[Groxx]

Regarding 2: that is literally how SMS reactions work. Apps that recognize it just interpret it as "put that emoji on that message". It is unfortunate that it doesn't do that tho.

RCS is different, which you can sometimes get working by installing Google Messages¹, which is essentially the only app that supports RCS any more. Google runs essentially all the servers too.

---

1: There are no third-party RCS apps² because, unlike SMS which has an API and a shared database on the device, RCS is extremely locked down and it's literally impossible to create one in stock Android. This is also why it's only "sometimes" on GOS, the details are very complicated and rather enraging.

2: Samsung had one, but they're shutting it down in favor of Google Messages. A tiny number of other devices / telecoms have their own too, but they're rapidly shutting down as well. RCS is very nearly fully controlled and implemented by Google now, except for iMessage as a client only, for now, and there's no encryption between iMessage<->Google Messages last I checked (but there apparently is between Google Messages... but no normal person can really verify that because it's Just Google Everywhere).

[strcat]

GrapheneOS will eventually have a GrapheneOS RCS app, but for now RCS is fully supported via Google Messages and sandboxed Google Play:

https://grapheneos.org/usage#rcs

[Groxx]

There have been consistent problems with activating RCS, for many years. But it does work for some/many, yes.

And AFAIK they have only been desiring to build their own RCS app, and researching it, but have no concrete plans. It'll probably be extremely hard to do, given how much interaction it requires with individual telecoms, and how large the specs are and how much they change - it'll be signing up for significant dedicated eng/business/etc effort that will never decrease. Though I would very much like it if it does happen.

Personally: it worked for about a year for me, then stopped for several months, then worked for two, then I disabled it. All on the same phone, same OS install, same carrier and phone plan, and same location. No issues at all on stock Android with everything else identical which my wife uses. You can find tons of cases like this with Graphene users, RCS just doesn't work/activate/??? as well for some reason.

[ysnp]

For what it's worth, strcat is the GrapheneOS founder so they will have a keen insight into current plans.

[Groxx]

It's always good to be wrong about good news, then :)

I'll definitely be curious about the source code when that happens, and if it'd be reasonable to get it into a SMS-provider-like shape eventually. Particularly since Android's original PoC did that, but it was abandoned for some reason.

[rookderby]

I agree with this post and add one anecdotal data point.

I had installed graphene os on a pixel but after a couple months and a couple loops between lineage, stock, and graphene, I eventually settled on stock android. I have group messages with family and some of the family are on apple, some on android, and RCS only works with google messages and google services installed.

It's infuriating that I can't send RCS messages unless google allows me to. I want to go back to email or MMS. Supposedly after a month (!!) RCS group chats will fall back to MMS, but that was not my experience. Also, if you turn RCS on/off you may get kicked out of group messages [0].

[0] https://support.google.com/messages/answer/7189714?hl=en

[Groxx]

Yeah, it's pretty awful tbh. I generally recommend disabling RCS, after learning a lot more about it - it feels like a hostile grab at global messaging at this point, heavily entrenched by telecom agreements. Use Signal or something instead.

Initially there were some promising details planned, but much of it hasn't panned out, and plus now it's Just Google™. Like, roughly everyone has heard that RCS brings E2EE privacy, right? Would it surprise you to learn that it was only added to the spec around a year ago, and nobody has it implemented yet? Google has their own thing between Google users, Apple has their own iMessage-only thing, and they both drop crypto when you cross the streams because it isn't in the spec. And neither is practically auditable (allowing auditing is part of the spec btw - have you seen that UI?).

And that's before even touching on the utterly massive amount of the spec that's clearly designed for businesses only, to send you highly customizable interactive UI. Which you can't use as a person. Or build your own app for. https://developers.google.com/business-communications/rcs-bu... / https://rcsforbusiness.google/

It just does not smell good. It's not in our best interests to let it win.

[wolvoleo]

Yeah RCS always has been an embrace extend extinguish thing. The carriers were super pissed to lose their SMS revenue to WhatsApp and iMessage so they came up with this shit to be an active partner in the loop again, and they can bill for it again. Consumers didn't fall for that and it died off.

Unfortunately Google revived it but it's a very poor standard for interoperability. Not only because the lack of true E2EE in the open spec but also because you need to be a blessed party to run an RCS server and communicate with others. You can't run your own or choose a party you trust. It's either your carrier if they bother to run one, or Google.

It's just another power grab. Don't fall for its 'open' guise. They want you to use it so they can make you dependent and lock you in again. There's nothing open about it. If you want privacy, use signal. If you also want an open and federated network, use matrix or xmpp with OMEMO.

[cubefox]

> Yeah RCS always has been an embrace extend extinguish thing. The carriers were super pissed to lose their SMS revenue to WhatsApp and iMessage so they came up with this shit to be an active partner in the loop again, and they can bill for it again. Consumers didn't fall for that and it died off.

