> But alas, iMessage pressure is real in my friend's group.
Man, in my extended family SMS text group, this comes up once every couple weeks. One of us will note they aren't getting a random message, or someone will send a video and the quality will be crap, and the iPhone users will all mention how if we all had iPhones, this wouldn't be a problem.
Cue a few of is getting kind of triggered because it's only Apple's co-opting of SMS on their phones that those people think that's really an Android problem and not some slick marketing on Apple's end to get their users to tell other people how their SMS texting is so much better. Not that we couldn't all just switch to some third party app (or hangouts even), and then we'd all have a comparable experience, but that's entirely lost on most of them, and not worth griping about after the first or second time or you come across as that weird relative that can't just do the easy thing[1]).
I can't wait for RCS messaging. I'm honestly wondering it Apple will support it, or try to segment the text messaging market even more.
1: As if buying a $750 phone is the "easy thing".
Edit: Changed $1000 to $750, since that's the lowest cost I could find for a 1 year old phone, and I don't think buying multiple year old hardware is something you can expect out of someone else, even if it might be my preferred strategy).
> Man, in my extended family SMS text group, this comes up once every couple weeks. One of us will note they aren't getting a random message, or someone will send a video and the quality will be crap, and the iPhone users will all mention how if we all had iPhones, this wouldn't be a problem.
IMO a reasonable compromise is WhatsApp. Rich features like iMessage's but portable and lots of people already use it.
I have never had a Facebook account and I've always been wary of them. I think it's fair to be concerned about privacy w/WhatsApp but I'm torn because it's a very practical solution.
You can pry Telegram from my cold, dead hands. Open source clients with cloud sync of messages plus the option of moving to encrypted end-to-end as needed is the perfect compromise.
My one wish is for the server codebase to be open sourced but given that Telegram is in the midst of a backend architectural change to the Telegram Open Network, I forgive them this, for now.
Every alternative is riddled with issues: WhatsApp is controlled by Facebook who let's face it may as well be the face of evil for Silicon Valley today; Signal is controlled by a power-tripping maniac who refuses to work with the open source commons on releasing to package repos like F-Droid, the app itself also has major deliverability issues; Wire would be good if they just sorted their notifications on mobile out but I've been waiting for that day for a few years now; Matrix is slow to deliver messages among networks larger than a handful.
That said, I use it a lot less now that I know that it is neither self-hostable, nor really open to third-party clients.
I would like to get rid of Android at some point, and I am tired of relying on third parties not to discontinue their products.
Nowadays, I use Matrix. There are a few downsides (the python server implementation makes the biggest public server quite slow, E2E isn't turned on by default yer -- though it should be at some point, and the clients' UX is generally rough around the edges).
And yeah, whatsapp is king of the network effect, though messenger would take the crown in my circles. That said, by deliberately staying out of these services, and providing my reasons, people ask me for alternatives they could use.
One thing that I like about Matrix is its compatibility with multiple bridges, which lets me connect with people on networks such as IRC, Discord, Telegram, etc. (depending on bridge availability). There is no public whatsapp bridge due to their TOS, and I haven't decided to give them my social graph just yet (though they probably have it already, thanks to having access to my friends'address books). I'd really like to see an officially-endorsed Matrix bridge.
If people really want to contact me, they can still phone me, write me an SMS, e-mail or a letter. Many still bother, but I get it's a tough call for simple acquaintances.
I still feel it's worth it holding to your principles. That's what they are for, and small numbers make the big numbers in the long run.
Update 8/31/2019: After publication of this article Telegram’s creators implemented several changes that are recognized by qualified cryptographers as a vast improvement to its encryption scheme. Since 2017, for example, the MTProto protocol has been recognized as IND-CCA secure.
Its still not actually on by default and you can't use encrypted chat synced between your desktop and phone. Group chats also don't have encryption and (last I checked) count be run e2e encrypted.
Probably 99%+ of conversation on Telegram are visible to the Telegram company.
They are replying to a comment about Telegram, and mention other messaging apps which are better. They also do not say that they're all just as bad, unclear where you got that from?
Yeah, Signal or Telegram might be a much better balance. But I don't want to be a salesman and try and push the technically superior choice on my friends and family. If I did, though, I would probably push one of those.
I don't like suggesting Telegram because it is not end-to-end encrypted.
I prefer WhatsApp (where it's Facebook that has access to all the metadata like who speaks to whom, but not the message contents), or Signal (which is also end-to-end encrypted and doesn't have the "Facebook" problem).
Note that even though I advocate for WhatsApp I recognize that it's not really what I would call "end to end encrypted". Any time that you allow a broker to execute the initial key exchange, you're implicitly trusting the broker. And beyond that: if you let the broker re-exchange keys without even informing you (!!!) then it's a stretch to call it "end to end encrypted." But if the system re-transmits old messages encrypted with the new keys without user interaction then "end to end encrypted" has lost all meaning whatsoever.
