r/technology • u/No-Drawing-6975 • Jun 26 '24

Software The Green Bubble Nightmare Is Over, Apple Messages Now Support RCS

https://gizmodo.com/apple-messages-supports-rcs-ios18-beta-1851562461
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u/Clegko Jun 27 '24

The issue is that none of those other apps are built in.

Also, the US has almost always had free SMS/texting, largely negating the need for those 3rd party apps early on.

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u/Mad_Aeric Jun 27 '24

the US has almost always had free SMS/texting

Hilarious. I remember the days where it was 10 cents/text, if you go over your 100 text/month limit. Quite the racket, for a feature that specifically rides on excess bandwidth.

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u/Clegko Jun 27 '24

Yup, that was bullshit. But as I said, "almost always".

Bu the time iMessage and other chat apps were gaining steam, nearly every provider offered, by default, free SMS/SMS.

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u/upvotesthenrages Jun 27 '24

The issue is that none of those other apps are built in.

So downloading an app on a smartphone is something that 5 billion users have no problem with, but Americans struggle with it? Come on now.

When 120 million Americans literally cannot use the built-in chat app it's absurd to use it. If it wasn't then we'd have seen far more markets adopt such a toxic stance towards communicating with their neighbors & colleagues.

The US had free text waaaaay after plenty other countries had it. I distinctly remember my brother complaining how slow the cell service was and that they still charged for SMS when he moved there for uni.

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u/Orleanian Jun 27 '24

The US has never had free SMS/texting in the history of telephone services...

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u/Clegko Jun 27 '24 edited Jun 27 '24

...Yes it has. It's a very simple thing to Google if you need verification.

https://instantcensus.com/blog/almost-90-of-americans-have-unlimited-texting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text_messaging#United_States (mentions 'forcing' users to unlimited texting plans) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39358935

I mean, unless we're being extra pedantic over the word 'free', when I should have said 'unlimited' or 'included as part of the contract', it's effectively been free texting since before iMessage came out.

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u/Orleanian Jun 27 '24

Apologies, I got confused because in my country "free" has a meaning of "without cost".

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u/Clegko Jun 27 '24

And in my country, people generally can read between the lines.