I strongly disagree with this negative characterization. RCS was a replacement protocol for the extremely outdated SMS and MMS protocols. Apple only supported SMS/MMS chat with Android users in iMessage, which meant that cross-platform chats were strongly limited in many ways (e.g. the mentioned emoji reacts), which caused many US American kids to be socially punished for having an Android phone, which is likely part of the reason why Apple is so dominant in the US now, especially among younger users. (Other countries mostly don't use iMessage/SMS, but something like WhatsApp, so they never had this problem.)

RCS was the solution to these iMessage/SMS/MMS incompatibilities. It took years for Google to convince Apple to adopt it, and Apple only announced doing so after EU regulations were on the horizon. There were even internal emails which revealed that Apple used their iMessage dominance and the poor Android compatibility via SMS/MMS to boost their market share in the US.

In summary, RCS is great because it is both a modern chat protocol, unlike SMS and MMS, and an open standard, unlike the closed iMessage and WhatsApp protocols, and available cross platform, unlike iMessage.

[wolvoleo]

RCS is not modern. E2EE is only an addon and it's not open. As others have mentioned it's not even available with interoperation. And it was really invented by carriers for exactly that purpose: To regain SMS/MMS revenue. But at this point here in Europe SMS usage between people had vanished anyway (except for spam and poor 2FA implementations)

And the social problems are not a technology problem, it's more a result of the harsh competitive American society. Without blue bubbles there'll be something else that kids will be bullied for. Only when the whole concept of "everyone except the #1 winner is a loser" is dropped this will disappear.

And Google didn't try to convince Apple to do this out of the goodness of their heart. Like I said most of the protocol (except the E2EE) is open but the implementation is not. It gives google even more control. You also won't be able to use it on a PC without a google account which is a big dealbreaker compared to Whatsapp and Signal. iMessage isn't a thing here in Europe anyway (neither is SMS/MMS).

[jupr]

iMessage isn't a thing in Europe?

[cubefox]

> RCS is not modern.

False. RCS is a replacement for SMS and MMS, and it is far more modern than those. RCS is the most modern game in town.

> As others have mentioned it's not even available with interoperation.

Others might have "mentioned" this, but it is false. RCS is interoperabile. It is supported both in Android and iOS by different applications. That covers the two mobile operating systems that constitute nearly the entire mobile market.

> And it was really invented by carriers for exactly that purpose: To regain SMS/MMS revenue.

I don't think that's true since they didn't charge for RCS. But even if it's true: that doesn't mean RCS is bad. RCS is like HTTP+HTML, but for messaging. Saying that RCS is bad is like demanding that all browsers should be proprietary without supporting anything resembling a web standard. Which would be crazy.

> But at this point here in Europe SMS usage between people had vanished anyway

That's irrelevant because RCS is still important in the US.

> And the social problems are not a technology problem,

They absolutely are (also) a technology problem. If people can't properly interact with each other in group chat because one side falls back to MMS and all pictures are ultra low resolution, then that's annoying for everyone. Of course people would say the problem is with Android rather than with iMessage refusing for many years to adopt RCS, which hugely boosted Apple's market share among young people in the US.

> Without blue bubbles there'll be something else that kids will be bullied for.

False. They weren't bullied for blue bubbles. They were "bullied" because green bubble people had bad compatibility problems. Why? Because of lack of RCS.

> And Google didn't try to convince Apple to do this out of the goodness of their heart.

That's an absurd statement. Google was obviously not happy that Apple was (as they even confirmed in internal emails) actively using incompatibility to increase their US market share. Apple was basically acting like Internet Explorer vs Netscape.

> Like I said most of the protocol (except the E2EE) is open but the implementation is not.

It's still an open protocol. Not everything must be open source. Proprietary apps like WhatsApp use neither an open protocol nor are they open source.

> It gives google even more control.

Even more? Proprietary protocols like iMessage or WhatsApp have far more control.

> You also won't be able to use it on a PC without a google account which is a big dealbreaker compared to Whatsapp and Signal.

That's an absurd comparison because you can't use WhatsApp or Signal without an WhatsApp or Signal account either. Not even on phones.

> iMessage isn't a thing here in Europe anyway

That's irrelevant. Open standards are good even if non-open things dominate in some area.

> (neither is SMS/MMS).

Also irrelevant. RCS is an open protocol that is vastly superior to SMS and MMS and not a closed and proprietary system like WhatsApp or iMessage. This makes it a great system, similar to HTTP and HTML.

[Groxx]

This is an extremely strange rewriting of history in which Google is some kind of altruist, moved by the plight of suffering school-children in a brief period where the rich bullying the poor (something truly shocking and unprecedented) over the color of their messages simply couldn't be tolerated any further.

[wolvoleo]

Yeah what would really get me onboard with RCS if it were actually open, if I could choose which RCS provider I wanted to use. Like a privacy-driven foundation similar to Signal. Someone I could actually trust.

But that would mean that the entire protocol would have to be made open including E2EE, and that other parties besides Google and the telcos would be allowed to run servers. Those things are very unlikely to happen.

[strcat]

RCS via Google Messages and sandboxed Google Play is fully supported on GrapheneOS:

https://grapheneos.org/usage#rcs

[NoGravitas]

Yes. It was kind of a bumpy road getting there, but I haven't had any problems for the last 6 months or so.