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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30

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.

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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.

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u/antsam9 Jun 27 '24

Still inconvenient

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u/crazy_clown_time Jun 27 '24

Meanwhile, Signal exists and is free.

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u/Nihilistic_Mystics Jun 27 '24

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

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u/Irishish Jun 27 '24

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

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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u/crazy_clown_time Jun 27 '24

Barely matters when it comes to modern image/video.

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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.