The long fight to make Apple’s iMessage compatible with all devices has raged with little to show for it. But Google (de facto leader of the charge) and other mobile operators are now leveraging the European Union’s Digital Market Act (DMA), according to the Financial Times. The law, which goes into effect in 2024, requires that “gatekeepers” not favor their own systems or limit third parties from interoperating within them. Gatekeepers are any company that meets specific financial and usage qualifications, including Google’s parent company Alphabet, Apple, Samsung and others.

  • BURN@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    9
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    1 year ago

    That’s why it works so well. What you see as problems with SMS I see as good design decisions. It’s an incredibly simple implementation that does exactly what it’s supposed to. You just want it to do more than it needs to.

    Something will eventually replace it, but it sure as hell won’t be RCS. RCS is a defacto google standard now. Many features are locked out if you don’t use google servers. It’s not an open standard and it’s disingenuous to portray it as one.

    • cm0002@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      Uh yea, because we do so much more on our phones, it might be well designed, but it was well designed for the 90s. That’s why it makes a good fallback protocol, but by no means should it be the go-to.

      RCS is the replacement, it’s been the replacement for a long time in the EU. In fact, if the US carriers just implemented it when the EU did, this entire thread wouldn’t even exist.

      It’s a standard until Google takes control of the GSM Association.

      Here’s a Wikipedia article on RCS : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Communication_Services

      Even has this blurb:

      The Verge in 2019 criticized the inconsistent support of RCS in the United States, with carriers not supporting RCS in all markets, not certifying service on all phones, or not yet supporting the Universal Profile. Concerns were shown over Google’s decision to run its own RCS service due to the possibility of antitrust scrutiny, but it was acknowledged that Google had to do so in order to bypass the carriers’ inconsistent support of RCS, as it wanted to have a service more comparable to Apple’s iMessage service available on Android.

      • BURN@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        It’s still not a standard as long as you’re relying on google for the majority of features.

        • cm0002@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          Like I said in the other comment, those features are all present in the Universal Profile which only lacks e2ee and those weird sticker things.

          All the things we would want, file transfers, video, high quality pictures, real group chats etc are all present