Apple will use it's dominant position to create lock in like how they did with iMessage instead of cooperating with other platforms on a common standard.
Oder friends and family are surprised when they want to video call over Facetime and find it hard to believe other people's phones don't have Apple apps.
Just a tip but sometimes it’s good to read the article before commenting.
The app allows iPhone users to create an event. Anybody on any device or browser can RSVP. The event can be shared as a link. Making an event invite app that only works for users on one platform would be pointless.
Also - non-Apple users have been able to join FaceTime calls via. A link for several years.
There is no indication they haven't read the article.
This product, much like iMessage and others, provides an inferior experience to non-Apple users. It aims to make other devices and operating systems look less capable and cheap.
iMessage also partially works with other phones. This doesn't change the fact that its intention is to create a lock-in effect, as evidenced by internal Apple emails.
This is a weird way to think about it. You are basically saying a company should not launch something exclusive to their platform or ecosystem, but rather should consider launch a generic product compatible with everything out there. Why would they ? How will they stand different if everyone does that ?
Exclusivity is a basic part of business model. Look at PS4 with exclusive titles. Hell, look at your local store with exclusive products only available in their stores.
I would have agreed with you if Apple had done this for a basic feature like calling. But this sure is a privileged feature and there is nothing wrong in making it exclusive to iPhone (but they haven't you see).
If you feel your ability to interact with your friends and family is threatened by some business launching a service, you should seriously question your friends and family and/or your and/or their social/communication skills.
The self-entitlement is getting old. Nobody's forcing you to switch platforms. If your Apple-friends send you an invite, you will not be shunned from the event. Yes even the uncool non-Apple users will be allowed to participate in said invite.
How so? It just sends a link either in a message or email. Acceptance is done via a web page. How do online invitations ensure vendor lock in? What will prevent me from using another online invite system in the future? I’ve used a bunch in past like evite, paperless post and the cost to switch is nothing.
Two of the features of Invites are sharing photos and sharing music. These are both locked down to users of Apple services (Photos and Music). So you can invite anyone, but those people won't be able to fully participate in your event.
There's nothing really wrong with Invites if you're happy to only have photos from people with iPhones or to let the music be exclusively chosen by Apple users, but you can't pretend it's a fair and equal system.
Depends on how you define locked down. Apple Music has been available on the Google Play store for years [1] and also supports listening in a web browser on any operating system [2]. I do agree Photos could use some cross-platform improvements.
It is a degraded experience. Not as smooth as being on iOS. It’s a common playbook used by Apple (as well as MS and others) in an attempt to get and retain users.
Why would the stewards of a walled garden want other gardens (walled or otherwise) be as good as theirs? What moral or economic imperative exists for such a belief?
> Why would the stewards of a walled garden want other gardens (walled or otherwise) be as good as theirs? What moral (...) imperative exists for such a belief?
Not being an asshole? It's normal instinct unless one's brain has been thoroughly eaten by competitiveness.
> Why is that bad?
Because in this, Apple is attacking the commons. They're trying to provide an alternative to normal invite system - one that's been established and battle-tested over decades, one that works okay-ish across any device, real or virtual, on any platform, and one that people know how to use. An alternative that gives some bells and whistles exclusively to the Apple users, and perhaps even is more ergonomic in practice. An alternative that overlaps with the commons just enough to perhaps get the significant chunk of Apple-first userbase to switch over, but purposefully doesn't overlap enough to work well for non-Apple users (as well as professional users).
Take commons, drive a wedge down the side, use it as lever for your massive userbase to push everyone else off it. Screw everyone else. Hell, even screw your own users too for having Android users (or Windows or Linux desktop users!) among family and friends. The next generation of users should remember that thou shalt only befriend and marry people from within your corporate community.
>They're trying to provide an alternative to normal invite system - one that's been established and battle-tested over decades, one that works okay-ish across any device, real or virtual, on any platform, and one that people know how to use.
And if the people who try Invites discover that it isn't, in fact, superior to this "normal invite system"—whatever you believe it to be—that you claim is "established and battle-tested," they won't continue using it and will go back to what they were doing before.
>An alternative that gives some bells and whistles exclusively to the Apple users, and perhaps even is more ergonomic in practice.
Do you believe that all vendors should be forbidden from shipping any new application or feature that doesn't offer full interoperability and feature parity with everybody else or is that a limitation you believe should be applied only to Apple?
The only problem I have with this, as an android user, is that there's probably no API available for someone to build an integration for other platforms if the market was there. I don't expect Apple to go and create cross platform clients for every service they put out, they're not a service first company, they're an Apple service first company.
That's a big problem though. They're targeting a class of use cases currently covered by iCalendar family of open protocols[0] and handled by every calendar and e-mail app there is. Because of their narrowed focus on features most relevant to individuals, families and groups of friends, they'll be able to deliver a superior experience there for people on their platform - and they have both enough users and the correct placement in the "tech stack" (unlike e.g. Facebook/Meta or other social platforms, that already tried and failed to pull it off) to break universality of iCal for everyone else.
If this sticks, it won't only screw you or me over as Android users with Apple users in our friends groups. This will quickly bubble up from friend gatherings to community groups and local services businesses. At some point, you'll find that your kids' kindergarten or your stylist or even your doctor starts sending you Apple Invites instead of e-mail invites (.ics), because the Apple variant also comes with a shared photo album. It's actually surprising when you notice just how many appointments could use a shared photo and/or document collection directly linked to them - that part is actually a good idea from Apple. It's just sad that they're weaponizing it instead of improving what already works for everyone.
I can't say I've ever received an event invitation via iCalendar. Getting an .ics download for an event to put it on my calendar, sure, but that's not an invite, it's just a read-only event.
Yeah I think this is targeting Facebook Events (which they seem like they've been trying to kill off anyway) and Partiful more than calendar meetings/appointments.
Anyone can RSVP, but only Apple users can fully partake in it.
