The Android developer just published an updated landing page for Google Messages, showing off key features ranging from customization, privacy and security, and, of course, AI.
On this landing page, there are different sections for each feature set, including one for RCS. As spotted by 9to5Google, if you expand this list of RCS features and scroll to the bottom, you see a section on “Coming soon on iOS: Better messaging for all.” That’s no surprise: We’ve known Apple was adopting RCS since November. However, it’s the next line that brings the news: “Apple has announced it will be adopting RCS in the fall of 2024.”
Of course, this does not say a lot as it is “in the fall” which is anywhere over a couple of months, and Google has tried to embarrass Apple into making moves before. I suppose, though, there is the looming court case against Apple which is anyway keeping pressure on Apple. If it were not for the US court case, I would have guessed Apple may have pulled out after the EU had ruled Apple was not a dominant player in the market (although the EU case was looking more at interoperability with WhatsApp and others in Apple Messages).
Of course, with Apple actually including RCS now, they can probably argue that there is interoperability via RCS between their platform and Android too. It must be remembered that in many countries, like mine, SMS’s are paid for so are very expensive to use for any form of chatting, and the costs go up exponentially when you text an international number.
I personally have quite a few issues with interoperability with Apple:
- I still have AirTags from when I had an iPhone and I daily get the audio beeps warning me the AirTags are not connected (I use an Android phone and alternate between an iPad and an Android tablet)
- I can’t wait to sell my AirTags and get the new one’s Google was working on that will interoperate with Apple, but supposedly Apple has been delaying building in that support into their devices (which Google already built into Android for AirTags in 2023)
- Because I was on Apple Messages and my iPad still sometimes connects, I find a message on my iPad that arrived a week ago which I had not seen (I had Beeper which was solving this problem)
Apple is not at all dominant outside the USA, but it makes interacting with Apple users quite a pain, as Apple has gone out of their way to try to keep their users inside the walled garden.
See https://lifehacker.com/tech/google-just-revealed-when-apple-will-officially-adopt-rcs
#technology #RCS #Apple #interoperability
Watch them be pee-yellow bubbles or something, but still not blue, lol.
Honestly they shouldn’t be blue. I don’t say this out of some kind of elitism, I just mean that the different colored chat bubbles are what currently tell you whether you’re using Apple’s E2EE chat function or plain text SMS. RCS would also support encryption, but currently Apple allows you to opt into tighter security controls that hide your iMessage encryption keys even from Apple when your messages are backed up. Your RCS chat partner opens half of the encrypted end to Google’s security policies which you won’t have any control over. So knowing that I’m using RCS when messaging somebody is something I’d want to be aware of.
Right, consider the case of iMessages being green. If you have an iMessage chat with blue bubbles, but try to text from an area with poor reception, it can fail over to SMS. With this scenario, it’s pretty clear why you still want green bubbles to tell you the chat is degraded
I’d assume they’d just be green
Apple hasn’t agreed to implement RCS encryption, but maybe they will anyway
Maybe teal or cyan (green + blue) 😉
I like that idea.
Or maybe they could just allow users to change the colors of their bubbles as a UI preference option.
Probably too complicated. Just not allowing certain settings for that reason is a very Apple thing to do.
But what if someone accidentally changes the bubble and text colors to an unreadable combination? No. We must protect our users from this obscene nonsense.
Back when the Messages app in macOS supported other services you were able to change the bubble color. But this feature was removed over time…
RCS will replace SMS/MMS, not iMessage. Whether it’s encrypted or not, Apple will still regard it as being a tier beneath their own solution. So green is the new green.
I don’t mind the different color. Since SMS or RCS can cost money depending on where you are and which contract you have it’s an important information for me if I’m not using iMessage.
I hate that so much but you’re probably right 😅
Light gray bubbles, white text
Don’t give them ideas
Apple confirmed they’ll be green.
modern features like E2EE
This is false. E2EE is not part of the spec. It’s just a feature of Google’s implementation, which Apple will absolutely not be using.
Incorrect. They’re working with the GSMA on a universal E2EE protocol. They mentioned that we should not expect E2EE in the first release of RCS on iOS.
It’s coming, but since they don’t want the proprietary thing Google has, and they want a standard, it’s coming later.
This is so important.
I read about Apple looking to bring the spec up to par, but I suspect it has a higher chance of being a nothing-burger since carriers haven’t bothered with RCS and Google’s implementation is as controlled/proprietary as iMessage so it will be interesting to see how things go forward.
