It’s not a choice, here, so much as it is the result of our smartphone culture.
In the US, using the default messaging app on your phone is the norm for most people. Third party messaging apps like WhatsApp simply never caught on over here, so we’ve let Apple, Google, Samsung, etc determine how we talk to each other. Vendor lock-in tactics run rampant, with barely any regulation.
The default messaging apps on iPhone is iMessage. It’s locked down and can not communicate with any other messaging app except via SMS. Therefore the other apps have to use it to communicate with iPhone users.
Conversely, Google has a messaging protocol they’re trying to get Apple to adopt called RCS, but Google also refuses to let RCS be used by third party apps. So SMS becomes the fallback for communication between them.
It’s partially corporate bickering, partially consumers being tech illiterate and staunchly opposed to using anything third party. Particularly in the case of iPhone users, there’s a strong culture of entrenchment in the Apple ecosystem, and for some people, not being in it is actually seen as worthy of derision. There’s actual cases of bullying in schools if a kid doesn’t use iPhone, and that’s having an increasingly detrimental effect on the market.
You have to appreciate, in Europe, you’re mostly using Android, a (somewhat) open ecosystem, and that mentality is stronger over there.
But here in the states, iPhones are extremely prominent, and with them comes the mentality that Apple has spent decades programming into its consumers: don’t use anything non-Apple, and if that creates problems for other people, too bad, they should just buy Apple too.
Just to be clear, never said that I used all of those. Just made quick list of most popular apps to use here :P
If I had to guess, over 95% of people here just use WhatsApp.
They all have pretty much same functionality what traditional sms is missing.
I use the default Google messaging app, and am in the US. When sending to other Android users it uses RCS. The only time it sends as SMS/MMS is when messaging iPhones because Apple won’t support RCS
If I’m not mistaken then Apple can’t support RCS until Google opens it up. It’s a closed protocol tied to the Google Messaging app. Go look for another Android app that supports RCS. There are none. Okay, there’s one from an unknown company, with a bunch of bad reviews.
The only RCS implementation that has E2EE is Google Messages (well, pretty much the only one available, but anyways), RCS as a protocol doesn’t have it by default, right?
Just out of curiosity, how much people still use SMS? I can’t remember last time I sent SMS.
Here in Finland we use mainly Whatsapp, FB Messenger, Telegram or Signal for messaging. Almost no one I know has sent SMS in the last 10 years.
It’s not a choice, here, so much as it is the result of our smartphone culture.
In the US, using the default messaging app on your phone is the norm for most people. Third party messaging apps like WhatsApp simply never caught on over here, so we’ve let Apple, Google, Samsung, etc determine how we talk to each other. Vendor lock-in tactics run rampant, with barely any regulation.
The default messaging apps on iPhone is iMessage. It’s locked down and can not communicate with any other messaging app except via SMS. Therefore the other apps have to use it to communicate with iPhone users.
Conversely, Google has a messaging protocol they’re trying to get Apple to adopt called RCS, but Google also refuses to let RCS be used by third party apps. So SMS becomes the fallback for communication between them.
It’s partially corporate bickering, partially consumers being tech illiterate and staunchly opposed to using anything third party. Particularly in the case of iPhone users, there’s a strong culture of entrenchment in the Apple ecosystem, and for some people, not being in it is actually seen as worthy of derision. There’s actual cases of bullying in schools if a kid doesn’t use iPhone, and that’s having an increasingly detrimental effect on the market.
You have to appreciate, in Europe, you’re mostly using Android, a (somewhat) open ecosystem, and that mentality is stronger over there.
But here in the states, iPhones are extremely prominent, and with them comes the mentality that Apple has spent decades programming into its consumers: don’t use anything non-Apple, and if that creates problems for other people, too bad, they should just buy Apple too.
You use 4 different apps to send messages while we mostly use one. Not sure that’s the win you think it is.
Just to be clear, never said that I used all of those. Just made quick list of most popular apps to use here :P If I had to guess, over 95% of people here just use WhatsApp.
They all have pretty much same functionality what traditional sms is missing.
I use the default Google messaging app, and am in the US. When sending to other Android users it uses RCS. The only time it sends as SMS/MMS is when messaging iPhones because Apple won’t support RCS
If I’m not mistaken then Apple can’t support RCS until Google opens it up. It’s a closed protocol tied to the Google Messaging app. Go look for another Android app that supports RCS. There are none. Okay, there’s one from an unknown company, with a bunch of bad reviews.
In fact, Apple is implementing RCS in their messaging app: https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/16/23964171/apple-iphone-rcs-support
Their implementation will not feature E2E encryption.
The only RCS implementation that has E2EE is Google Messages (well, pretty much the only one available, but anyways), RCS as a protocol doesn’t have it by default, right?
i thought rcs was developed by openwhisper for signal