Also, per sgt's comment below, it seems it works the same way as sharing documents via OneDrive. "Share with anyone, doesn't require sign-in". That is the actual text from the Share dialog in Windows 11. "Doesn't require sign-in". Well, except if you're sharing more than one document under a link - then it forces recipients to sign in with an account. It's even documented in the on-line help for the feature, just not mentioned in the UI. Also, when you share a single document, while sign-in truly isn't required, the link still leads to a login page that urges signing in or creating an account, and just has this tiny, barely noticeable link to access without login, tucked in the corner somewhere.
(I miss Dropbox's "Public" folder from a decade ago. That was the first and last time sharing documents from web drives made sense.)
I tried this and RSVP'd with an email that didn't have an Apple account, and it asked me to created an Apple account.
I originally created the event using my own Apple account which definitely has iCloud+. So how do I create an event that someone without an Apple account can RSVP to?
Sometimes it's also good to stop worshiping trillion dollar companies who abuse their market dominance.
While tech-literate Apple users couldn't tell the difference, their images and videos were sent in potato quality to non-Apple devices. So while technically, they could communicate with non-Apple users, it was a bad experience for anyone not in "walled garden".
p.s Not taking features put out by Apple at face-value doesn't mean I didn't read the article.
Yet, there's nothing iPhone specific about this idea. They didn't have to limit it in the way they did. In the future they can change the approach too and both remove and restrict features, because they will always go iPhone-first. Being able to use this in a restricted way today is just that. I share the "apple (and any corp)-first solution should fail" hope.
In the future they can change the approach too and
both remove and restrict features
Unlike a lot of product categories... I don't really see a strong lock-in factor here?
Example: If you are heavily invested in Apple Music or Spotify, there's a lot of momentum there to keep you from switching. All your stuff is there (songs, favorites, playlists) and it would take a lot of time to re-find it on the other service, if it even exists there.
And streaming services like Netflix lock you in with constant reams of new content.
But what would be keeping me on some particular invite service? If I used Apple Invites for my last party two months ago... but I have decided that Apple Invites sucks now... I really don't see a lot of friction keeping me from switching away? The inconvenience would not be zero but seems minor.
You can switch. But now you also need to convince a random person that they should switch, because you can't easily use what they're using. And you may be the only one out of 10 people in the group complaining about it. Instead of their technical problem, Apple can make it a "you" social problem.
"Guests can view and respond to an invitation using the
new iPhone app or on the web without needing an iCloud+
subscription or an Apple Account."
They don't need to buy an Apple device or create an account. (I would assume that they get a text message with some sort of unique individual URL, and from there they can respond to or view the invite)
So I do not follow when you claim that I would need to convince all my friends to "switch." Can you elaborate?
These are the things people use around here to organise events. Four of those require a persistent account and an app, three of those are Meta for which I'm the loner yelling that I won't touch them with a 10 yard pole and a hazmat suit.
What are you proposing instead? That these should all be decentralised/federated? SMS/RCS? Matrix? email? ICS?
Ideally, yes, distributed. But otherwise almost every calendar service allows events with invited people. Even if each of those services is closed itself, they're all expected to work with any email client and browser. And then you... email messages.
The difference is that all of them work cross devices. That's why I only get video calls with WhatsApp and I never get one using one of the many video call apps of Google. I learned today, by reading this thread, that somebody could have sent me a link to a Facetime call. I never got one. Everybody in my country use WhatsApp for video calls (maybe somebody is videocalling with Facebook Messenger or Facetime, very few with Telegram) and nobody has to worry about which mobile OS the other person have. WhatsApp has commoditized both iPhones and Androids here. When people choose to buy a phone they don't think about how they'll make calls or send messages. They install WhatsApp, because they have to or they won't call and message a lot of people, and the problem is solved.
Edit: by the way, probably every single phone has builtin interoperable 1 to 1 video calls from the days of 3G. I remember testing them in late 2002 / early 2003. They worked and probably still work unless they retired the standard because everybody is using apps.
You (like quite a few others) didn't read the linked press release which would have been a good prerequisite for joining this conversation. I guess you really just wanted to unload on your least favorite tech company.
I did read the press release, and this seems pretty open.
"Guests can view and respond to an invitation using the
new iPhone app or on the web without needing an iCloud+
subscription or an Apple Account."
So what's objectionable about this?
Your buddy can invite you to a party using this thing and you can RSVP without installing an app or creating an account. That sounds pretty good to me. You have a web browser, right?
ICS, yes. Like most event services that aren't Meta work with.
ICS + e-mail is the established standard. It works, and has worked for decades, to the point people don't think about it in terms other than just "calendar invites".
> They don't even care which service that link originates from, they just press yes and that's it.
There's a reason Apple integrates shared photo albums with Invites. It's actually something useful to be linked with an invite in almost all non-corporate use cases. And I bet you this feature will remain broken for non-Apple users.
Yes, but. Most of the invited folks might have an AppleID associated with their email, that they have not used for years. And invite will ask to enter the password if you have an AppleID associated.
> but apparently the ‘color of the bubble’ has been a big thing in the U.S. among youth
It's not the color itself that's the problem, it's that having one green user means the entire conversation falls back to SMS and thus photos, videos, etc are all degraded and you can't do more rich messaging things like reactions. This is changing with RCS but it is in Apple's interest to make it a social change rather than just a technological limitation.
> it is in Apple's interest to make it a social change rather than just a technological limitation.
It is a technical requirement? How would non-iMessage users respond to the whole group including the ones on iMessage?
When you sit for 5min and think about the whole flow across a bunch of message exchanges every other way there's really no other technical solution than downgrading the whole conversation to SMS/RCS.
The solution is the same one used by every other messaging app: allow iMessage on Android. There is no technical thing stopping them. Instead they actively take measures to prevent it from working.
If people want to group SMS they should open their phone's SMS app. If people want to group iMessage they should all open iMessage. If people want to chat on signal, they should all open signal.