Apple and others have complained that Google was gatekeeping the RCS encryption plugin, and that it needed to be an open standard. Both Apple and Google are now contributing to and open encryption standard now, which should benefit lots of messaging clients.
That said, the PR folks said late last year that we should not expect encrypted RCS on iOS with release 1 of iOS RCS.
Google’s website is not incorrect. It’s just missing nuance and dates.
So when we use Google messages for RCS it’s E2EE?
Only with other Google messages users (on Carriers who use Google rcs)
oh boy
it’s ironic with all this that Google fi messages on Android still doesn’t support rcs without losing a bunch of other features
What messaging app are you using, because I’ve been using RCS messaging for the past 5 years on Fi.
Google messages. Here is the support article on the tradeoffs: https://support.google.com/fi/answer/6188337
That is using messaging for the web through Google Fi. But there is little reason to do that now as Google messages the app itself can be used through messages.google.com. there are several stand alone computer applications that use the portal as well (messages in the windows store, messages or google-messages package in most distros. Dunno about Mac. Either way, instead of fi being the backend, the app connects directly to your PC. You just have to pair your phone using the app directly.
yeah that works, it’s even the same interface. you just lose out on also making calls and voicemail from web
Well, I’ll be damned.
That article is about Google Messages for Web (aka texting from your computer). It has nothing to do with RCS on your phone.
Also Google Voice doesn’t support RCS at all.
So basically what everyone predicted when Apple said it would occur in 2024.
Major new features are always in the n.0.0 fall releases. No way this was going to be bundled with a late in life iOS 17 bug and security update.
Apple is not at all dominant outside the USA
Depends on the country. iOS has over 50% of the mobile market in more nations than you might realize. This is especially true for English speaking countries.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/iphone-market-share-by-country
North Korea going over 80% on ios share was something unexpected.
Probably at least 5 iPhones.
That’s probably reported sales. The majority of phones in the country are likely Android phones smuggled over the northern border.
True, but the big number really is the USA followed maybe by Australia. Entire Middle East, Africa, South America, and Asia are Android. India is also massive (behind China), and India is 95% Android.
iOS has markets that it dominates more than the US. For example, Japan, Denmark and Canada. Japan is particularly unique. It’s just under 70% on iOS, while the US is sub 60%
Yes, but a percentage has to be seen in the context of the total to gauge its impact. India for example is 95% of 1.428 billion people vs Japan is 70% of only 124 million. There are just under 200 countries.
Apple is not at all dominant outside the USA
This is all I was replying too. Just saying there are non US markets that Apple dominates.
You’re talking about one country, worldwide Android has about 70% market share.
one country
?
I’m confused. The point of that link was to show that there are other countries, other than the US, that have most of the nation using iOS.
But yes, Android dominates worldwide installs. I’m not debating that, and that link also very clearly shows that.
“Fall of 20xx” is when Apple usually releases new versions of iOS, so it wouldn’t be a stretch to assume that iOS18 will be the release.
So is this going to be standard RCS, which has no encryption and the telcos need to support, or the Googlified version that does E2E encryption but requires storing keys on Google’s servers?
RCS has interoperability issues itself and Google hasn’t been making the situation better.
Apple is apparently working on getting encryption added to the standard
In a background briefing with reporters, Apple spokespeople touted the company’s recent announcement that it will support the RCS messaging standard for iMessage sometime during 2024. In order to attend Apple’s briefing and view a background document, we had to agree to paraphrase the company’s remarks instead of quoting them directly.
Apple clarified that it is not implementing RCS as it exists today because it doesn’t believe the standard offers enough privacy and security. Apple said it is working with a standards body—this is likely a reference to the GSMA—to ensure that the version of RCS it eventually implements will support encryption and strong privacy and security.
Apple said that once it adopts RCS, iPhone and non-iPhone users will be able to exchange messages with higher-resolution photos and videos, and will experience improved group texting. Apple said it hasn’t brought its own message app to non-Apple devices because the user experience wouldn’t meet the company’s standards and that it cannot ensure that a third-party device’s encryption and authentication are secure enough.
I suspected this is what was going on because of the way some of the documents were worded, but I can’t find any direct reference to it. Do you have any? Re: storing encryption keys on google’s servers.
