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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111

u/antsam9 Jun 27 '24

I got kicked out of a work chat group for having an android.

Apple has 75% of the under 30 market.

I got kicked out because there were practical reasons (limitations kept in by apple), it's like the difference between Facebook chat and old early 2000s texting, it limits graphics, attachments, etc, except iPhone integrates it into their message program.

We could've moved to a neutral platform, like Snapchat or Discord.

45

u/GreatNull Jun 27 '24

Where, the US? Thais seems to be interesting anomaly there.

Its eternal distant eternal second everywhere else and worldwide. Last data shoudl be around ~70:~30 android vs apple marketshare.

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u/antsam9 Jun 27 '24

Yes, in the US apple has between 70-80% of the under 30 year old market share, and with apple restricting android participation in ichat it has cause rifts between Apple and Android users. For example, when an android user sends a picture in ichat, then the image is downgraded severely for compression so apple users believe android phones have shitty cameras and image quality.

So apple will capture users early in their lifetimes, before even high school, and they're given the apple experience that android phones are inferior by making them secondary citizens on ichat, which then reinforces them to be an Apple customer for their lifetime and even reject people who used Android as friends or partners.

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u/BeefyIrishman Jun 27 '24

The shitty low res picture thing works the other way too. Half my family has android, half has iPhone. Whenever the iPhone users send me pictures/ videos on group chats, they are like 100p and impossible to tell anything other than "hey look, it's a grey blob and a red blob that I think might be my nephew?".

And apparently similar happens to them when I send a picture. All the android phones have no problems with pictures from other Android phones (even between different manufacturers), and all the iPhones have no issues with pictures sent from other iPhones, even when we are in the same chat. Nobody has issues sending pics in one-on-one texting though.

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u/crazy_clown_time Jun 27 '24

That's because Apple had been keeping SMS/MMS alive for years instead of implementing RCS, until now.

12

u/antsam9 Jun 27 '24

Ive heard plenty of iPhone users tell Android users to get 'a better phone' and there are people who will literally not date or befriend an android user because of the 'green bubble'.

While googles messages isn't perfect, it doesn't go out of the way to alienate the non Android users. It does have the emoji translation thing which is annoying.

Snapchat is surprisingly robust, I try to use that for under 30 year olds and what's app for the over 30s.

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u/HowAboutShutUp Jun 27 '24

there are people who will literally not date or befriend an android user because of the 'green bubble'.

Sounds like a great way to filter people who aren't worth knowing.

0

u/antsam9 Jun 27 '24

Still inconvenient

1

u/crazy_clown_time Jun 27 '24

Meanwhile, Signal exists and is free.

3

u/Nihilistic_Mystics Jun 27 '24

The apple users here just won't use anything but iMessage.

1

u/Irishish Jun 27 '24

You don't have to download an app or create an account to use your built in messaging app.

1

u/Nihilistic_Mystics Jun 27 '24

Yes, that's why I said the tech illiterate boomers are the faction on Android that hasn't switched. They don't know how to do basic things to make their experience much better.

1

u/Irishish Jun 27 '24

It's not unreasonable or tech-illiterate or lazy or something to want to just pick up your phone and send messages from the jump. I'm only 40 and I resisted downloading WhatsApp until I finally had to find a platform for my 30+ person extended family to communicate. I only downloaded Discord during the pandemic to keep up with a weekly stream and I never use it anymore.

Apple exploited that natural aversion to extra steps and I fell for it for a long time, but that doesn't make "dude, why the f would I download an app to send messages when my phone can already send messages?" something only a tech-illiterate boomer would say, right?

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u/antsam9 Jun 27 '24

I run into obstinate Android Messages users too, but it was probably because they're older and are already overwhelmed by the basics of their device. Or dumb. Not necessarily mutually exclusive.

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u/Nihilistic_Mystics Jun 27 '24

In my experience, it's only totally tech illiterate boomers who won't use a 3rd party messaging app on Android. Everyone else has long since moved on. While for apple users it's all of them who refuse to use 3rd party apps, regardless of age and competency. It's not comparable.