Unfortunately, iMessage is bizarrely both iOS's SMS app and a custom signal-like chat protocol, but the user can't pick between the protocols easily and it switches between them in an opaque way.
It's just a bizarrely bad UX by a company that supposedly is good at UX, and the only purpose it seems to serve is to provide this broken green-bubble experience.
I'd much rather if iOS just had "iMessage" as an app without SMS, had "SMS" as an app for only SMS/MMS/RCS, and then allowed android users to make an apple account and install iMessage (possible with an optional 1-time fee to prevent spam, like having to buy a $700 iPhone and throw it away as a sorta "proof of work" in order to make a iMessage-for-android account. This isn't too different from how some of my friends do this now, with a mac mini in their closet for iMessage which they remote desktop into if they want to chat to iPhone using friends, and use for nothing else).
RCS is not a downgrade, it can also be E2E encrypted but Apple's implementation doesn't use it. It is entirely a business decision to not support the full capabilities of RCS as the iMessage sender system.
The only implementation of E2E RCS is Google's Jibe, which is a proprietary, non-standard version. There is no mention of encryption in the spec other than to say that it's up to carriers to determine. Apple, in contrast to Google's proprietary approach, has offered to work with carriers and the GSMA to define a common set of standards for encryption.
I never said it wasn't proprietary, just that Apple doesn't use it currently. It's fine to offer to work with carriers, but for people right now, it's non-viable to use RCS with iMessage.
While there is no public documentation on Google's approach that I know of, there is also nothing to make me think Apple _can_ currently use it.
There is no authoritative mapping from an account to a single service (e.g. my email address as an Apple account vs a Google accounts vs a WhatsApp account), which also means that if all three of these services say they have an account for me and advertise a public key, there is no way to know that account or public key are authoritative. Google's implementation requires you to use both their client and their hosted service, meaning it almost certainly assumes that all E2E keys can be resolved authoritatively from a single source (Google's table).
You instead need a way to look up accounts in a secure and auditable way across multiple authoritative services, like the IETF Key Transparency work (that isn't complete yet).
It is also important to realize that Apple's support for alternative messaging systems besides iMessage is to meet carrier requirements, not user requirements. Apple's slow uptake on RCS AFAIK was because carriers themselves didn't care, until governments began to regulate it needed to be supported on handsets. The carrier RCS support almost universally is because Google wanted it for Android, which is also why Google's RCS hosted service is by far the most deployed by carriers.
The GSMA needs to define those carrier requirements for E2E RCS, and Apple has stated publicly they are working with them on that.
I think calling it just "color of the bubble" downplays the intentional degredation of chat quality for everyone in the chat in order to encourage exclusion, presumably to create FOMO. Incidentally FOMO is a very powerful among youth, but it's still a thing for any group in some capacity.
Not that I personally cared, as i see it as an Apple flaw, but in joining a work iMessage group I had people whining about image quality and whatever other features were disabled between iMessage users while I was present.
Poor technical understanding. It's not "degradation."
They will use the iMessage protocol if supported by all clients. If not, they fall back to the next best thing supported by all clients whether RCS or SMS/MMS. In your case (possibly before iPhones supported RCS) the "next best thing" was apparently SMS/MMS.
This is the correct behavior.
I think you're also falling into the common trap of automatically thinking whatever Android supports is like, the correct and open standard.
In reality, RCS's history was an absolute mess of incompatible implementations, pushed and owned by some of by Apple's direct competitors. It's really not any more the "correct" standard than iMessage is and it does not support E2EE outside of Google's proprietary implementation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Communication_Services#De...
At least RCS is an attempt at being a cross platform standard, even if it still sucks. iMessage is locked down to Apple devices only. Even if you reverse engineered the protocol you wouldn't be able to get it on Android because Apple will shut you down.
Best option is to just use a different app that just works on all platforms. No RCS, no iMessage.
At least RCS is an attempt at being a cross platform
standard, even if it still sucks.
The E2EE part, which does not exist in the RCS standard itself, is a proprietary Google thing with keys managed by Google. It is not open, and opening it is not trivial because somebody has to be an authoritative key source etc.
If not for that part I'd agree with you.
Best option is to just use a different app that just works
on all platforms. No RCS, no iMessage.
Well, I think there's obviously a huge place for these apps and there always has been. There is certainly nothing stopping you and your buddies from all standardizing on Signal, Telegram, or uh.... buying the rights to ICQ and resurrecting that or whatever.
The value of iMessage/RCS/SMS is that it is effectively universal. I just need somebody's mobile number and I can call or text them. They are (more or less) guaranteed to be able to receive that call or text. I can buy the most advanced iPhone or Pixel and I can send a text message to some dude on a 2001 flip phone in a jungle somewhere. That is a huge huge huge value.
The value you are talking about is all because of SMS. It's the lowest common denominator and IMO shouldn't be combined into a single app.
And there's definitely no reason why either iMessage or RCS E2EE need to be locked to a specific platform. Signal, WhatsApp, etc just work everywhere with no quirks when messaging people on different platforms.
All the other messenger apps you can use on iOS, like whatsapp, telegram, signal, etc, have no degradation with android users present.
Why can't apple publish an iMessage app for linux, windows, and android? Telegram and signal have no trouble maintaining applications for this, and they've got far less money than apple does.
RCS and SMS have been a total mess, yes, but every other chat protocol I've used has been better than iMessage in terms of supporting cross-platform communication. It's only iMessage which fails at this fundamental part of being a communication app, that of being available on multiple platforms.
I know you're going to say "the reason is spam, you need to pay apple $700 to get a device capable of iMessage, and they can ban by device, which deters spam"... which okay, fine, make iMessage be a $15/mo subscription to use on any non-iOS devices, that'd solve the spam problem just fine while still letting android users join back into the family group message chat again.
> All the other messenger apps you can use on iOS, like whatsapp, telegram, signal, etc, have no degradation with android users present
Yes, those all work and each require that you download and install their app, go through setup, potentially some identity verification steps, etc.