On my phone, so links may come later. It’s hard to find solid documentation on it, since their encryption extension is proprietary, but it’s been referenced as being based on the Signal Protocol. The Signal Protocol, or every implementation of it that I’ve seen, uses a central “trusted” repository of public keys to tell message originators query to encrypt the message to. For Signal, and I assume Google RCS, that central repository is Google. The protocol doesn’t allow for federation, so any system that is interoperable with Google RCS will rely on Google as the trusted authority.
The private key part I’m much less sure of, since both the Signal and Google RCS clients are closed source. Signal makes you jump through hoops to add a new client, involving one of your currently installed clients. This suggests that Signal isn’t in possession of your private keys. On the other hand, all you need to set up a new Google client is your account password. This suggests that either your keys are held by Google (perhaps encrypted by your account password) or that new keys can be added without needing explicit involvement from current keys.
Of course this is all speculation because the implementations aren’t available for inspection.
But will they fix my Pixel 8 just missing and failing to send RCS messages?
A problem I’ve noticed is I’ve had one person using RCS, then a month or two later I noticed they’d reverted to text. They seemed to know nothing about RCS and claims they never disabled it. So not sure if that was maybe a phone upgrade. Others I’ve not had issues with.
Love the bottom line in the posting title. Thank you.
ITT: Americans talking about bubble colours and the rest of the world going “just use Telegram, Signal or Whatsapp like the rest of us”?
Not as simple as that as many did ditch WahtsApp for Meta’s documented privacy violations, and their ongoing T&C which passes the WhatsApp metadata upstream to Meta and others. A lot of people also only use one messenger, and right now nothing connects them together yet. So I have masses of family and friends that only use WhatsApp, and I now only have SMS contact with them. About 8% to 10% do have multiple messengers so I see some on Signal and Telegram.
The last thing the world needs, is for WhatsApp to become the default dominant standard. That is a company that can be least trusted out of everyone worldwide, based on their history. With the app installed, the metadata includes constant location, usage, contacts, messages to who, etc.
RCS is a minor improvement, but it’s still shit. Matrix needs to be the standard.
They’re not really equivalent.
RCS replaces SMS, and thus for users will effectively function like a peer to peer message delivery system based on phone numbers.
Matrix is an account-based client-server system with federation capabilities, meaning it has more in common with email.
The benefit of SMS/RCS is that the ability to use them simply comes with your phone number/SIM.
While account-based chat system like Matrix have obvious benefits provided by the fact that they work through an account on a server, an open standard like SMS used to be, but with modern capabilities, is needed.
iMessage, being a closed-off obfuscated mess sitting between those two approaches, needs to go.
Matrix still needs to be the standard.
For what?
We use different things for different things.
Matrix cannot do peer-to-peer message delivery, so it literally can’t be the standard.
And I for one don’t want matrix to become the new email, either. Can you imagine email spam, but in your DMs?
I’ll happily let it replace iMessage, Discord, Slack, WhatsApp and Telegram, tho.
They’re working on peer to peer and if you need that use it. Matrix works fine for 95% of people
Yes, clients do need settings to mute invites. And do you not get SMS spam all the time?
Yes Discord can suck my massive cock. I agree.
Ok, but it’s still never going to become the go-to mobile client-carrier inter-carrier protocol, which is what SMS and RCS are.
I’ve abandoned SMS already, and won’t be benefitting from apple adopting RCS, as I live in a country that has moved on from carrier-provided messaging.
But a lot of the world hasn’t, and hence RCS is necessary.
I look forward to the day when everyone has a matrix address, the same as email, but I’m in no hurry to get there so long as the tools to manage what incoming communication actually gets through to you, do not exist.
And it shouldn’t be. It’s Internet based an explicitly is designed that way.
True and Matrix is very versatile if you look at what Beeper achieved. Yet it has been around a long time and has never gone big time. The thing though with replacing text SMS, is it has to also comply with what the mobile phone companies use at that level, and I don’t Matrix has ever pitched that to them? This is not about the high level messaging we do at app level.
The mobile companies will not use it. Ideally there’d only be data and emergency line access.
The whole point of RCS was to replace text SMS. The last year or two has seen one mobile provider after the next adopting it. That was the point of RCS, to get beyond a zero encryption text message and text messages that are very expensive in 3rd world countries. So a lot of it was focussed on mobile operators. It has to be enabled actually by mobile operators to work.
I could be wrong, but I don’t think it’s a replacement the way you want it to be. RCS requires Wi-Fi or data. SMS can go over voice channels. Google messages will fail back to SMS if data and Wi-Fi are not available.