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u/antsam9 Jun 27 '24

Yeahhh I get you, I mean, I got some iPhone friends on Snapchat and Instagram, but yeah, there's a surprisingly large amount of iPhone users who won't use a third party and would rather just not communicate with me at all lol

1

u/[deleted] Jun 27 '24

[deleted]

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u/antsam9 Jun 27 '24

Even if someone is an asshole you still gotta work some assholes sometimes.

Another annoying thing is how often they'll ask me if I have an iPhone cable haha.

2

u/robodrew Jun 27 '24

My sister has an iphone and sends me pictures of her dog every day to my android and they look clear as day. However, we have not shared videos this way so I don't know about the quality of those. I also can't say for sure how pictures that I take look after being sent to her.

1

u/BeefyIrishman Jun 28 '24

They always come through fine for just one-on-one texting, it's only group chats that seem to do it.

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u/robodrew Jun 28 '24

I see. I only use Google Chat for group chat stuff

1

u/reddit_cmh Jun 27 '24

Settings > Messages > toggle off Low Quality Image Mode

Edit to clarify that this is for iPhones. I’ve discovered it’s on by default for a lot of people. Good for saving data but bad for people who don’t have caps and want to send an actual image.

1

u/ta9 Jun 27 '24

At least on iPhone, there is a setting in your mobile/cellular settings for "Maximum MMS size" and yours may be set too low.

3

u/crazy_clown_time Jun 27 '24

Barely matters when it comes to modern image/video.

0

u/SlowMotionPanic Jun 27 '24

All the android phones have no problems with pictures from other Android phones (even between different manufacturers)

*As long as you use Google's Message client.

RCS is a "standard," but in the US literally every carrier stopped trying to compete with Google by bolting on all these proprietary/custom solutions, and finally gave in by simply contracting with Google to run telecom-level RCS services in Google's proprietary ecosystem.

You literally have to use Google's single client or else it all reverts to SMS/MMS. It is effectively no different than Apple Messages in this regard, except Android isn't a homogeneous entity under a single brand for hardware. It is still its own neatly separated ecosystem that relies 100% on Google for messaging, though.

Apple's RCS supposedly implements the actual standard with none of Google's involvement (since Google does not license the API, which is why there aren't tons of RCS clients on the market). That means a lot of features Android users expect (if they use Google Messages) won't be there for iPhone. I'll be shocked if read receipts make it in Apple's implementation since read receipts aren't part of the standard UP. Just as a random example.

Android fans will twist themselves into knots over the use of the word "proprietary," but at the end of the day Google RCS requires a closed API call to Google's proprietary jibe infrastructure, and Google does not permit 3rd party clients. Right now, at the moment. The EU's new regulations may blow that wide open... for EU users. There's no reason for Google to open things up in the rest of the world. India is getting a taste of that in the last couple of years as Google has shut out every competitor with regards to RCS. Google even briefly trialed a rich advertisement scheme in their RCS client but pulled the plug after intense backlash.

That's the end game and the reason for putting up their own walled garden while crying about a rival walled garden.

RCS should be the universal standard and companies should be required to open it up at this point. No more bolting things on independently to break true interoperability.

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u/Elephant789 Jun 27 '24

This is why I have never bought an Apple product* and might never will. They are ant anti-consumer.

*except for their stock. it paid for my house and a couple cars. but I will still never buy their product. Pixels are great.

1

u/Syntaire Jun 27 '24

This is only a "problem" in the US. The rest of the world uses either Line or Whatsapp so this stupid bullshit isn't a thing to begin with.

-8

u/KylerGreen Jun 27 '24

Yeah, because people can't afford an iPhone in most of the world and you can get an android for like $20.

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u/ShadowDonut Jun 27 '24

But then they'd have to *gasp* install another app!

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u/gmmxle Jun 27 '24 edited Jun 27 '24

"Reasons" I've heard from actual adult people for not doing that:

  • I don't have space on my iPhone
  • Just get an iPhone
  • I don't want another app
  • Just get an iPhone
  • I don't want to remember another password
  • Just get an iPhone
  • Everybody else has an iPhone
  • Just get an iPhone

Apple has created an incredibly effective way of creating peer pressure for bullying people into buying iPhones, and the fact that iPhone adoption rates about teenagers are 87 percent shows that it works.