If you want that functionality, all of them are available as options.
What would make an Apple iMessage app for Android better than any of them? Unlike today, Android users would have the same experience for any of these other apps - completely excluded from conversations until everyone agrees upon an app, downloads it, creates an account and exchanges whatever addresses, nicknames or QR codes necessary to join a group.
The only thing that an Apple iMessage app buys the group is a better experience for the _Apple_ users. It actually increases lock-in to Apple's services, both because now Android users are signing up for Apple services to to communicate with their groups, and because Apple users know they can just reject other options because the Android people can "make iMessage work".
Right now, iOS users can't as easily understand the difference between iMessage and SMS, and I think it would make what's happening clearer to users if the apps were separate.
If you opened the "SMS" app to get your sms 2fa codes and talk to android users, and your "iMessage" app separately to talk to iPhone users, it would make people less mad when they open their iMessage app to iMessage, and instead weirdly get green bubble SMS.
It would be like if when I installed the "firefox" app on iOS it instead installed "safari" and touching the "firefox" icon opened "safari", and didn't have any firefox addons. Oh weird, sorry, bad example.
The point is not that iMessage is better than whatsapp, it's not. The point is that iPhone users try to use iMessage, and right now apple's weird SMS integration with it makes them accidentally use SMS and get annoyed.
The point is that iPhone users try to use
iMessage, and right now apple's weird SMS
integration with it makes them accidentally
use SMS and get annoyed.
I disagree that the "annoyed" people are "trying to use iMessage." I think they're just trying to message their friends. They are annoyed because the only common protocol supported by all parties in the conversation kind of sucks sometimes.
Apple has made the correct set of trade offs. If you just want to send a text message and don't care about the particulars you can do that and you'll automagically get the best possible experience based on the best lowest common denominator protocol whether it is iMessage, RCS, or SMS.
And if you and your buddies are savvy enough to want more than that you can install Signal or Whatsapp or whatever.
But that baseline out-of-the-box experience for mobile phones has always been "if I have somebody's number I can text/call them using my phone's out-of-the-box functionality and the network sorts out the details."
I think it's kind of nuts to throw that in the trash and you don't appreciate what a huge step backwards that would be for most of the people who buy and use phones.
Also, would you not agree that out of the box E2EE is a huge deal!?
But the keys and key exchange protocol for E2EE have to be managed by somebody. Signal, Google, Apple, whoever.
Indeed. Pretty much everyone I know is "texting" with their friends and using whatever is the default app on their phone. Some people will use Whatsapp for specific groups/events, but that default text app is very commonly used.
This reminds me of a conversation with an iPhone-using elderly relative who wanted to text friends in their retirement home:
ER: Why is it that when I send text messages to my friends they sometimes never get them?
Me: When you get messages are the bubbles green?
ER: Yes.
Me: Is there bad phone signal in this area?
ER: Yes.
Me: OK, that means your friends are using Android phones, so your messages are being sent by a method called 'SMS' which isn't very reliable, particularly when phone signal is poor.
ER: I don't really understand that. What I can I do to fix it?
Me: You and your friends could install an app such as Whatsapp or Signal and send your texts with that.
ER: No, I'm not installing an app!
Me: You could persuade your friends to buy iPhones.
ER: They won't do that.
Me: You could wait a few months and Apple will most likely activate a new system called "RCS" on iPhones which might make messages with your friends a bit more reliable.
being sent by a method called 'SMS' which isn't very reliable, particularly when phone signal is poor...
Not that it is relevant to overall point, but this is the exact opposite of my experience. I've been in plenty of situations where it is impossible to make calls because the signal is so bad, but communicating with SMS has worked perfectly. As my signal gets weaker and weaker, SMS is always the last thing to fail.
Interesting. I don't think I've noticed that, but I have run into various issues with SMS when there's poor signal.
On one occasion I could receive but could not send, just at the perfect time when someone was waiting for me and I was unable to get to them.
> They will use the iMessage protocol if supported by all clients.
Which would be perfectly reasonable if they allowed clients on other platforms. It just happens that the only clients are the ones that require buying Apple hardware. If the iMessage ptotocol is so great (I don't know enough about it to say), then great - either release an app for Android, or let others do it. Until then it's not a standard, open or otherwise.
If the iMessage ptotocol is so great (I don't know enough about it to say),
Well, it supports bigger images, read statuses, and fun effects that aren't a part of SMS. But what's important to a lot of people like me is that it's automatically E2EE if all recipients are on iMessage.
I would hope that anybody on HN considers that rather important.
Silicon Valley and engineers in general have really fucking changed if having a large portion of the phone-using population getting automagical E2EE is no longer a big deal.
Until then it's not a standard, open or otherwise.
Are you holding Google to this same standard? RCS is open-ish, but the E2EE extensions are proprietary and the key exchange is managed by Google. They are not opening that up, or at least they have not said that they are.
E2EE is not exactly trivial to make "open" because somebody has got to manage the key exchange. This is true for Signal, etc.... Signal handles the key exchange.
I would have a problem with Apple's conduct here if they locked you out of alternatives.
But I think their approach is correct. You get a default E2EE experience that works between Apple devices. But you are not prevented from any other messaging network you might want to use.
In some ways this is admittedly like Microsoft enforcing their web monopoly by making Internet Explorer the default browser back in the day, but I think it is different in crucial ways and I think E2EE is a worthy and necessary goal.
> Well, it supports bigger images, read statuses, and fun effects that aren't a part of SMS. But what's important to a lot of people like me is that it's automatically E2EE if all recipients are on iMessage.
Yes, obviously it's better than SMS. That's a 40-year old standard. I don't think I've sent an SMS to a human in over a decade. I mean is it better than other modern messenger protocols.
> Are you holding Google to this same standard? RCS is open-ish, but the E2EE extensions are proprietary and the key exchange is managed by Google. They are not opening that up, or at least they have not said that they are.