You can opt-in to at least be informed of new key exchanges, so at least I can tell myself that I took some precautions. But if I'm honest I know that it's not very effective.
It's a subtle point, but I would describe "end to end" as covering the humans on both ends. Your WhatsApp client on your phone participates in the key regeneration and/or key update without user interaction. WhatsApp's default UI configuration doesn't notify anyone about key changes. Defaults matter, defaults for secure software matters extra. Nearly no one enables this notification feature.
And even if they did, the client helpfully sent old messages encrypted with the new key. Even when you are notified, you're notified after the fact.
It does only exist on your device. Sadly, the WhatsApp client will receive a message from WhatsApp backend: "Fred Smith got a new phone and you should trust this new public key from Fred because I say so. Fred would love to have all the context so please re-send the old messages but encrypted with this new key." The WhatsApp client helpfully complies and hopes that Fred really did get a new phone and it's not Eve who somehow tricked WhatsApp into believing she was Fred. Or maybe WhatsApp was compelled by a lawful order to make it look as if Fred got a new phone.
The WhatsApp client never requests or even informs the user that this event took place. Though it is possible to change the config opt-in to get informed whether this occurred, it is not possible to deny the request for old messages.
Apple handed over its iCloud encryption keys and iMessage keyserver for Chinese users to the PRC, enabling mass surveillance of communications where at least one party is Chinese. Facebook and Google have not. I trust Facebook very little, but I trust Apple even less.
Yeah, having thought about it when this comes up, there's a very real trade-off between what people are willing to use because they've heard of it or might actually have it, whether that app/service will stay around or keep similar features in the future, and whether it's associated with a large org that may farm the data for personal information about you in some way (even if that's just your location).
Something like Signal seems good, but I imagine it may be a pain to get some of my extended family to adopt it (or to make sure things send using it).
WhatsApp would be good in that people have heard of it, and if they have Facebook it's probably easy for them to integrate with, but people are much more likely to have relative's phone numbers than service profile links, meaning they might opt to not use it in many cases.
Really, it needs to be ubiquitous on phones for it really to be a viable replacement that will be used 9 out of 10 times. That leaves RCS as an upgrade to SMS, but who knows if we'll ever get that. I know people complain about how it doesn't actually raise limits enough, but going from SMS to a limit fo 105 MB for videos and more features (even if not on parity with current systems) is a huge step, and I think the only one likely to achieve even close to the same deployment as SMS, and then only if Apple supports it too (assuming US networks actually get on board).
Err, WhatsApp does use phone numbers as identifiers rather than service profiles, which is why it is ubiquitous in most of the world (much more than iMessage).
If you install WhatsApp and I don't, and you send a message to my number what happens? I know what happens with SMS and RCS (which falls back to SMS), which is that it works, because every phone has it. If WhatsApp doesn't just work, then it's at a severe disadvantage any way you look at it.
Coordinating the 10 people in my family group to not only install a new app, but choose it the next time they want to send a message (especially if they add a new person) is not to going to be easy (and in some cases might be impossible if some people refuse).
> You can't, WhatsApp will only let you send to numbers that also have WhatsApp installed.
That's my point. It's a very substandard experience for initial contact to SMS, which is ubiquitous.
> Ultimately WhatsApp has won in most of the world, so this clearly isn't that big of a problem.
Compared to SMS, WhatsApp is almost nothing. And given that maybe 2-3 people in my family group might have it installed, "won most of the world" is irrelevant for me, and probably most groups of any size or with people over 30, as there's likely to be a few people without it.
Isn’t this because sms doesn’t send high quality photos/videos? With imessage you get full quality images, it’s very nice. It’s also encrypted.
>Not that we couldn't all just switch to some third party app (or hangouts even), and then we'd all have a comparable experience
Which one?
Whatsapp and messenger compress images, fairly significantly. Messenger is unencrypted by default. Whatsapp is encrypted, but you have to give facebooks your contacts, and metadata on the convos, which gives away a lot of info.
I use both, and whatsapp does have some better features (voice notes are better, as is search), but I prefer imessage for the image quality and encryption. I also trust apple better with the metadata.
iOS user here who successfully convinced one of my group chats to migrate to Signal. Shaming people into buying an iPhone will never work, but downloading a free app just takes a few days of bugging. Once you get a few people to do it, the rest will fall in line.
Next step is to get my family to do it. My Dad constantly sends video's that get compressed to hell due to the SMS file size limit.
The take up amongst operators is really low. And it's unlikely that will change anytime soon as their focus is on the 5G rollout and not on re-platforming their messaging system.
