Technology

Also yesterday, Reuters reported that the European Commission has begun trying to establish whether iMessage should be brought under the remit of the EU’s new antitrust law, the Digital Markets Act, which imposes interoperability requirements (among other things) on so-called gatekeeper services that are part of many people’s daily lives.

Apple’s iOS operating system, App Store, and Safari browser already fall under the DMA, which is likely to force Apple to allow third-party app stores on iPhones and iPads, but Apple so far managed to lobby the Commission into leaving iMessage out of it. If the Commission decides after its investigation that iMessage is worth regulating in this way, Apple would have until August next year to introduce some form of interoperability—presumably with RCS.

The idea of making Apple use it is also part of Google giving the operations to carriers, just like SMS, and then gradually replacing SMS altogether. Google isn't even supposed to be running the RCS servers. But they did it in order to get the standard up and running everywhere. It's an open standard, and multiple carriers in several countries are on their way to carrying the burden of the servers, the way the standard is supposed to operate. Once it's operating, all servers can talk to each other, just like you can SMS a person on another carrier line. RCS will allow universal rich texting.

Surely XMPP and other standards are different and I would prefer any other than something championed by Google. But the truth is, that the other standards aren't invited to sit at the right tables and don't offer the same “replace SMS once and for all” potential the way RCS does. XMPP for example is super expensive to escalate and like almost all of the traffic is just presence messaging, which is super wasteful and energy intensive on servers. RCS is not the best, but it's one that all carriers and telecommunications agencies are on board for replacing the archaic SMS. And it doesn't preclude using other protocols. Like, WhatsApp, Signal, Matrix and Telegram will still continue to exist.

I have seen people literally say they like that iMessage is exclusive, and they like to keep Android users away/separate

It was reeking of classism in addition to being generally a terrible thing to read

The EU has dragged Apple through the mud in order to make them change for the better, they will be able to do the same.

True. So true in fact that I'd be willing to bet that even if the EU made them implement RCS they still wouldn't do it in the US. USB-C only worked because it's a hardware change and maintaining separate lightning and USB-C models and accessory ecosystems doesn't make sense. RCS is a software change that costs them nothing to NOT use in the only market where it would hurt them.

"Hell yes" - the EU, definitely

"Too bad" -the EU, as well

It was FaceTime, not iMessage. The reason the developers were surprised was that they didn’t own the tech, and Apple lost a patent lawsuit about it and almost had to remove FaceTime entirely. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-20236114 https://www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/apple-s-facetime-open-standard-never-happened

....or even better: end iMsg

It's incompatible with Android on purpose. They want their users shaming non apple users in to getting an iPhone.

I think this is an American problem

Not nobody, it's number three after WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger (both owned by Meta).

So yeah, the EU is definitely focusing on Meta, but iMessage, Signal and RCS (Google) are large enough to all be in scope of the regulation.

I don't know if things like Snapchat are also in scope.

Edit: got corrected below. WhatsApp and Messenger are in scope, iMessage is being reviewed.

But that would still be easier to convince someone to sign up for Signal or whatever other app if it came in a unified inbox. I just started using Beeper a couple of months ago, because while the security concerns are valid, it is really damn convenient.

That would make the problem worse, it would be just another centralized chat app you need to install. We would get from "what about people not using iOS" to "what about people not using iOS or Google Android".

What is your demo? In my world it's quite different. Isn't Whatsapp proprietary? And I know few that will bother with signal these days. I've started getting obvious spam invites on it as well so...

RCS should just be the standard. There is no reason to argue that.. it doesn't end the apps you use but many of us are tired of multiple apps.