[Spivak]

It really does suck to be in group chats with Android users, pictures get downsized, "Person loved 'message'", voice memos don't work, you can't see people's dnd status, no deliver quietly, no typing indicators or read receipts. You can't airdrop to them, or share iCloud notes, or contribute to shared photo albums. Facetime is far and away the best video calling experience that exists.

Android phones just aren't good enough to be worth the switch, especially when they're the same price. I've never paid more than $300 for an iPhone.

There's no actual draw to Android, your choices on the market today are iPhones and worse off brand iPhones desperately trying to be iPhones. It used to be a meme that at every WWCD Apple would announce features that Android had for years and we'd all have a laugh but now it's flipped the other way which is honestly embarrassing for Google who burnt through so much of their advantage.

[Teknoman117]

The problem with chat experience is that it's really, truly not Android's fault, it's Apple's. It sucks because Apple wants it to suck to push iOS and macOS sales. Pretty useless blaming Android for that.

I have managed to push most of the people I know to not use SMS or iMessage and use Signal - we can all have a high quality chat and media sharing experience with a comparable (or superior) security model on whatever device you have. iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, Linux, etc.

[GeekyBear]

> The problem with chat experience is that it's really, truly not Android's fault, it's Apple's.

Apple forced Google to screw up it's messaging strategy for all these years?

>Google has been unable to field a stable, competitive messaging platform for years and has thoroughly lost the messaging war to products with a long-term strategy. At least some divisions inside the company are waking up to how damaging this is to Google as a company, and now Google's latest strategy is to... beg its competition for mercy?

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/08/new-google-site-begs...

[theptip]

The article you link mentions Google asking Apple to use RCS, which is the industry standard for messaging interop these days, not SMS. Apple has so far declined, so nobody can function in their Messages app.

[GeekyBear]

>RCS, which is the industry standard

The article I linked to points out that RCS, as used by Google today, is a proprietary closed source fork of RCS that Google has refused to create a public API for.

>Google's version of RCS—the one promoted on the website with Google-exclusive features like optional encryption—is definitely proprietary, by the way.

If this is supposed to be a standard, there's no way for a third-party to use Google's RCS APIs right now. Some messaging apps, like Beeper, have asked Google about integrating RCS and were told there's no public RCS API and no plans to build one.

If you want to implement RCS, you'll need to run the messages through some kind of service, and who provides that server? It will probably be Google.

So the pitch for Apple to adopt RCS isn't just this public-good nonsense about making texts with Android users better; it's also about running Apple's messages through Google servers. Google profits in both server fees and data acquisition.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/08/new-google-site-begs...

[willio58]

Yeah it seems the only solution is for Apple and Google to truly come together and work on an open standard. At that point, if Apple refuses, it’s on Apple.

I agree though, right now it really isn’t a defensible argument from Google.

[ls15]

The EU is going to mandate interoperability soon, because it turned out that these companies cannot be trusted with allowing users to do what they want to do.

[GeekyBear]

Everyone needs search, and it's unfair that Google has spent over a decade creating a better search engine than its competitors, so Google should be forced to open source their search algorithms.

Is this the argument you guys are seriously making?

The solution for a competitor having a better product than you is to pick a single strategy and keep iterating on whatever it is you build, instead of abandoning one product after another.

[zaik]

Search is not something that requires interoperability. I can use DDG without any of my friends using it.

[theptip]

> RCS, as used by Google today, is a proprietary closed source fork

That’s news to me, interesting.

So is this fork fully incompatible with the spec, or it just adds some features beyond that spec? I.e. if Apple implements the open spec can they communicate with Google systems using the base spec features?

If Google built and run their own non-interoperable fork as a competing messaging system then I strongly agree that they don’t have a leg to stand on.

I’m a bit less convinced with the whole “Google wants your data” angle. The whole reason they used RCS in the first place is because carriers want to run their own messaging infra, and I believe the carriers still do even if they are using Google’s spec (eg see https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/30/22556686/att-android-phon..., though I am not certain on this point). In the past Google tried to get carriers to buy in to their own proprietary service and failed.

It looks to me more that AT&T, Verizon (a bit) and T-Mobile are all running Google’s version of the RCS spec on their own networks and servers, so even if it isn’t open (it should be), it is still a de facto industry standard. So I think they still have a case here that Apple should fall back to this spec instead of SMS.

[slavik81]

If Apple won't implement RCS, can Google implement iMessage?

[senttoschool]

Apple isn't begging Google to implement iMessage. Nor is Apple creating a public smearing campaign against Google for not implementing iMessage.

[THENATHE]

And yet it refuses to actually open source RCS. Imagine if they could add RCS fallback to signal!

[Manuel_D]

https://www.droid-life.com/2021/04/08/apple-android-imessage...

> the #1 most difficult [reason] to leave the Apple universe app is iMessage. . . iMessage amounts to serious lock-in,” Schiller commented that “moving iMessage to Android will hurt us more than help us, this email illustrates why.”

They know it's lock-in, and won't be fixing it any time soon.

Granted, moving to Whatsapp would resolve this but then you're using a Meta product.

[zaik]

No wonder Apple dropped XMPP support when walled gardens are much more effetive for market capture.

[Tagbert]

Do Google’s chat apps support XMPP? Would it help iMessage connect to Android’s chat(s)?

[GeekyBear]

Google did support XMPP, but they dropped it.

[anotherrandom]

I thought the pictures being downsized was due to compression to more easily go through SMS whereas iMessage is an internet-based chat, not just because "Android bad"

[k4rli]

His entire "argument" was that iOS is better because it uses a proprietary internet chat while Android cannot use the same service.

[k4rli]

Android not being compatible with completely different phone's using mainly closed-source proprietary software.. It's not at all reasonable to expect other phone brands to support Facetime, iCloud, or whatever other service they have.

This entire comment is headboggling, amazing how one can be so closeminded that they only see value in Apple.

[Dracophoenix]

> Android phones just aren't good enough to be worth the switch, especially when they're the same price. I've never paid more than $300 for an iPhone.

Where, if I may ask, do you get such a good deal?

[stjohnswarts]

They either buy used or a couple generation old. I've never paid more than $350 for an iphone myself. If you don't "have to have" cutting edge, then older phones are fine.

[Spivak]

Yep! I’m always sitting 2-3 gens back. My current is an iPhone X which is more than capable and I’ve felt no need whatsoever to upgrade.

[Dracophoenix]

How old is old in this case? 1 or 2 generations of the lowest (SE) or second lowest (mini/regular) tiers?

[alden5]

i just got a 12 mini for $350

[Fezzik]

In the last decade I have never paid more than $0.00 for an iPhone. Just wait for mobile carriers to offer free phones. I switched from T-Mobile to Verizon 2 weeks ago and got a 128gig iPhone 13 mini for free. I actually wanted the SE because I like the home button but it was $400 some bucks. Carriers are constantly having promos like that when they have excess stock, the promos are just not always advertised.

[Dracophoenix]

Did you have to sign a 12-24 month contract with early termination clause?

[hnburnsy]

Try paying cash for your phone and get a data plan from mint mobile or Google fi for $15-17 per month. you will save money.