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> RCS isn't an open platform in practice. It isn't even as open as SMS/MMS. It heavily depends on proprietary Google and carrier infrastructure in practice. We

> RCS isn't an open platform in practice. It isn't even as open as SMS/MMS. It heavily depends on proprietary Google and carrier infrastructure in practice. We can start by replicating Google's approach and then we can work on only using carrier services for carriers where it's actually supported. What is the point of RCS though? It seems to be strictly inferior to Signal. It seems a Google product meant to serve Google. I wouldn't hate it if GrapheneOS would totally ignore RCS. I fail to see any value in it, but maybe I am lacking information(?)

kevin_thibedeau 12d ago
RCS allows higher resolution pictures than MMS.
- cesarb 12d ago
  Perhaps it's different in other countries, but I've never seen anyone use MMS. (Everyone uses WhatsApp nowadays, but even before WhatsApp existed, I never saw anyone use MMS.)
  - Telaneo 12d ago
    I've seen people try, only for it to never actually work (images either compress horribly, to the point there's no reason even sending it, or just fail to send). MMS bring broken since day 1 in my experience is probably the reason I jumped on internet chat and email, since those actually work as advertised (sure, they has some practical limits, but they tell you about those!). I probably would have sent my mum that image over MMS if MMS actually every worked. Since it never did, using a difference service was a must. Then again, this feels like an extension of the rest of the phone system. Anything beyond calls between two people, SMS and data that involves connecting to the phone system has always (in my experience) been either janky or broken. No wonder I try to use anything else given the opportunity.
  - Groxx 12d ago
    It depends heavily on country, yes. USA is extremely light on WhatsApp, and MMS use is widespread (and has been free for a long time now, and SMS even longer). RCS is a mostly silent upgrade for USA. I'm not sure which of the two is better tbh. Utterly dominated by a Facebook-owned system, or using something that's crappy enough that people spread out to a variety of systems?
    - kevin_thibedeau 12d ago
      Amazing how blinkered supposedly privacy conscious Europeans are when they willingly line up at the Facebook slaughterhouse.
      - microtonal 12d ago
        The huge switch from SMS to WhatsApp in Europe was well done before they were acquired by Facebook. By then the damage was already done, because the network effects made it very hard to move away. By now, many people I know also have a Signal account, but it doesn't really get off the ground as long as, say, 30% of every group chat does not use Signal.
        Groxx 11d ago
        Year, back prior to the Zuckification I'd say it was a very clear upgrade for everyone in essentially every way. Dirt cheap (much less than even minimal texting), installable everywhere, adopted solid E2EE far ahead of basically every major player (2016!), it was great. USA had everything worse for a long time, and many things still are. But once it landed in Zuck's hands, I no longer trust it one bit. Abandon ship.
- grapheneos 12d ago
  RCS provides far better support for group chats, many small feature improvements and end-to-end encryption (E2EE) via Messaging Layer Security (MLS). E2EE for talking to GMS Android and iOS users without them needing to install another app is the main reason we care about it, but far better group chat support matters too. iPhone users very often don't want to have SMS/MMS users in their group chats.
  - microtonal 12d ago
    This is a very US-centric (and maybe Canada) thing though? Most of the rest of the world doesn't really use or care about iMessage, even on iPhones. So, I think it's rather -US- iPhone users very often don't want to have SMS/MMS users in their group chats. The rest of the world is using WhatsApp, WeChat, Telegram, Snapchat, LINE, etc. for group chats (for better or worse), even on iPhone.
    - bentley 12d ago
      > This is a very US-centric (and maybe Canada) thing though? If what you say about “the rest of the world” using other messaging apps is true, then yeah, it probably is North America–centric. So what? Are you agreeing with the OP who didn’t see any point and advocated that GrapheneOS “totally ignore RCS”? GrapheneOS already supports WhatsApp, WeChat, Telegram, Snapchat, and LINE. What’s wrong with improving OS support for another widely used alternative, that for all its faults is mostly better than still another widely used alternative (SMS/MMS)? There’s a thread on the GrapheneOS forum titled “Using RCS with Google Messages on GrapheneOS” with 2,192 posts in it. Clearly there’s a lot of interest in using RCS on GrapheneOS!
      - microtonal 12d ago
