Anyone using RCS messaging yet?

[WelshBloke]

I just got the option to enable it on my S9+.



I'm not using it myself as I only use SMS as a fallback when theres no wifi so it's a bit useless to me.

 

[pete6032]

Yes, we are now on par with 10-year old iMessage!

 

[WelshBloke]

Yes, we are now on par with 10-year old iMessage!

Everyone I know uses WhatsApp so, messaging wise, I've been above par on iMessage.

 

[nikito]

yeah me 2 whatsapp...none of the other chat apps or the traditional sms ...however I like legcat from viber and unfortunately whatsapp doesn't have so cool icons

 

[darkswordsman17]

Wait, is that the new Google app thing or something else? Google's supposed to be rolling out a new app that enables RCS because the carriers have been dragging their butts at supporting it (and I believe are half-butting their support for it but acting like they're doing some revolutionary thing). To me it sounded like Google was finally just going "ok fine we'll make iMessage" but because of how they've handled things, it means it might not work properly (and knowing Google will have 3 more apps announced in a few months, then all 4 of them cancelled as they roll out some new stripped down messaging app or some such nonsense).

 

[WelshBloke]

Wait, is that the new Google app thing or something else? Google's supposed to be rolling out a new app that enables RCS because the carriers have been dragging their butts at supporting it (and I believe are half-butting their support for it but acting like they're doing some revolutionary thing). To me it sounded like Google was finally just going "ok fine we'll make iMessage" but because of how they've handled things, it means it might not work properly (and knowing Google will have 3 more apps announced in a few months, then all 4 of them cancelled as they roll out some new stripped down messaging app or some such nonsense).

RCS is a messaging protocol. Its basically (use wise) SMS with bells and whistles.
So you get better media support, you can see when people have read or are typing a reply.
Unfortunately its stored unencrypted on Google's (if you're using Google's app) servers so it's a not as good security wise as competing services plus it also needs a data connection so it loses SMSs only use case.

In short if you use WhatsApp or iMessage this would be a step down to use.

 

[Commodus]

RCS feels like the textbook example of why you shouldn't leave things up to carriers and the industry groups they participate in. The format has been around for years, but it's only now that it's available across the US... through one Google app. And of course it's unencrypted, because why would telecoms care about privacy?

The phone industry really needed a kick in the ass from services like iMessage and WhatsApp. Without that, I suspect we'd still be using SMS for all eternity.

 

[WelshBloke]

The format has been around for years, but it's only now that it's available across the US... through one Google app. And of course it's unencrypted, because why would telecoms care about privacy?

It works on my phone with the stock samsung app.

The phone industry really needed a kick in the ass from services like iMessage and WhatsApp. Without that, I suspect we'd still be using SMS for all eternity.

WhatsApp has already won in Europe. Carrier based messaging isnt making a comeback. Ever.

 

[Commodus]

It works on my phone with the stock samsung app.

Oh, I know that it's available through Samsung's app, but the support is fairly patchwork (and certainly not US-wide) at the moment. Google's is one of the first consistent efforts.

 

[WelshBloke]

Oh, I know that it's available through Samsung's app, but the support is fairly patchwork (and certainly not US-wide) at the moment. Google's is one of the first consistent efforts.

I'd imagine that if both Samsung and Google support it that's the vast majority of the android market.

Not that I want to encourage any use of this! Anything that falls back to SMS is hideously flawed. Let it die. End to end encryption should be a minimum with no insecure elements.