you don't have/want a personal relationship with. You're not adding these people to WhatsApp/Telegram.. I have probably hundreds more phone contacts than people I have on whatsapp.
So far, yeah I have been. Android users don't seem to use RCS for anything advanced, they use WhatsApp. Anyway, iPhones already let you toggle MMS, so RCS might be togglable too.
I had a mechanic send me a video about a problem with my car. He just SMSed me a link to their systems, where I could also approve the additional work after reviewing the video.
As an Android user I've asked a very similar question before to my iPhone friends, and most of them are just apathetic and don't care either way, but some of them will actually say some variation of: "if somebody is on Android, I don't want to talk to them anyway. It's a useful filter." The first time I heard that it was a little shocking, but especially with Gen Z, it's a minority but not unusual opinion.
I feel like this is something way more talked about online than actually occurs IRL. I didn't get an iPhone until the 13 (2 years ago?) and I'm still on it. Nobody stopped talking to me because I had green bubbles throughout my, I dunno, 10-15 years of Android phones. They would make fun of me for how reactions (Bob laughs at $reply) looked on my screen but just friendly jabs.
I think the age does make a big difference. I'm about 40, and I've rarely heard this IRL among people near or older either. The people I've heard it from were mostly in their teens or early 20s. Some 30s and 40s have admitted to leaving friends or family out of group chats because they were on Android though.
But that said, how do you know nobody stopped talking to you because of it? One of my friends (who is early 40s) said his family started leaving one of their family members out of the group chats because it "degraded the whole experience" and I doubt he ever told the person he was being left out, let alone why. I would imagine it's kind of like telling somebody that you aren't going to date them anymore because they're not attractive enough. Not something you want to admit, and even though it obviously happens, I've never heard of somebody actually being told this.
Most of my friends are in their 40s/50s. No one knows what iMessage or RCS even is if they have an Android or iPhone. WhatsApp spread like wildfire here because no one gives a shit :)
Maybe I've been kept out of group chats, it is annoying group chatting an imessage thread with android in it. I forget what it does but something is strange about it, but I'd definitely remember if someone I remotely cared about talking to just ghosted my SMS one day. I can't think of that ever happening. I had tons of friends in my 20s and almost none of them ever used Android. It was mostly tech people I knew that used Android.
The reason I'd turn off is because of spam. Everytime RCS was enabled on my phone, I was bombarded with all kinds of nauseating spam. I'd like an option to avoid this infliction.
or if you're like my parents, and pay for a plan with plenty of data but leave it switched off at all times just because you don't want to accidentally go over your cap.
> What if you hire a contractor for some work and they need to send you pictures/video from an Android?
I would absolutely not want to do business with a contractor that uses an android phone. That's a serious red flag for someone doing work on a (usually very expensive) home to be using cheap tools.
Do you also exclude contractors that don't have a fully decked out Ford F-350? What if they carry a cheap $1 pen instead of a $50 pen to write some quotes for you?
Also, you realize there are android phones that are plenty expensive right?
and you can also add your plumber or realtor on whatsapp. there's no reason not to. it's just a messaging app, i've got all kinds of customers and vendors on my whatsapp.
Google's service uses end to end encryption. Of course, Apple can choose not to implement it (seems that they'll only implement it if it's standardized).