        Are you agreeing with the OP who didn’t see any point and advocated that GrapheneOS “totally ignore RCS” No. I think it is useful for GrapheneOS to work on this, the US is a substantial user base. The comment I reacted to: iPhone users very often don't want to have SMS/MMS users in their group chats. I think it is useful to qualify that, because a lot of people from the US are under all kinds of false beliefs like: green bubble anxiety is universal, Pixel 10 and Pixel 10 Pro do not support physical SIMs (Pixels support physical SIM in other regions), etc. (I could go on for a while.) These misunderstandings repeatedly show up over and over again and discussions, so I think it is worth being specific. In this case most iPhone users worldwide do not even think about SMS/MMS users in their chat, because they do not even rely on iMessage as their primary messaging app.
- jeroenhd 12d ago
  All carriers I've tried in my country have even disabled MMS entirely. They're not running RCS servers either, though, everyone is on WhatsApp anyway. In theory carriers could increase the max resolution for MMS now that 3G is essentially dead, but I doubt they will now the slow move to RCS has started.
ebb_earl_co 12d ago
From [0], it seems that RCS can use the cellular signal instead of LTE or 5G: > In cases where RCS is able to operate over cellular networks without data, it supports messaging as well as file transfer, enriched calling, and more. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Communication_Services https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Communication_Services
- wolvoleo 12d ago
  In LTE and 5G there exists no cellular signal without data. That was a 2G/3G thing. Since 4G everything is data. The separate sms and voice services are gone. And 3G is rapidly being deprecated.
  - MrDrMcCoy 12d ago
    That's not quite true. VoLTE was an optional part of 4G in the beginning. I had one of the gaming ASUS phones that shipped with 4G, but no VoLTE. 6 months after getting it, the US phone carriers conspired to make VoLTE mandatory for connecting to their towers, effectively bricking my device. ASUS never issued the firmware update that would have enabled the feature in the modem, which had the capability, and the community hack to enable it never worked for me.
    - snazz 12d ago
      Yes, circuit switched fallback was possible for a time (LTE data and circuit-switched 2G or 3G voice). I think 3GPP shouldn't have written that into the spec in the first place, but you know what they say about hindsight.... The whole saga with VoLTE was really quite entertaining: https://nickvsnetworking.com/background-to-the-volte-mess/ https://nickvsnetworking.com/background-to-the-volte-mess/
    - mitxela 12d ago
      4G without VoLTE is using 3G for voice because there is no other 4G voice.
    - wolvoleo 12d ago
fc417fc802 12d ago
The point of the exercise is for Google and Apple to maintain control over the ecosystem. RCS is technically superior (protocol, transport, security, all of it) but is captured from the start on the technical level by design by the big players. From the perspective of the vast majority of users who have very limited technical awareness, it was silently slipped in as an upgrade at one point or another. This means that those not adopting the proprietary BigTech solution are perceived as being difficult by insisting on using software that's now perceived as outdated or as otherwise mildly incompatible.
- HybridStatAnim8 12d ago
  GrapheneOS does not want to adopt RCS for public perception. It is still a better option than SMS/MMS and providing it is beneficial. GrapheneOS will still recommend using better platforms and protocols but RCS being bundled and cross platform are great reasons to implement it.
  - exceptione 12d ago
    Suppose GrapheneOS becomes highly popular. Then I have to fight the average Joe who insists RCS is fine enough. I understood from other comments that RCS is the default communication channel in N.America an I can sort of see why you want to give people a somewhat less worse option here than Google's Messenger. But RCS should not be the default imho, because lazy people gonna be lazy. So I hereby endorse you to gently push newcomers towards a safe and privacy friendly default by pre-installing Signal or whatever meets the bar and give it a prominent place.
    - HybridStatAnim8 11d ago
      Whether or not you tolerate using RCS is up to you. Not supporting it for the sake of having a worse default option on the off-chance you can use the to convince them to use a better option is not a good reason to not support RCS. Either you will have people content with SMS, or you will have people content with RCS. Which is better is obvious. I am not on the GrapheneOS team but the community does push better options such as Molly/Signal and RCS is usually only advised as a fallback messenger.
cosmic_cheese 12d ago
RCS was DOA from day one as far as I'm concerned. The carriers being involved in any capacity deeper than providing dumb pipes alone was enough to make it pointless, but no E2E in the base spec makes it extra pointless. They may as well have just extended SMS to be more capable, because that's what they've effectively created.
- HybridStatAnim8 12d ago
