this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2024

55 points (82.4% liked)

Android

28207 readers

141 users here now

DROID DOES

Welcome to the droidymcdroidface-iest, Lemmyest (Lemmiest), test, bestest, phoniest, pluckiest, snarkiest, and spiciest Android community on Lemmy (Do not respond)! Here you can participate in amazing discussions and events relating to all things Android.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules

1. All posts must be relevant to Android devices/operating system.

2. Posts cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

3. No spam, self promotion, or upvote farming. Sources engaging in these behavior will be added to the Blacklist.

4. Non-whitelisted bots will be banned.

5. Engage respectfully: Harassment, flamebaiting, bad faith engagement, or agenda posting will result in your posts being removed. Excessive violations will result in temporary or permanent ban, depending on severity.

6. Memes are not allowed to be posts, but are allowed in the comments.

7. Posts from clickbait sources are heavily discouraged. Please de-clickbait titles if it needs to be submitted.

8. Submission statements of any length composed of your own thoughts inside the post text field are mandatory for any microblog posts, and are optional but recommended for article/image/video posts.

Community Resources:

We are Android girls*,

In our Lemmy.world.

The back is plastic,

It's fantastic.

*Well, not just girls: people of all gender identities are welcomed here.

Our Partner Communities:

[email protected]

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

iPhone 16 is here, but I’m hyped for just one reason: RCS on iOS 18 (chromeunboxed.com)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

27 comments fedilink hide all child comments

all 40 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] Michal 14 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Lol, the ios users will still be subjected to the eye-fucking shade of green when chatting with android users. Apple sure loves to mess with their users.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I find the green just fine! It’s my favorite color. I’m just happy I’ll be able to send high quality videos to my Android friends who refuse to download signal!

[–] Michal 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Are you using the default shade of green, or did you enable higher contrast setting in accessibility? I hear it helps with readability.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Default, I’ll check that out! I’ve never cared about the colors of the text bubbles myself, but a deeper green would be pretty cool.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

And don't forget the white text with close to zero contrast.

[–] Michal 2 points 3 months ago

Hostile design right there

[+] [email protected] -8 points 3 months ago (3 children)

RCS is the wrong one to use, since it is not an open enough standard for there to be a single FOSS RCS app on Android. Something like Matrix or the Signal protocol would be better.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Seriously? Matrix and signal already exists... So you can use them today instead of RCS to your heart's desire.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

I think they mean it more as it's not only gonna be Google but Apple who are going to be shoving RCS down their throats of people wether they want it or not by shipping it as default.

On the other hand, the era when corporations cared even the tiniest bit for open standards in instant messaging was gone long ago. Now all instant messaging is a complete mess, we users have to deal with a myriad of apps and protocols that in the end are doing the same thing for the sake of "privacy", and RCS will not fix that. Nor Signal, truth be told.

I yearn the glory days of multi-protocol IM apps like Pidgin and Trident on Android (though +IM seems to still be a thing) - when you could use whatever you wanted without "missing features" or risking to be banned.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (2 children)

RCS is the wrong one to use

For you. I have relatives with iPhones I don't talk to frequently but when we get together and somebody takes a group photo it's annoying. Being able to just text a decent resolution photo without people needing to download an app is a win.

I'll continue to use Signal with friends and family I talk to regularly.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

This right here. I have to have my mom send videos of the grandkids to my work iPhone because my personal Android received them heavily pixelated and compressed.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

If Apple implemented the Matrix or Signal protocol it would still work the same way for you, while not forcing other Android users to use on Google or Samsung's proprietary apps, those being the only options for RCS.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Huh? No it wouldn't. If Apple implemented the Signal protocol they would still have to publish an iMessage app to the Play Store for Android users.

Call Google's messaging app proprietary all you want but at least their implementation of RCS is E2E encrypted.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 3 months ago (2 children)

If it used the Signal protocol any app that used that protocol which is open, could interact with it, that is the point. Whereas RCS is a closed protocol, just one that happens to also be interoperable with Google Messages, but not any other third party apps that people might want to make.

To be honest, I'm a bit surprised that on Lemmy people are so against open standards and FOSS apps.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago

That's not how it works. Other apps (ironically including Google's RCS implementation) use the Signal Protocol. Simply using it doesn't magically make your app interoperable with every other app that uses it. And Apple would be the last company to go out of their way to make it work.

Nobody here is against open standards or FOSS apps. I am actually lucky/privileged enough to be able to write open source code for a living.

You seem to not understand the reality of the situation and that use case other than yours exist.

[+] [email protected] -31 points 3 months ago (2 children)

why an ios article on c/android, 2) why RCS? SMS was a good system for what it did, so does that automatically create an obligation to mess it up?

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Most Android phones use RCS, so it's on-subject here since most of us don't pay attention to iPhone news - and is welcomed news because of #2's answer
You ever been in a low or no signal area, but have wifi, and try to text an iPhone user? Ever try to send/receive photos/videos with an iPhone and they look like garbage? Tired of getting SMS's in group chats of "Mom loved 'Please poop in the toilet next time, we are tired of cleaning it up'" instead of it just "hearting" the SMS message? A lot of new tech coming out today started from something that "was good" and was built on to make it better.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (2 children)

The thing about SMS is that it sometimes worked in low signal situations where voice and internet didn't get through. That is a virtue that shouldn't be given up easily. If anything its reliability should be enhanced. It's fine to also support a fancier chat scheme as well, but a robust, 1-to-1 text-only mode is important.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Right, I haven't seen any of them say they are doing away with SMS. Even Android who has RCS in place also has SMS along side it, RCS is just an enhancement.

Even with RCS on both major platforms in the near future, a lot of automations and companies will continue to utilize SMS, and I'd bet that's true for a long time.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Ah ok. I only use SMS in very basic ways, so if it's going to stay around then I'm glad. Thanks.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

At least with Google messages, you can still send normal SMS if your RCS chat can't go through. I think there's an option for it to automatically resend as SMS if RCS fails, too.

I guess there's no way of knowing if SMS will eventually drop out of fashion, but it would be good to keep around so it probably will stay around as a back up

Edit: well, I didn't see the other response say basically what I said, oops

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Sounds good, thanks.