Also the system is unencrypted so you would have to be crazy to use it in this environment.
Probably because the spec started all the way back in 2008, and you could revise it yet again, even though almost nobody is currently supporting it, or you can get it out and improve the situation for many people, even though it's not perfect. I imagine pushing for an extension to support encryption might be a lot easier if there's actual uses to call for it.
Given that Google has started rolling it out with a fallback to Google servers if the network provider doesn't supply one, and Google has said they understand encryption is important and they will push for it, we might actually see some progress soon (on both the adoption and encryption fronts) if we're very lucky.
You can see references to that info in some of my other comments on this article, since I looked it up again today after mentioning it earlier.
> I imagine pushing for an extension to support encryption might be a lot easier if there's actual uses to call for it.
That's letting Google off the hook. Nobody knows better about the level of surveillance users are under. Encryption should be feature #1. For them to roll out an unencrypted service borders on malpractice. Luckily for them, software engineers aren't licensed.
> Google has started rolling it out with a fallback to Google servers
Even though Google may not be the most trustworthy company, I trust them far, far more than my ISP and cell company. If I could choose which back end I want to be on, I would choose Google's, especially if that meant messages would be end-to-end encrypted within that sphere.
Well, you're free to travel back in time to 2008 and propose it to the working group that was making the spec...
> If I could choose which back end I want to be on, I would choose Google's, especially if that meant messages would be end-to-end encrypted within that sphere.
I agree, but it appears the way the protocol is federated means that there isn't specifically one back end. Also, since it does some discovery with a "hidden" sms to the other end to ask if it supports RCS, I imagine end-to-end encryption might not be that hard to tack on...
Live in the UK. Never received an RCS. Nor has anyone I know.
For all Google's bluster here it's not supported by the carriers, and only works on Google's own SMS app - not the AOSP or OEM ones - which only the tiniest proportion of the market uses as it's not the default on 90%+ of Android phones shipping today.
RCS is a federated protocol. Any app could use it if the network providers supplied a service for it. Google is providing a Google server fallback for if they don't.
There may not be a UK RCS market, but given it was just turned on a couple months ago and for a few countries, perhaps it's too soon to call it decided?
My point was specifically in response to Google's claim that RCS is a "gold" market for RCS where they have already completed the rollout. They haven't. They have the support of one carrier with roughly 20% market share, and about 3 - 5% of Android devices.
There isn't really any reason to surmise that is going to improve, and Google's boasting here is very silly. RCS is a dead end product in every non-US territory, and Google have no market levers to pull that can improve it's performance. They should give up on it and focus their efforts on the US bluntly.
> They have the support of one carrier with roughly 20% market share, and about 3 - 5% of Android devices.
According to Google (in the articles I read and shared here), whether the network provider supports it is irrelevant because they are supplying their own server in those cases, so it should just work. If you're in that region I'm interested to hear what you experience is if you have access to an Android phone and test.
Either the provider has to support it or the SMS app on the device has to (TBH the provider support also requires some level of integration with the SMS app but that level is more common).
Google has rolled out a provider independent implementation to it's own SMS app, but that SMS app has no marketshare.
My experience is that, without going and hunting out an app to install, my Samsung handset has no support. I have a number of test devices, some of which do have support and a few even have support by default, but those have no marketshare.
There are about 800+ mobile phone operators around the world and based on reports about 50 or so have signed up. Not a great percentage after 10+ years.
And I think the lack of encryption is going to kill adoption in many parts of the world.
"But now Google is taking over: later this month, Android users in the UK and France will be able to opt in to RCS Chat services provided directly by Google instead of waiting for their carrier to support it."[1]
Sounds like we might get some movement on this soon, as Google is offering their own servers as a fall-back in the case that the network provider hasn't provided their own.
> I can't wait for RCS messaging. I'm honestly wondering it Apple will support it, or try to segment the text messaging market even more.
I mean, RCS is practically dead (at least in the USA). But even if it does come it'll basically replace SMS with something slightly better. I don't see how it addresses the iMessage stuff. iMessage will likely still send much higher quality images and videos and RCS, AFAIK, can't do some the same features like showing who's typing.
RCS is cool but I don't think it's going to be a game changer in any way. I think it'll just be an incremental update, if it even comes to the USA.
>Man, in my extended family SMS text group, this comes up once every couple weeks. One of us will note they aren't getting a random message, or someone will send a video and the quality will be crap, and the iPhone users will all mention how if we all had iPhones, this wouldn't be a problem.
I don't understand why iMessages is so popular in US, and it is pretty much US and France ( SMS ) only AFAIK. It is like when the world was on ICQ, they had AIM. When the world moved to MSN, they still stuck to AIM.