Certainly not now as a replacement but I understand that is the longer term intention. There is a lot of older infrastructure carriers need to unload and move on (lime dismantling 2G and 3G etc), and they often pay negotiated Inter-carrier fees. If it is to replace SMS I understand carriers can zero rate whatever data they want to, so it will be cheaper for them to not charge any data charges on RCS than to actually keep providing text SMS. RCS also uses exiting modern network technologies so there is nothing extra, or outdated, that has to be maintained.
RCS, as adopted by GSMA , is zero encryption text messaging. RCS with encryption is a proprietary Google product and relies on Google servers.
It is not zero encryption, like SMS, though? All GSMA-compliant RCS implementations must use TLS to encrypt data transfer between your device and the carrier’s server. While recommended by GSMA, E2EE is an optional feature that carriers can choose to implement or not. So carriers can implement it. I’m pretty sure that as adoption goes mainstream, a “monopoly” on the server side is going to get broken up.
Google didnt reveal anything officially. This was probably a mistake because the info is gone from website: https://www.android.com/google-messages/
Hence word “official” not being mentioned. As I recall it was spotted in the code.
Lmao finally the shit phones are improving, few years late to the party as usual 😂 We all use apps to chat now!
The thing also is we can’t replace text SMS unless that mode can be phased out, so it needs everyone to adopt whatever the next step is.
A better surveillance tool for Google and Apple, no thanks. Signal for the win!
Remember, RCS is replacing text SMS and Text SMS has not only absolutely zero encryption of any sort, it also has copies retained by every mobile service provider in terms of their license T&C’s. You need to see RCS as an upgrade of text SMS, and not really a replacement for WhatsApp (yet).
Yeah, but Google’s “Messages” app—which is the only one with RCS support—sends truncated hashes of all of your messages to their servers.
https://www.androidpolice.com/google-messages-phone-app-text-messages-call-logs-google/
Not the only one, Samsung also their Messages app with RCS built in, and Apple is adding soon. The one-to-one messages are E2EE, and I understand groups are/were to be E2EE. We should be seeing more apps building it in as I’ve been asking Truecaller to do, as I have to pay for every SMS in Truecaller.
E2EE doesn’t make a lick of difference to my point if Google is sending themselves your messages before they encrypt them.
It’s the only one on non-Samsung Android phones, which is a ton of phones including mine.
One to one messages are fully E2EE so are not decrypted on the server side. It was only groups that was still getting E2EE rolled out. I agree tho as an open standard for adoption, it should not only have a server at Google. I don’t think the mobile carriers like that either.
Yes, but I was talking about capturing the message contents before encrypting it on your phone. They control the software, so they can do whatever they want. You’re still typing clear trext into an app, and they can send themselves a copy before encrypting it for the recipient.
Yes I was too, that is the client end-point that everyone is after now, and where Meta was trying to spy on Snapchat, and where State Actors get into encrypted data before it gets encrypted. It’s the known weak point, as you read everything unencrypted. But it also comes down to who would want to read your data and why. Are they legally empowered/prevented from doing so, do they sell data to data brokers, etc.
So not just non-reversable hashes, but truncated non-reversable hashes? So they are even more non-reversable? I think I’m ok with that.
Why would you be OK with that? You do know hashes can be brute forced to determine the original message, right? Truncating a hash doesn’t really change anything. It just increased a chance of a hash collision.
In additon, they trivial to figure out very common messages. They can use that to figure out your relationship between people. If you, for instance, reply to a question with just “weed”. Or if you asked “DTF?” Or any other short message. They know what you said. For somewhat longer messages, they could brute force the contents. Very few intelligible English sentences would hash to the same value, even when truncated.
It’s spyware and we should not be OK with that.
Why would you be OK with that?
You are thinking about this hash part way too much. Why would they bother brute forcing the hash when the message goes through their system anyway? If they wanted to know what you said, they could just read and store the message directly.
Yes, but they can’t do that in bulk and have people be OK with it. When it’s hashed, they can say, “we can’t read these” and have it be half true.
RCS will be E2EE when the encryption standard rolls out. And this is going to replace vanilla SMS, which is insecure AF. So, IMHO, I don’t see how this hurts.
So you are saying some closed source, not guaranteed e2ee is more valuable than signal? I’m laughing at you. Having no encryption its the same as having closed source fake e2ee
I’m laughing at you
This isn’t Twitter or Reddit. Can we treat each other better?