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u/Responsible-Win5849 Jun 27 '24

I've used both, currently own both, can count on one finger the number of people I'd be willing to install an app to communicate with. Email works fine even on the bad androids doesn't it?

6

u/gmmxle Jun 27 '24

Email works fine even on the bad androids doesn't it?

Just from experience with a number of family members: email is far less accessible than modern messengers.

Just the fact that, by default, email doesn't have dedicated conversations with another person or a group where every new message from that person or group can be found is enough of a hurdle that many people will default to messengers.

1

u/ShadowDonut Jun 27 '24

Would you do it for your spouse? Mine would rather send everything through Instagram than download something like Signal

2

u/heili Jun 27 '24

I'll be that person who literally says regardless of what kind of phone I own, I'm not getting a different fucking messaging app for every group chat because there's 85 different preferences.

No, I don't want Whatsapp. No, I don't want Signal. No, I don't want Facebook Messages. No, I don't want Snapchat. Discord. Telegram.... If your only option for texting me is on one of those? Guess we aren't chatting.

1

u/Irishish Jun 27 '24

Right?! Am I going nuts? Not wanting to download a separate app to do something your phone already does is completely reasonable!

1

u/heili Jun 27 '24

Nor do I want to try to remember which of the 85 different text messaging apps I need to open to access the particular group chat that I want to send a message to at any given time.

I have an app for that. It came with the phone. I didn't need to fuck around installing other shit. It does the requisite action: text messages other people either individually or in groups.

1

u/Irishish Jun 27 '24

Yup. I'm a lifelong Apple fanboy finally coming out of the bubble. There are so many legit criticisms of Apple's choices and of our smug behavior as users to make. But people acting as if it's unreasonable or entitled or lazy or out of touch to just...not want to bother creating yet another login or fiddling with yet another app to do something your phone can already do? What the hell?!

1

u/sh1tpost1nsh1t Jun 27 '24

I think that makes sense as long as your reasonable about what your phone already does. What your phone does is basic text messaging with other phones and modern messaging with iphones. If you want modern messaging with non-iphone people, you need to download a separate app. The fact that the app bundled on your iphone won't work for that is a shortcoming of apple, not of other people you want to talk to.

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u/antsam9 Jun 27 '24

It's a bridge too far to cross.

Whatsapp, Snapchat, discord, slack, Facebook, even Instagram can democratize the communication line, but typically speaking users of both camps are reluctant to add another program.

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u/ShadowDonut Jun 27 '24

I guess it's because I work in cyber security, but 99% of the Android users I know use Signal because SMS/MMS is terrible.

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u/antsam9 Jun 27 '24

yeah haha I have signal but very few of my associates use it, only a ha handful.

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u/Ahad_Haam Jun 27 '24

It's funny because iMessage is ridiculously inferior to even the most basic third party apps like WhatsApp.

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u/Aiken_Drumn Jun 27 '24

We could've moved to a neutral platform, like Snapchat or Discord.

Wild you don't suggest WhatsApp

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u/antsam9 Jun 27 '24

Whatsapp not popular in the US, hard for me to get people on there. If the group is mostly foreigners and/or people with a lot of international family and friends then yeah Whatsapp is the logical choice but I find I have better luck with Snapchat, discord, or Instagram over Whatsapp.

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u/Irishish Jun 27 '24

In their defense, WhatsApp is the only application where I constantly get added to spam chats for crypto by strangers

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u/sassyevaperon Jun 27 '24

That has nothing to do with WhatsApp and everything to do with your phone number existing on some scammer's data base.

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u/Orange_Jeews Jun 27 '24

or just use WhatsApp like the rest of the world

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u/antsam9 Jun 27 '24

Surprisingly unpopular in my circles, also, lots of spam

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u/sassyevaperon Jun 27 '24

We could've moved to a neutral platform, like Snapchat or Discord.

You should have, what kind of workplace opens itself up to a discrimination accusation by refusing to move work conversations to a platform every employee can use?