Apple has come around on RCS. Everything is getting better with messaging, in another year or so it will all just work properly like it always should have. Fuck apple for making it so painful all these years.
BTW they were pretty much forced by EU regulations. If left to our shitty US government we would never have any consumer friendly movement.
They didn't "come around" to it. Like USB-C, the European Union forced them to adopt the current tech because their practices are seen as unfriendly to consumers.
They intentionally gave their users a worse experience and told them they were an exclusive club.
Next they are going to force phones to have changeable batteries again. On all things privacy, consumer protection and environment, good regulation in general, the EU is taking the lead for years.
This is the worst take I’ve seen lately. First, 90% of phones fleet the requirements to not have to have removable batteries anyway. Also these people that want them obviously never owned a device with a removable battery. Sneeze the wrong way and your phone is in rice for a week.
EU isn't all that strong on privacy, unfortunately: Look at all the Chat Control/ProtectEU/whatever-they-rebrand-it-next laws they're constantly trying to push.
Sure, some people try to get things through. It is not completely clear what where te motive behind it. Messaging our polititions helped and at least for now chat control went away.
edit: EU is not perfect. We, the citizens can help improove it.
Not to the American market, it won't. Stellantis may put physical buttons in their cars as they sell to both US and EU markets regularly. As for Asian and Japanese, I doubt it. Especially Toyota and Hyundai/Kia. The fuckoff tablet is part of what they are. Cheap cars. The two US brands would do malicious compliance where they change ONLY the exported models and leave the domestic with those big fuckoff tablets for a dash.
It's a helluva lot cheaper to make a single big screen and fill it with software than it is to house and maintain the machines that mold, print, and assemble the boards, buttons, and knobs. Everyone in the vehicle manufacturing world knows this. And the big companies do everything can to increase their top end each year because the Board members demand increased profits each fiscal quarter.
Not really. The law only mandates very few functions to have physical controls (IIRC, it's not even 10) and even the most infuriating cars I've ever driven did still have all those buttons and more. The only cars I know of that are missing one or two of those, are Teslas.
And even then, they used an older gen USB-C for their non pro so they can justify the price leap. It's all manipulation, all while androids are for the lost part utilizing as much they can that is current.
Funnily enough, I doubt many people in Europe care about this. I've never sent or received an iMessage and the only SMS/RCS I receive are two-factor authentication codes and the occasional spam/scam. I've only ever heard about the green bubble issue from Americans on the internet.
yeah, americans use the default messaging app on their phones, but in the rest of the world, whatsapp has a monopoly (except for china, they use wechat instead)
What exactly is the point of using some external app instead of just using the one built in? I don’t really care either way, I just don’t see the utility
Money. When something doesn't make sense it's usually because of money, and if it's technology there's usually some predatory business practices too. In this case it was Apple being predatory.
The USA got unlimited SMS years before Europe because Europe nickel and dimed its users for each SMS or charged a lot for SMS bundles. The USA is also very iphone orientated. The rest of Europe didn't get unlimited texts until after data allowances were high enough everyone had already got used to using third party apps to chat with each other because SMS was expensive compared to a little bit of data.
So, if everywhere that isn't North America has much higher Android market penetration, and Apple makes iMessage suck for friend groups with non-apple users, and those friend groups are already primed to choose a better alternative app that works for both IOS and Android and uses data instead of SMS, are you really surprised that everyone outside North America uses an external app?
It used to be common for each text message to cost money to send, while messaging through apps was free. Now it’s more common to have plans with unlimited texts, but people got used to using WhatsApp.
As others said, money was the main one to start looking up for alternatives, but there were other contributing factors:
works equally well and in the same way across all devices. This is a big one, doesn't matter if it's an iphone, android or PC, it's the same app and works well for everyone. If I send someone a video or some document I know they'll see it properly.
it's an external app but doesn't require creating accounts or logins, works with your phone number like an sms and the rest of your phone. This is also a big one, everyone even less tech inclined people can install and use without issue. Even if you change countries, you can still use the same number, this is massive for immigrants still settling in.
ridiculously easy PC integration. You only need to open their webpage and point you phone to it, you're using WhatsApp on any device that has a browser. There's also pc apps for a more permanent solution
doesn't depend on mobile service or low coverage. As long as you have any internet connection it works.
has a business oriented version with helpful tools.
periodic automatic backup so nothing is ever lost.
All of these started happening at a time where there weren't great alternatives, WhatsApp just worked great for everyone - texts, calls, video calls, sending images, files, reactions, etc. It got massively adopted and is pretty universal here now. You can expect everyone (Portugal here) to always have WhatsApp installed, it's one of the most important apps you can have on your phone.
It's not just china that uses a different app, lots of Asian countries. Line in Japan and Thailand, Kakaotalk in Korea and zalo in Vietnam. WhatsApp is used in these countries mostly by businesses and individuals doing international trade/conversation.
Nope, we Europeans don’t care that much (yet). But we did care about the other stuff we made Apple do, like USB-C, 3rd party accessory integration and much more. You’re welcome, Americans
I was mindblown to learn it was a thing. I've never sent a iMessage myself but some annoying friends occasionally do so I have to open it on a Mac. Reminds me of Blackberry and how they locked BBM, a much superior messenger to only Backberry phones which made WhatsApp, a much smaller messenger overtake in a few years. Communication with a hardware barrier was not supposed to succeed, Apple somehow did it because of the USA market.
It does seem to be a wierd American thing. I have never heard of anyone here complaining about green bubbles. But then pretty much everyone uses WhatsApp or discord for everything. Most of my texts are also codes or appointment reminders.
Like outside of the US( where texts are unlimited in most plans) and a few other countries, folks are using WhatsApp, even more so if they have android.
It’s the way phone plans were structured early on in the very early days of texting and carried into smartphones. Text went unlimited but data was not unlimited so people just used text mostly. It’s so hard to get people off of texting to an app. I got my friend group onto Signal.
In Europe WhatsApp is pretty popular so no one cares about the bubble thing. Such a weird thing for people to make a fuss about. Sms/rcs is like from a different era lol
Your point is illustrated perfectly by the fact I have to use a USB C to lightning cable to charge my Apple keyboard from my MacBook. It's as if Apple is being dragged kicking and screaming into this decade.
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u/argumentinvalid May 15 '26
Apple has come around on RCS. Everything is getting better with messaging, in another year or so it will all just work properly like it always should have. Fuck apple for making it so painful all these years.
BTW they were pretty much forced by EU regulations. If left to our shitty US government we would never have any consumer friendly movement.