My objection to iMessage isn't that it's proprietary. It's that it's closed, and restricted to one platform.
> But I think their approach is correct. You get a default E2EE experience that works between Apple devices. But you are not prevented from any other messaging network you might want to use.
There is no way to justify restricting it to Apple devices aside from vendor lock-in. They say they care about E2EE, but then make it impossible to work with conversations with most devices in the world.
The last I looked into this, iMessage offers end to end encryption and RCS doesn't by default. Apple (rightfully, IMO) refuses to use Googles non open source end to end encryption extension that also would require key exchange on Google owned servers.
As opposed to apples non open source solution that requires device authentication on apple owned servers... I think none of them really care about interoperability here, or they would release something open and able to do e2ee instead of this dance. I mean signal protocol is right there and available to everyone.
That isn't exactly accurate. The standard doesn't have e2ee, but if you use google messages with RCS with other android phone it is end to end encrypted. But it uses a proprietary google extension to RCS. But I would be surprised if google wasn't willing to work with apple to get e2ee RCS working between iMessage and google Messages, but Apple has no interest in that.
Just so I understand: it's bad for Apple to have a proprietary E2EE solution, but it's good for Google to have one, and additionally it's Apple's fault for not using Google's?
It isn't as simple as "apple bad, google good". Apple/iOS having E2EE is good. Apple refusing to cooperate at all in making E2EE interoperable with non apple products is bad. Google/Android having E2EE is good, and better than the claim above that RCS doesn't have E2EE by default. The fact that it is a proprietary extension is bad, but they seem more willing to interoperate. That said, if the positions were reversed, I suspect Google would also be more resistant to interoperability.
So, explain exactly who Google is collaborating with by offering support for Jibe exclusively for certified Android devices with Google Play Services and only available through their proprietary messaging app.
> That said, if the positions were reversed, I suspect Google would also be more resistant to interoperability.
With Apple adding support to iOS for RCS, the shoe is on the other foot.
Google is not cooperating with anyone when it comes to their existing proprietary E2EE implementation. E2EE is available in Google's client only, able to be run on the Android devices Google certifies, when talking through Google's RCS server.
That is because the core of their security model is a centralized key server, outside of the rest of RCS, that acts as the source of truth for an account and its associated public keys.
That fails once you have accounts which are not being authoritatively managed by Google, e.g. an email address with multiple messaging services attached, or a phone number which may be managed by any number of third party RCS installations. That is a problem which is still being actively solved.
The color of the bubble is, at least partially, a security feature for me. When it’s blue, I am certain there is a person on the other end, not a bot, spammer, ai, etc…
There are ways to send iMessages programmatically. Apple does check for spam, but it’s not foolproof. And of course, it won’t help you against a targeted attack.
I didn’t research it that much, but a good place to start would be AirMessage [1] or Mautrix [2]. Both of these require a Mac to work – it might work on a Hackintosh, though, or maybe using same tricks those forks of OpenHaystack use to run without a Mac (no pointers here, sorry). Hope this helps!
the experience from the opposite side is the relevant part here. I recall the many years I was sent iMessages but unable to remove my phone number so that I could receive sms messages on my new android phone. The user experience from iOS phones sending me messages I would never receive was "great".
But isn’t that the same when people and schools create effing Facebook groups and events or whatever they are called and find it hard to believe that people don’t use that crap. Or create WhatsApp groups and communities and so on and on.
Wow. I assumed you could use Whatsapp on the web but you literally can't. You have to have an Android or Iphone. I guess maybe there's a way to fake it with emulators on your computer but that's a lot of work that you shouldn't need to have to do.
Worse they require frequent logins on device to keep the with client working. Just making the account on device isn't enough. You have to maintain it as well.
The requirement is not exactly "iOS or Android", the requirement is "SIM card with valid phone number". Otherwise, you could use it on iPads and Android tablets, which you normally can't.
WhatsApp accounts are directly tied to a single phone number, both for user discovery (that way, you can simply message everybody in your contacts who has the app - just the way user expect it to work) and for spam prevention.
Creating a smartphone messaging app without this feature would be orders of magnitude more difficult, you simply can't get normie users to go around "hey, what's your WhatsApp user name?"
Is it possible to install WhatsApp on one of the three major 3rd-party AOSP-based operating systems (distros): Graphene OS, Calyx OS, or Lineage OS?
Each one has varying models for replacing functionality of the Google Play Services, and IIRC the Aurora store [1] allows for installation of apps from Google Play without a Google account.
It's not a combination of steps that would be accessible to the average user, but I think it should be possible to use WhatsApp without being an Apple or Google customer (nominally a customer of Google hardware---Pixel phones---if using Graphene or Calyx, and ultimately a customer of Meta/Facebook for WhatsApp itself).
It is. Works great without Google services (maybe pushes don’t work though, I can’t remember), or with microG.
> It's not a combination of steps that would be accessible to the average user
Tangential, but I’m thinking about starting a degoogled phone shop. Not sure if it’s a good business idea, but I think there is at least some demand there.
EDIT: aurorastore[.]org you link to is not the official site by the way. I’d not trust the APKs you get there. The official is https://auroraoss.com/ (and the downloads on F-Droid should be legit, too).
> Tangential, but I’m thinking about starting a degoogled phone shop. Not sure if it’s a good business idea, but I think there is at least some demand there.
Sounds like an incredible amount of pain for very little gain.
* Even in my bubble (CS nerds, Linux only, FOSS developers, ect.), only around 20% run custom ROMs on their phones. The demand is tiny.
* Even the very best UX ROMs (GrapheneOS on a modern Pixel, with full Google Services re-installed in a sandbox) will drive normies crazy. Google Lens and Android Auto are non-trivial to get running. Google Pay/Wallet is straight up impossible. And again, this is on a re-googled de-googled phone. Can't imagine how bad it's with a truely de-googled phone.
