If you want RCS, you have to go with one of the corporate apps like Google Messages or Samsung Messages. It's sad and I hope the situation changes eventually because RCS is much better than SMS and more ubiquitous than signal.
That kinda sucks, a lost opportunity. I really don't want to use Google, and preferably not Samsung either.
So either: Network operator / Big tech 😑
I guess I trust the network operator more due to semi-strict laws in Norway on privacy.
There may be a few others that handle RCS besides those two, but their ties may be just as unsavory as the first two.
That's pretty awesome that there are at least some laws about telecom provider privacy where you are! Here in the states they can basically do whatever they want with whatever you give them 😓
Samsung has retired their messaging app. Google Messages is the only option on Android.
(cc @MoonlightFox@lemmy.world)
Thats a shame, I trust Samsung more than Google.
But I guess I'll just wait until EU force interoperability and E2EE, I vaguely remember something about this 🤔
Back when Samsung saw Android as a legitimate threat to their business model, and they made alternate apps to every Google offering, I think they did have a better ecosystem. I think that has waned in recent years, though.
And I say that as someone who loved Samsung phones at least until 2020, when they gave up on the SD card and started giving up on camera quality. I still think they make the best devices out of the box (between screen and camera output, and not overheating) but they've been lazy at the top
This was posted three days later:
Samsung's Google messages rival isn't dead after all in fact it's just been upgraded
Just want to rant that Apple could have opted into any open standard to comply with EU regulations, but instead they went with the one that only works on proprietary closed-source Google and Samsung apps.
With RCS, you’ve got multiple components to deal with. There’s the clients, but there’s also the servers. RCS is tied to your phone number and IMEI. This means that it’s the telcos who route the messages.
But unlike SMS, where the line level protocol had a back channel designed to transmit these short messages, RCS goes over LTE, which means it needs a network server to send and receive these short messages (more like email).
This means that someone needs to set up and manage the servers for each telco, and route the messages from there to the related numbers.
In the US, the vast majority of ISPs have hired a third party to handle this for them. That third party is Google.
So while the message contents are e2e encrypted, the trunking information and encrypted data can all flow through Google’s servers, even if both recipients are using iMessage, if they’re communicating by RCS instead of iMessage protocol and their telco uses Google for RCS trunking.
Basically the only option is to use Google messages on Android and the messages app on iOS.
RCS is hypothetically open, but in practice those are the only two respected implementations. Neither Google nor Apple has given sufficient API access to make RCS work outside of their respective apps on their respective platforms.
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