> Hypocritically being silent when China forces Apple to adopt RCS and has countless regulations on what they can do.
He recognizes China forcing Apple's hand (not the EU) when it comes to RCS, and since China is a large market, and Apple is mostly/generally a hardware company, they want to sell hardware there:
When I read that post, I didn't necessarily disagree with Gruber on the encryption front, I just think having a better base for 'cross-platform' message that didn't involve third-party software (Signal, WhatsApp (and having to use their infra)) was still worth it—even if unencrypted. Gruber wants the features of RCS but also encryption:
> Ihnatko is right, but only if you believe that carrier-based messaging should remain the baseline. I do not. And it’s also a U.S.-centric viewpoint. In most countries around the world, platforms like WhatsApp, Line, and Facebook Messenger serve that role, as the baseline “everyone has it” messaging platform — and those countries are better for it. I prefer iMessage, personally, for multiple reasons, but iMessage is fundamentally limited from serving that “everyone has it” baseline role by Apple’s decision not to ship an Android client. Eddy Cue doesn’t lose many arguments but he lost that one. All of the effort spent pushing Apple to support RCS would have been better spent pushing Apple to ship iMessage for Android. And without a supported iMessage client for Android, that role ought to go to WhatsApp, not RCS. WhatsApp is free, secure, and works equally well on all phones.
> Meta knows this, and clearly smells the opportunity. Does Apple?
* Ibid
Google's E2E RCS is a proprietary extension, and I'm not sure how telcos can implement E2E given things like CALEA in the US, so E2E may be stuck in the realm of the non-telco (unlike SMS and RCS, which are telco-run).
He recognizes China forcing Apple's hand (not the EU) when it comes to RCS, and since China is a large market, and Apple is mostly/generally a hardware company, they want to sell hardware there:
* https://daringfireball.net/2024/02/eu_rcs_imessage
Gruber is not a fan of RCS because it lacks E2E encryption:
* https://daringfireball.net/2024/07/att_data_breach_rcs_ios
When I read that post, I didn't necessarily disagree with Gruber on the encryption front, I just think having a better base for 'cross-platform' message that didn't involve third-party software (Signal, WhatsApp (and having to use their infra)) was still worth it—even if unencrypted. Gruber wants the features of RCS but also encryption:
> Ihnatko is right, but only if you believe that carrier-based messaging should remain the baseline. I do not. And it’s also a U.S.-centric viewpoint. In most countries around the world, platforms like WhatsApp, Line, and Facebook Messenger serve that role, as the baseline “everyone has it” messaging platform — and those countries are better for it. I prefer iMessage, personally, for multiple reasons, but iMessage is fundamentally limited from serving that “everyone has it” baseline role by Apple’s decision not to ship an Android client. Eddy Cue doesn’t lose many arguments but he lost that one. All of the effort spent pushing Apple to support RCS would have been better spent pushing Apple to ship iMessage for Android. And without a supported iMessage client for Android, that role ought to go to WhatsApp, not RCS. WhatsApp is free, secure, and works equally well on all phones.
> Meta knows this, and clearly smells the opportunity. Does Apple?
* Ibid
Google's E2E RCS is a proprietary extension, and I'm not sure how telcos can implement E2E given things like CALEA in the US, so E2E may be stuck in the realm of the non-telco (unlike SMS and RCS, which are telco-run).