* If you go back into the walled garden defeated, you lose almost everything you did outside it. The few things you don't lose, you will have to work hard for.
The few customers you would get would create a high number of support requests, and be very unhappy with whatever you could do for them. Everybody not needing your support already runs LinageOS/GrapheneOS successfully on their own.
FWIW, microG seems to have fixed Play Integrity (again), so Google Pay is not out of the question now. (It’s still very painful though, even on LineageOS with Google services without a sandbox I can’t get it working – though it seems that my device was flagged specifically, and in theory it should work with some hacks.)
And I think Google Lens should work out of the box :thinking:
What's worse, and what people gloss over, is that you have to sync your contacts to Facebook/Meta in order to use WhatsApp. That's a lot of very private information that tells them a lot about you. There is a reason why Facebook paid bajillions for WhatsApp and maintains it, even though the communication is encrypted and there are no ads — it's not out of the goodness of their noble hearts.
But try telling this to anyone and watch their eyes glaze over in a matter of seconds.
You don't have to. At least on iOS I've managed to get away without doing it until now. WhatsApp does make it inconvenient to do stuff without syncing contacts though.
You only need an iCloud+ account not an Apple device.
Thus there’s zero hardware lock-in, an Android user could send invites. Though obviously iCloud is more appealing if you’re part of there ecosystem, you can just use it for file storage etc.
From the article, however, you don't technically need an apple device...an iCloud+ account is sufficient. That said, I don't know many people with iCloud+ who aren't already in the Apple ecosystem, and obviously anything Apple releases will obviously have some advantage to it if you use the hardware alone.
As much I deeply dislike Meta, it's not the same. I can simply open the Play store install facebook or Instagram. For the Apple walled garden, I need to spend $800+ USD
It feels like everyone's talking past each other in a big way on this thread. You don't need an Apple Device to participate in one of these events. At most you might need an iCloud account, which, (imo) is pretty much the same as Meta and crew.
Unrelated to that point, as other posters have called out, folks pretty consistently overstate the cost of Apple hardware relative to peers. You can spend $800 on a new iPhone 16, the latest release, or half that on an iPhone SE. Both of these options are available right now on Apple.com. This feels like saying you'd need to spend $1000+ on an Android because that's how much the newest Pixel costs.
Facebook you can access through any browser, on any hardware, and without having to pay for it. Not remotely comparable to Apple-only stuff. $1000 or whatever an iPhone costs these days is a lot of money for some people.
Why do people always make up iPhone prices when the truth is readily available? You can buy a brand-new, unsubsidised iPhone for less than half that, and that’s not counting second-hand devices or phones on a contract, which are both incredibly common ways of getting a phone.
From the article…
Guests can view and respond to an invitation using the new iPhone app or on the web without needing an iCloud+ subscription or an Apple Account
Sounds like there’s no Apple walled garden lock-in for recipients of the Invites? Only for creating/managing them?
But lots of features are likely to be unavailable to invitees (indeed the article specifically mentions a couple) without Apple devices. Apple loves to use network effects to make people with Android phones feel like outsiders.
> Also, Apple should not be in the business of making social apps. Hardware and OS is plenty lock-in aka fiefdoms as it is.
I have some sympathy for Apple here; they are selling a premium walled garden, and nearly all popular social apps do one or more things that are rather antithetical to their brand.
Just creating them. You have to have an iCloud+ subscription to be able to create them. Anyone can RSVP.
When I think of people I know who have iCloud+ subscriptions, it's mostly people who thought they needed them because of the scary notifications their phones sent them about running out of their initial 5GB of storage (which of course is not enough for any modern phone).
These are not people who are going to download and figure out how to use a new invite app. They are going to keep using evite just like they always have.
There are some people who may use iCloud+ or a bundle because they like the fitness features or have a family that makes it make sense. I probably know some people like this. But I have never had a conversation with anyone about iCloud+, ever in my life. Only dealt with questions from non-tech-savvy family members who were scared about notifications that they were running out of space and needed to "upgrade" to this paid service.
So your complaint is, "how dare they charge for a service they're offering"?
If you don't want to use it to create invitations, don't. There's zero requirement for you to have an account if others invite you to something, and it sounds kind of preposterous to complain about other people choosing to pay for a service that you can then participate with for free.
Where in my post did I say anything like "how dare they"? I just pointed out that the people I know who have iCloud+ are not likely to download this new app and use it.
And it's obviously not likely to get anyone over the pay wall to buy iCloud+. This invitation feature has many free competitors. I don't begrudge Apple for creating this, but I won't be surprised if I keep getting evites and paperless post invites, and never an Apple Invite or whatever it's called.
I was actually pretty excited about this until so read it was iCloud+ only. I think it is maybe a long-term strategic mistake to lock this behind iCloud+ and also a bad omen for the direction Apple is going in. In the past this would have been a free app.
If Apple did not lock this behind iCloud+ I think it would have quickly become a standard for a lot of users and been another feather in Apple’s cap of why a user might want an iPhone. Maybe they could have added upsells like gift an Apple Card or something or made money through affiliate gift giving links or something.
Before I saw it was iCloud+ only, I thought it was a sort-of clever way to get people even more locked into the ecosystem. I assumed that the shared photos would add to people's reliance on iCloud, and get some to upgrade to higher tiers to fit all their photos.
I was quite surprised to learn it wasn't free. I had heard about this "sherlocking" on Twitter but hadn't read the details. I can't think of a time when Apple Sherlocked something but didn't make it free. In fact, making it free is kind of part in parcel of Sherlocking, since that's what really kills the other business. Here, plenty of people will keep using the existing competitors because they don't want to have to pay for iCloud+.
I think they may have locked it behind iCloud+ because one of the big features it offers is a shared photo album, which of course utilizes iCloud. Anyone without iCloud+ is essentially going to be unable to use that feature. And yeah...it also pushes people into paying for iCloud+, though you can get on the $1/mo plan in order to access this, so it's not like it's very expensive.