  The RCS spec has encryption in its documentation. I think the current spec version is 4.0?
  - Groxx 12d ago
    It has it in its current documentation (maybe 3.0 too? I forget, but it's new this year), and Apple and Google have had messages to themselves encrypted for a while (but not to each other, which is what the RCS docs are intended to resolve). It took many years to get it documented though (despite loudly claiming RCS is more secure the whole time), and AFAIK none yet implement it. Definitely none with all the documented things it needs to show to be compliant with the spec I read, e.g. key verification - I certainly don't see any of that in Google's "Messages" app! Though hopefully that will all change. But honestly, in a non-open ecosystem, can you really trust that the near-exclusive two major players are actually playing by the rules? Apple has been relatively protective of its users on privacy stuff, but I've lost all trust in Google at this point.
    - ufmace 11d ago
      > key verification - I certainly don't see any of that in Google's "Messages" app! I do! I have a old-ish but up-to-date and stock Pixel phone, and I see (what appears to be) full E2EE with several text contacts in Messages, with ability to verify keys (which admittedly I have not attempted to use yet). It only works if both devices / all of the devices in a group are fully compatible with the version that adds encryption or newer, but when they do, it just starts working automatically and transparently. AFAIK, that's primarily thanks to Google's work. I think what we've learned from the rise and fate of current alternative messaging apps and services is that, if we actually want to get the majority of the world's population on modern-quality E2EE for all of their communication, it's going to have to be done gradually and transparently through the apps they already use. Getting everyone to switch to a different app is a pipe-dream that will never happen, at least not thanks to the work of any particular person or company. Apple is pretty good at privacy and security for people playing within their ecosystem. They seem rather indifferent to any attempts to communicate or interact with anybody without an Apple device. Better than nothing, but not great IMO. Google has many faults in many areas, but I think they're doing awesome work at a difficult and thankless job as far as developing a standard for modern and fully encrypted communications that is actually possible for everyone to switch to transparently, and dragging everyone kicking and screaming into actually using it. Apple just rolled out support for it in beta 4 months ago. Very likely in the next year or so, we may see the majority of texts and group-chats between Android and iOS be actually E2EE without the users needing to do anything besides ordinary OS updates. That will be IMO 80% Google's doing, and 20% Apple's.
HybridStatAnim8 12d ago
The point is to access an e2ee protocol bundled by default on many devices, and is cross-platform. GrapheneOS does recommend using superior platforms like Signal, but that is 3rd party, and thus has adoptability issues in convincing people to use it. Just because better platforms exist does not mean RCS should be ignored.
- exceptione 12d ago
  Thanks for clarification. Anything first party from Big Tech is a lost cause privacy wise. At the same time, nobody uses it (maybe that is different in the USA, don't know). So for me this would be ultra-low prio as I (and I expect almost every other GOS user) will never use it. But I believe GOS knows what it is doing.
  - nemomarx 12d ago
    In the US everyone with an iphone uses RCS, so you'll often have family group conversations on it and so on. Whatsapp or signal are comparatively rare (although more common for anyone with overseas family naturally)
    - bronson 12d ago
      No, in the US, everyone with an iphone uses imessage. (Basically all my family's messaging goes over imessage) It's only when non-iphone users are on the chat that RCS comes into play.
  - annzabelle 12d ago
    Nearly everybody uses it in the USA. It's very common to text people through the default messaging app on your phone there (probably an outgrowth of the popularity of iPhones and iMessage), and backup options would be Instagram, Snapchat for a certain demographic, or Facebook messages. Whatsapp is only for messaging foreigners, and Signal/Telegram are for messaging your drug dealer.
    - 12d ago
hollow-moe 12d ago
RCS's point is to deliver ads. It is its first purpose. The way I see the situation, the point for Graphene to implement RCS is to prepare for the foreseeable deprecation of SMS. Who knows when it will happen, but better start working now than wait and get stranded when it'll happen. I'm pretty sure RCS implementation will take a long while.
mitxela 12d ago
I believe it was meant to be federated, like SMS, and then in practice it wasn't. With Signal you depend on your carrier and on Signal - with SMS you only depend on your carrier.
yellowapple 12d ago
It's nice to be able to send/receive photos with more than 13 pixels in them.
ajjahs 11d ago
[dead]