And just like AIM, iMessages sucks. I tried it many times and the same problem persist. Some users in the group not getting message, message appeared not in timely order, sometimes random message from the past appear. Needs to Recreate group to solve user not getting message problem, which means all previous group messages are in different group. It is slow as compared to WhatsApp. Icons and Packs are far worst, it is as if Apple has never used WeChat, KakaoTalk, Line, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, or Telegram.
Then there is huge amount of SMS Notification and Receipt that gets muddles up in the list of conversation. It is a Giant pile of Mess.
Every year I read something about iMessages being popular ( in US ) and every year I tried with my group of friends. And the answer remain the same. And it is so god damn bad most of my friends now refuse to try it again.
They really ought to have some sort of format for setting up APN properly based on URIs, which could then be put in QR codes on fresh SIM card packages.
I've had a bunch of cellular ISPs over the years, and I've noticed that cellular infrastructure providers have this capability, but MVNOs seemingly do not.
That right, you're correct. If I want to buy a new phone that's three years old, I can pay $450 for an iPhone 7. Or $600 for a 2 year old phone, or $750, for a phone released a year ago, which is more what I would consider when buying a new phone (why would I buy a new phone that's multiple years old hardware?). So, I think $750 is a fair amount to reference, and I agree that $1000 is a bit high.
That's why I paid 475 for the OnePlus 7 (not the pro I can't stand the pop out camera). I was going in for the latest tech, I don't want 3 year old tech for that price.
Because if I bought a new phone last year, why would I want to spend money to buy a new phone now that's worse than what I already had?
Telling someone to buy an iPhone because of this is pretentious. Telling them to buy an iPhone that may be worse performance wise than their current phone is way worse.
It seems like in your original post, you were saying that iPhone was not a good value. Yet the A series chips consistently outperform Snapdragon by years, and software support for iPhone probably means a years old model has more official life than a latest Android.
I don’t think the reply was suggesting you get a new phone specifically. They were responding to your claim that iPhone is on face not a good value.
No, I wasn't saying it's not a good value. I was saying it's a ridiculous thing to ask of someone that may have a completely serviceable phone that might even be brand new. It's like telling someone to buy a Mercedes or Volvo. It may be a very good product, but that doesn't mean there's not a lot of assumptions in any recommendation to buy one, especially if it doesn't consider the quality, cost or age of your current car other than "not a Mercedes or Volvo".
Except in this case you can buy iPhone for $450 which is less than the OnePlus6 in my locale. SOCs compare favorably between the two devices. I guess I’m not seeing why iPhone is akin to a luxury car brand.
No iOS user thinks its "Android's" problem, but they do know that being on Android is the problem.
iOS = 1 ecosystem.
Android = infinite ecosystems with no cohesion.
One has native capability and consistent user experience which is now better for social interaction. The other has people rationalizing how a non-native app can be used which also wouldn't solve the aforementioned problem of receiving a random type of message, because nobody wants that experience, they want the rich experience that is native to iOS.
The android native experiences described even in OP's blog post won't be available for AGES on most people's devices, and even in that age they won't be reliable features because of custom OS' and devices won't be allowed to support it, based on the preference of those distributors.
iOS users aren't confused about that shitshow, iOS users know that it doesn't matter why, there is simply no consensus to fixing it on android, no path to consensus on fixing on android, and a group of hopeful technology enthusiasts that missed the memo on how android cohesion will never get better.
What is the benefit of this cohesion that you're missing? Why should different Android devices be any more cohesive in terms of features than Android devices vs. iOS devices? If you want the latest features, you buy an Android One, Pixel, or Nokia phone. If you don't, you buy an iOS phone or some other Android phone.
Man, in my extended family SMS text group, this comes up once every couple weeks. One of us will note they aren't getting a random message, or someone will send a video and the quality will be crap, and the iPhone users will all mention how if we all had iPhones, this wouldn't be a problem.
Cue a few of is getting kind of triggered because it's only Apple's co-opting of SMS on their phones that those people think that's really an Android problem and not some slick marketing on Apple's end to get their users to tell other people how their SMS texting is so much better. Not that we couldn't all just switch to some third party app (or hangouts even), and then we'd all have a comparable experience, but that's entirely lost on most of them, and not worth griping about after the first or second time or you come across as that weird relative that can't just do the easy thing[1]).
I can't wait for RCS messaging. I'm honestly wondering it Apple will support it, or try to segment the text messaging market even more.
1: As if buying a $750 phone is the "easy thing".
Edit: Changed $1000 to $750, since that's the lowest cost I could find for a 1 year old phone, and I don't think buying multiple year old hardware is something you can expect out of someone else, even if it might be my preferred strategy).