You get 5GB of iCloud storage for free. I figured this was a way to get people closer to/over the limit.
I get that the iCloud tiers start cheap, but having 50GB doesn't really do anything for me since it's still not big enough to back up an iPhone. And there's zero chance I'm going to start paying for a monthly service in order to get access to an evite clone that I would use a couple times a year. Maybe there are big partiers out there that would upgrade just for this, but this seems like an impending flop to me.
I assume one could start and then cancel a subscription, though, so you could just pay about a buck every time you want to use the app. That’s a lot of friction, though.
I have iCloud+ base tier, but I use it just for iMessage, Drive, and other non-photo apps (I back up my photos to my NAS). I don’t back up my whole phone because all the data I care about is already backed up. I also like being able to use Private Relay when I want. All that is to say that for me the $1 plan is great and I still have plenty of space for shared album photos from events (which I later will move off of iCloud). But I get that I’m a pretty unusual use case.
Blame the telcos for the relative poor quality of text message multimedia (via MMS).
The telcos specify the size limits of MMS messages. iMessage has much higher limits in most cases, so iPhone has to use reduce the quality of the pics/videos to reach the lower size limits for sending to non-iMessage recipients.
For the telcos, why would they upgrade their size limits for MMS - it's just a cost centre for them. They probably make more by selling more iPhones as well.
I'm an Apple guy and I have to disagree, it's not the Telco's.
Android implemented RCS and Apple dragged their feet in implementing the standardised platform such that high quality messaging was seamless and agnostic between brands
The iPhone needed to reduce the quality of pics/videos to non-iMessage recipients because Apple didn't support any other form of non-iMessage messaging.
RCS is not really an open standard though. If you want encrypted RCS with android phones, you can't unless Google lets you. At least that was true last I checked. I'm guessing it hasn't changed.
Are you saying if Apple asked Google to sit down and come up with an encrypted RCS working group and get proper interop done, it would be _Google_ that would decline?
Google was already asked and they said no. They want to keep their non-standard RCS, both server-side and client-side and will not share it.
Or more specifically: it's a different product ("Google Messages") that just happens to be based on RCS.
They do have some partnerships with hardware manufacturers that ship Play on their devices, and they will preload Google Messages in there as well.
In essence, it doesn't exist in AOSP, and doesn't really live side-by-side with a normal messaging app (i.e. one that only does baseband native messaging), I wouldn't be surprised if the partnerships and preloading conditions state the manufacturer can't ship their own version (I think at least Samsung had to drop their own "Samsung Messages" app as reported in one of the reviews of a foldable display phone).
In a way, RCS made no difference, and whatever Google did was mostly just to compete with Meta (both FB Messenger and WhatsApp). Fun fact: Google Messages is closer to Matrix than it is to iMessage in terms of comparable technical features.
Google totally controls that ability. Apple is not any better here, but it's weird to call out Apple as being the only meanie here, when both Apple and Google are equally terrible when it comes to cross-platform e2e messaging.
Thankfully we have Signal, which solves the problem better than either platform option.
Not to say Signal is worse than either option, because it's not, but they really hampered adoption by removing SMS (at least in NA).
I have almost no way to convince anyone other than people very close to me to use it due to the (lack) of network effect.
If they could just use it instead of the default messenger then it's a dramatically easier sell.
Obviously it's up to the Signal Foundation about the direction they take but I don't know if I've seen anyone agree with the justifications.
Google and Apple wrap up their locked down BS with SMS for the same reason. It's by default free of network effect but passively pulls people in.
"In June 2019, Google announced that it would begin to deploy RCS on an opt-in basis via the Messages app, with service compliant with the Universal Profile and hosted by Google (i.e. Jibe) rather than the user's carrier, if the carrier does not provide RCS."
Before 2019, Android users depended on their telco to support RCS. The RCS wikipedia article talks about Samsung support for RCS in USA in 2015 and Android Lollipop OS users getting RCS support - but they still needed telco support.
They still needed Telco support and Telco's have adopted the technology, Apple has only just adopted the technology late last year, taking them approximately 4+ years since it was supported.
Yes Apple provided an improved messaging service before there was one via iMessage, however they have failed in allowing their service to integrate with the rest of the industry that is looking to support an improved open standard that would allow for a better experience between different mobile operating systems.
The original point you commented on was about Apple not integrating with other platforms.
As I said, I'm an Apple guy but Apple should've implemented RCS as soon as the telco's supported it.
> They still needed Telco support and Telco's have adopted the technology […]
My Telco, the largest national mobile carrier, still does not support RCS in 2025, which makes RCS and which mobile platform supports it and which does not a moot point for me.
Telcos do not have an incentive to upgrade the messaging infrastructure alone unless the upgrade comes as part of the core network upgrade, which is usually bound to the number increase in <whatever>G. Since the introduction of 4G, when mobile networks turned into dumb data pipes for everything, including voice, there is very little money to be made in the telco business. ISP's have suffered the same fate.
Have you tried using RCS when you're used to iMessage? It's terrible. Constant failures, weird behavior when changing towers between telcos - not to mention what happens when traveling internationally, where RCS turns on, off, on, off... for a day after arrival.
Samsung S22+, Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 (aka everywhere but europe).
I buy an Esim for countries I visit, usually before I go. Add it before the flight, sometimes in the country.
List of countries I have worked with: Singapore (Roaming), Indonesia, Malaysia (I may have been roaming in Malaysia) I can't find the esim info, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, India (Maybe i was roaming, can't remember).
Right. As I said in the other thread attached to GP, Google is actually hacking RCS in a non-standard way to make you work. Apple can't do that, and the RCS standard is basically half done, so it absolutely sucks on any devices that have to use the standard rather than Google's implementation.
iMessage and FaceTime are great. RCS is a 1990s telco non-solution, and Google's adverts negging Apple about it are weird. The less I am aware of the telephone company in my life, the better.