kevin_thibedeau 12d ago

RCS allows higher resolution pictures than MMS.

cesarb 12d ago
Perhaps it's different in other countries, but I've never seen anyone use MMS. (Everyone uses WhatsApp nowadays, but even before WhatsApp existed, I never saw anyone use MMS.)
- Telaneo 12d ago
  I've seen people try, only for it to never actually work (images either compress horribly, to the point there's no reason even sending it, or just fail to send). MMS bring broken since day 1 in my experience is probably the reason I jumped on internet chat and email, since those actually work as advertised (sure, they has some practical limits, but they tell you about those!). I probably would have sent my mum that image over MMS if MMS actually every worked. Since it never did, using a difference service was a must. Then again, this feels like an extension of the rest of the phone system. Anything beyond calls between two people, SMS and data that involves connecting to the phone system has always (in my experience) been either janky or broken. No wonder I try to use anything else given the opportunity.
- Groxx 12d ago
  It depends heavily on country, yes. USA is extremely light on WhatsApp, and MMS use is widespread (and has been free for a long time now, and SMS even longer). RCS is a mostly silent upgrade for USA. I'm not sure which of the two is better tbh. Utterly dominated by a Facebook-owned system, or using something that's crappy enough that people spread out to a variety of systems?
  - kevin_thibedeau 12d ago
    Amazing how blinkered supposedly privacy conscious Europeans are when they willingly line up at the Facebook slaughterhouse.
    - microtonal 12d ago
      The huge switch from SMS to WhatsApp in Europe was well done before they were acquired by Facebook. By then the damage was already done, because the network effects made it very hard to move away. By now, many people I know also have a Signal account, but it doesn't really get off the ground as long as, say, 30% of every group chat does not use Signal.
      - Groxx 11d ago
        Year, back prior to the Zuckification I'd say it was a very clear upgrade for everyone in essentially every way. Dirt cheap (much less than even minimal texting), installable everywhere, adopted solid E2EE far ahead of basically every major player (2016!), it was great. USA had everything worse for a long time, and many things still are. But once it landed in Zuck's hands, I no longer trust it one bit. Abandon ship.
grapheneos 12d ago
RCS provides far better support for group chats, many small feature improvements and end-to-end encryption (E2EE) via Messaging Layer Security (MLS). E2EE for talking to GMS Android and iOS users without them needing to install another app is the main reason we care about it, but far better group chat support matters too. iPhone users very often don't want to have SMS/MMS users in their group chats.
- microtonal 12d ago
  This is a very US-centric (and maybe Canada) thing though? Most of the rest of the world doesn't really use or care about iMessage, even on iPhones. So, I think it's rather -US- iPhone users very often don't want to have SMS/MMS users in their group chats. The rest of the world is using WhatsApp, WeChat, Telegram, Snapchat, LINE, etc. for group chats (for better or worse), even on iPhone.
  - bentley 12d ago
    > This is a very US-centric (and maybe Canada) thing though? If what you say about “the rest of the world” using other messaging apps is true, then yeah, it probably is North America–centric. So what? Are you agreeing with the OP who didn’t see any point and advocated that GrapheneOS “totally ignore RCS”? GrapheneOS already supports WhatsApp, WeChat, Telegram, Snapchat, and LINE. What’s wrong with improving OS support for another widely used alternative, that for all its faults is mostly better than still another widely used alternative (SMS/MMS)? There’s a thread on the GrapheneOS forum titled “Using RCS with Google Messages on GrapheneOS” with 2,192 posts in it. Clearly there’s a lot of interest in using RCS on GrapheneOS!
    - microtonal 12d ago
      Are you agreeing with the OP who didn’t see any point and advocated that GrapheneOS “totally ignore RCS” No. I think it is useful for GrapheneOS to work on this, the US is a substantial user base. The comment I reacted to: iPhone users very often don't want to have SMS/MMS users in their group chats. I think it is useful to qualify that, because a lot of people from the US are under all kinds of false beliefs like: green bubble anxiety is universal, Pixel 10 and Pixel 10 Pro do not support physical SIMs (Pixels support physical SIM in other regions), etc. (I could go on for a while.) These misunderstandings repeatedly show up over and over again and discussions, so I think it is worth being specific. In this case most iPhone users worldwide do not even think about SMS/MMS users in their chat, because they do not even rely on iMessage as their primary messaging app.
jeroenhd 12d ago
All carriers I've tried in my country have even disabled MMS entirely. They're not running RCS servers either, though, everyone is on WhatsApp anyway. In theory carriers could increase the max resolution for MMS now that 3G is essentially dead, but I doubt they will now the slow move to RCS has started.