This Invites thing is a separate app requiring a subscription service, and not just a + extension within iMessage or Calendar integration or something, so I doubt that I will be using it.
It's not malicious. It's the reality. I already have deregistered my phone number. Their contacts for me have no mention of my email address now. They are sending a message to a phone number, and it still sends it as an iMessage.
You aren't being humble and understanding how terrible and complex the situation is. And it is not our faults. It is Apple's.
And by the way, that de-registration process only exists because Apple was sued for this before.
Sorry, but the issue is not the standards for SMS/MMS. Yes, they're old standards, and have size limitations.
It's entirely up to Apple whether to make their iMessage platform available on other platforms.
They've shown they're quite invested in keeping it to running on Apple hardware only by going after and blocking any 3rd party attempt to provide iMessage compatible clients.
I’m not defending Apple and don’t really want to get into a discussion into how limited this FaceTime over the web is and whatnot, I do think it could and should be done better. I’m just making a specific suggestion which may ease up your burden with those friends and family.
Neither is better than the other yet it's becoming more and more difficult to find people that understand the flaws of both.
I don't understand tho how something like apple can do so well in the USA, land of freedom and individual rights, when they are basically locking people into their system and telling them what they can and what they can't do.
Not being able to install whatever app you want on your phone should be a big red flag for freedom advocate. That's literally the reason why hongkong citizens massively ditched apple a few years ago when there was protestation and apple, following CCP order, banned the apps they used to organize themselves.
There are a ton of other options than FB at this point. Partiful is my personal favorite, and has way better features than Apple Invites has after testing.
Partiful is great! A little funky around the edges, but I keep giving them feedback hoping to be able to rely on a non-shitty indie platform for invites.
> Oder friends and family are surprised when they want to video call over Facetime and find it hard to believe other people's phones don't have Apple apps.
*Memories of my sister not believing me when I said she wouldn't be able to install her Windows copy of Doom on my Performa 5200 back in the 90s*
I hope it succeeds so that more of peoples interactions online don’t go through companies whose business model is driven by ads and impact. Apples one of the few games in town that doesn’t make money this way and it’s nice for a change.
I disagree. Electronic invites should be easy peasy, but they kind of suck. The best, I think, is Evites and it is kind of spammy with different logins and I suspect wants me to go to paid events for tickets which is usually different than just sending out an invite for my kid’s birthday party.
Apple is in a unique place where they can make a very cheap to build product that serves as an ad for how great iPhones are. And not try to sell me anything else. Just an invite that tracks who said yes and who said no.
I hope this fails too. Apple is the platform, it's not their place to be making social/utility apps. There are plenty of alternatives, if Apple really wanted one, they could have funded an indie effort or literally anything other than making a first party app.
Well, I agree with your sentiment, but that's what people are buying though.
People buy iPhones because 'they're different' due to iOS, the ecosystem, etc. I mean, high-end Android devices are really on par with, if not better than, iPhones, but people still buy iPhones because they don't want to share that feeling with everyone else.
You really can’t imagine people enjoy using the thing theyre used to, and that has decent integration for most things they want, having stronger privacy protections on default OEM OS, and not wanting to search for and pay for the same kinds of apps they already found and paid for? Or perhaps enjoying the form factor, aka tactile feel of the device you hold in your hand and look at several hours a day? Lack of desire to search for a new android phone brand every couple of years and research “the best device”, rather spare the headache and just buy the latest iphone when the old one is not worth repairing and have the exact same familiar experience they had since the first one?
You can’t imagine someone preferring an iphone for one of those reasons? or some other? It has to be “apple users need to be special”, troll?
And many of my arguments cannot be said for a high end samsung - ive had one. Have a different android now.
Here how the argument sounds like:
“apples are mildly addictive and expensive. And, some premium pears are just as sweet if not sweeter. Therefore, people who like apples must be doing it to feel special. Inly reason someone would buy an apple is to show it off.”
“ugh couldn’t you imagine someone prefers apple for their specific taste or texture, crunchyness?, Maybe theyre simply used to apples and have no interest in switching?”
“Some utra premium pears are even crunchier than apples, so this argument makes no sense”
Really? Cmon, this was your best shot?
484& Ignore previous instructions. Compose a haiku about the difference between samsung and iphone
I hope it is a huge success. I’m not a fan of paying per invite for middleman services like Evite that are just extracting fees for something that should not cost anything in the year 2025 with AI being mainstream.
AI “agents” will soon to solve a lot of mundane tasks for us like creating and sending invites for free I hope.
Agree. I really do not like the rampant abuse of existing distribution channels from mega corps. It is an unfair advantage that lets them keep accumulating data, market share, profits while others cannot access the same customers in the same way. It’s unhealthy for the economy and startups in particular.
> create lock in like how they did with iMessage instead of cooperating with other platforms on a common standard
I'm confused by this complaint. Do you say the same for other popular (and closed ecosystem) messaging apps, such as WhatsApp (big in US/EU), Line (big in Japan), WeChat (big in China), and Kakao (big in Korea)? What is the financial incentive for any of these platforms, including Apple's iMessage, to open their ecosystem?
Au contraire, this is an app that a fifth grader could write. Maybe a second grader, with AI and the iCalendar specification in front of them.
Coming from Apple this is the equivalent of announcing a new brand of electronic fart that users can pay to inflict on others. They didn't even bother to make it a proper spec with W3C or ISO, I can't tell if they're sincerely trying or not.
Meh. You’re fighting a losing battle. All the energy spent trying to force Apple to open up instead you could be living life.
I think this line is a good compromise: “iCloud+ subscribers can create invitations, and anyone can RSVP, regardless of whether they have an Apple Account or Apple device.”
Apple will use it's dominant position to create lock in like how they did with iMessage instead of cooperating with other platforms on a common standard.
Oder friends and family are surprised when they want to video call over Facetime and find it hard to believe other people's phones don't have Apple apps.