ebb_earl_co 12d ago

From [0], it seems that RCS can use the cellular signal instead of LTE or 5G: > In cases where RCS is able to operate over cellular networks without data, it supports messaging as well as file transfer, enriched calling, and more. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Communication_Services https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Communication_Services

wolvoleo 12d ago
In LTE and 5G there exists no cellular signal without data. That was a 2G/3G thing. Since 4G everything is data. The separate sms and voice services are gone. And 3G is rapidly being deprecated.
- MrDrMcCoy 12d ago
  That's not quite true. VoLTE was an optional part of 4G in the beginning. I had one of the gaming ASUS phones that shipped with 4G, but no VoLTE. 6 months after getting it, the US phone carriers conspired to make VoLTE mandatory for connecting to their towers, effectively bricking my device. ASUS never issued the firmware update that would have enabled the feature in the modem, which had the capability, and the community hack to enable it never worked for me.
  - snazz 12d ago
    Yes, circuit switched fallback was possible for a time (LTE data and circuit-switched 2G or 3G voice). I think 3GPP shouldn't have written that into the spec in the first place, but you know what they say about hindsight.... The whole saga with VoLTE was really quite entertaining: https://nickvsnetworking.com/background-to-the-volte-mess/ https://nickvsnetworking.com/background-to-the-volte-mess/
  - mitxela 12d ago
    4G without VoLTE is using 3G for voice because there is no other 4G voice.
  - wolvoleo 12d ago

fc417fc802 12d ago

The point of the exercise is for Google and Apple to maintain control over the ecosystem. RCS is technically superior (protocol, transport, security, all of it) but is captured from the start on the technical level by design by the big players. From the perspective of the vast majority of users who have very limited technical awareness, it was silently slipped in as an upgrade at one point or another. This means that those not adopting the proprietary BigTech solution are perceived as being difficult by insisting on using software that's now perceived as outdated or as otherwise mildly incompatible.

HybridStatAnim8 12d ago
GrapheneOS does not want to adopt RCS for public perception. It is still a better option than SMS/MMS and providing it is beneficial. GrapheneOS will still recommend using better platforms and protocols but RCS being bundled and cross platform are great reasons to implement it.
- exceptione 12d ago
  Suppose GrapheneOS becomes highly popular. Then I have to fight the average Joe who insists RCS is fine enough. I understood from other comments that RCS is the default communication channel in N.America an I can sort of see why you want to give people a somewhat less worse option here than Google's Messenger. But RCS should not be the default imho, because lazy people gonna be lazy. So I hereby endorse you to gently push newcomers towards a safe and privacy friendly default by pre-installing Signal or whatever meets the bar and give it a prominent place.
  - HybridStatAnim8 11d ago
    Whether or not you tolerate using RCS is up to you. Not supporting it for the sake of having a worse default option on the off-chance you can use the to convince them to use a better option is not a good reason to not support RCS. Either you will have people content with SMS, or you will have people content with RCS. Which is better is obvious. I am not on the GrapheneOS team but the community does push better options such as Molly/Signal and RCS is usually only advised as a fallback messenger.

cosmic_cheese 12d ago

RCS was DOA from day one as far as I'm concerned. The carriers being involved in any capacity deeper than providing dumb pipes alone was enough to make it pointless, but no E2E in the base spec makes it extra pointless. They may as well have just extended SMS to be more capable, because that's what they've effectively created.

HybridStatAnim8 12d ago
The RCS spec has encryption in its documentation. I think the current spec version is 4.0?
- Groxx 12d ago
  It has it in its current documentation (maybe 3.0 too? I forget, but it's new this year), and Apple and Google have had messages to themselves encrypted for a while (but not to each other, which is what the RCS docs are intended to resolve). It took many years to get it documented though (despite loudly claiming RCS is more secure the whole time), and AFAIK none yet implement it. Definitely none with all the documented things it needs to show to be compliant with the spec I read, e.g. key verification - I certainly don't see any of that in Google's "Messages" app! Though hopefully that will all change. But honestly, in a non-open ecosystem, can you really trust that the near-exclusive two major players are actually playing by the rules? Apple has been relatively protective of its users on privacy stuff, but I've lost all trust in Google at this point.
  - ufmace 11d ago
    > key verification - I certainly don't see any of that in Google's "Messages" app! I do! I have a old-ish but up-to-date and stock Pixel phone, and I see (what appears to be) full E2EE with several text contacts in Messages, with ability to verify keys (which admittedly I have not attempted to use yet). It only works if both devices / all of the devices in a group are fully compatible with the version that adds encryption or newer, but when they do, it just starts working automatically and transparently. AFAIK, that's primarily thanks to Google's work. I think what we've learned from the rise and fate of current alternative messaging apps and services is that, if we actually want to get the majority of the world's population on modern-quality E2EE for all of their communication, it's going to have to be done gradually and transparently through the apps they already use. Getting everyone to switch to a different app is a pipe-dream that will never happen, at least not thanks to the work of any particular person or company. Apple is pretty good at privacy and security for people playing within their ecosystem. They seem rather indifferent to any attempts to communicate or interact with anybody without an Apple device. Better than nothing, but not great IMO. Google has many faults in many areas, but I think they're doing awesome work at a difficult and thankless job as far as developing a standard for modern and fully encrypted communications that is actually possible for everyone to switch to transparently, and dragging everyone kicking and screaming into actually using it. Apple just rolled out support for it in beta 4 months ago. Very likely in the next year or so, we may see the majority of texts and group-chats between Android and iOS be actually E2EE without the users needing to do anything besides ordinary OS updates. That will be IMO 80% Google's doing, and 20% Apple's.

HybridStatAnim8 12d ago

The point is to access an e2ee protocol bundled by default on many devices, and is cross-platform. GrapheneOS does recommend using superior platforms like Signal, but that is 3rd party, and thus has adoptability issues in convincing people to use it. Just because better platforms exist does not mean RCS should be ignored.

exceptione 12d ago
Thanks for clarification. Anything first party from Big Tech is a lost cause privacy wise. At the same time, nobody uses it (maybe that is different in the USA, don't know). So for me this would be ultra-low prio as I (and I expect almost every other GOS user) will never use it. But I believe GOS knows what it is doing.
- nemomarx 12d ago
  In the US everyone with an iphone uses RCS, so you'll often have family group conversations on it and so on. Whatsapp or signal are comparatively rare (although more common for anyone with overseas family naturally)
  - bronson 12d ago
    No, in the US, everyone with an iphone uses imessage. (Basically all my family's messaging goes over imessage) It's only when non-iphone users are on the chat that RCS comes into play.
- annzabelle 12d ago
  Nearly everybody uses it in the USA. It's very common to text people through the default messaging app on your phone there (probably an outgrowth of the popularity of iPhones and iMessage), and backup options would be Instagram, Snapchat for a certain demographic, or Facebook messages. Whatsapp is only for messaging foreigners, and Signal/Telegram are for messaging your drug dealer.
  - 12d ago

hollow-moe 12d ago

RCS's point is to deliver ads. It is its first purpose. The way I see the situation, the point for Graphene to implement RCS is to prepare for the foreseeable deprecation of SMS. Who knows when it will happen, but better start working now than wait and get stranded when it'll happen. I'm pretty sure RCS implementation will take a long while.

mitxela 12d ago

I believe it was meant to be federated, like SMS, and then in practice it wasn't. With Signal you depend on your carrier and on Signal - with SMS you only depend on your carrier.

yellowapple 12d ago

It's nice to be able to send/receive photos with more than 13 pixels in them.

ajjahs 11d ago

[dead]