Signal has all the same features until they decided to stop supporting SMSs. And it works with any phone (if the user chooses to install signal.)
Which I think is why I don’t understand how this is Apple making other phones look worse. Signal apparently used to support SMS , so that you could use a single app both for text messages and messages that go over Wifi/data. If Signal could do it, it seems that What’s App and other’s could so so as well. Signal apparently stopped supporting SMS in part because it’s not encrypted so the lack of encryption in “green bubble” messages can’t really be blamed on Apple. No matter which Wifi/data messaging app is used, everyone involved must have the same one. So it seems the only thing specifically Apple is that non-Apple phones can’t use iMessage - and I’ve never noticed anything so great about iMessage that I can imagine someone choosing an iPhone just so they aren’t the only one causing a group message to be SMS or because the SMS experience is so terrible that I think non-iPhones are inferior for that reason.
It was recently forced to open up to other app stores in Europe. It did so very hesitantly, with plenty of warnings about the evil lurking outside of its own digital paradise.
From this BBC article https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-68631756
Yes, the non-Apple world can use a thing called RCS messages, which use the data connection (either mobile or wifi) or, just like iMessage, can fall back to SMS, if necessary. Apple could implement RCS to interact with non-iMessage devices. There is no technical reason it can’t be done.
Additionally, Apple claims their walling off of iMessage to just Apple devices is for security, which is very disingenuous of them. Apple to non-Apple messages go by unencrypted SMS, while iMessage messages are end to end encrypted. If Apple really cared about their customers’ security, they would encrypt all messages, regardless of who made the receiving phone.
Correct, yes. The bubbles are the same color but messages sent over wifi or over 5g internet are RCS chat messages and you can see when someone is typing, edit messages, see when they read your message, send bigger image and video files, etc.
If you don’t have wifi or 5g reception the Messages app instead sends messages out as an SMS. If you DO have wifi, you can send these RCS messages even without cell reception.
None of those features work with iPhones, but they work with other Android devices.
Eta: I can even react to messages, just like people with an iPhone do when I get a text that says “XXX loved your message”
Moderating
Since the legal issues aren’t clear at this point and require quite a bit of interpretation and opinion to discuss, let’s move this over to IMHO (from FQ).
The standard Android text app does exactly that.
Using wifi is the easy part. It’s integrating encrypted with unencrypted messages that’s hard. There’s also the question of what app your phone uses for vanilla SMS.
Fwiw, that’s not a Samsung app, it’s one of the standard Android apps that comes with all recent Android devices.
But i don’t think the antitrust claim is about iMessages. I think it’s about Apple’s app store, which they maintain monopoly power over. Android and Windows have app stores, too, but you don’t have to use them, because Android and Windows (and MacOS, but not iOS) allow you to install any random executable you want, they just warn you it might be dangerous.
If you’re sending your videos via MMS text, that’s probably the issue. There is a file size limit when sending files via MMS so large files such as videos have to be compressed before they are sent. This is a carrier limitation, not Apple.
Apple said a few months ago that RCS support is coming later this year.
I don’t know if they’re a monopoly in the conventional sense. They built something that lies in tangent to what was at least a larger maybe more successful system.
The entirety of their user software relies on doing something in a way that’s unintuitive until you use it a lot. It’s non-standard defacto and it’s smart. I think they designed their own way of doing things that forces a lot of those who use it to adapt to it in order to use it very effectively. For a hypothetical example my iPhone has what I think may be ‘folders’ arranged as colors in icons. “Blue” with a blue circle next to it, “Red” with a red one, etc.
That’s an innocuous way to utilizing something that’s very pervasive as an integrated part of one’s system that can claim usership via that part. I don’t know whether it’s a monopoly, but love it or hate it, they are clever. I think it’s probably cool to say I don’t know whether or not these ideas I’m describing are obvious or are actually connected together at all
Well, except that they can’t encrypt all messages because the RCS standard doesn’t offer E2EE natively. The E2EE being used with RCS in Android phones is Google’s own proprietary encryption. Apple would have to get on board with Google’s version of E2EE, so the question becomes Why is the onus on Apple to use Google’s implementation? Apple has said it will not use any proprietary implementation and will instead work with the GSMA to add encryption to the standard.
Apple’s claim is they can’t allow non-iPhones to use iMessage because of security concerns. The point is if they were really concerned about their own users’ security they would allow non-iPhones to use encrypted iMessage, which would do much more to protect their users’ security than simply banning non-Apple users.
Apple doesn’t even have to “open up” iMessage. If they released an iMessage app for Android it would immediately be at the top of the app charts.
They’ve claimed lots of reasons, from saying consumers weren’t really asking for Messages on Android (which IMHO is a much more disingenuous excuse than security), to having concerns how third party manufacturers would implement it, to the overall financial impact of doing so.
I’m not sure that the “if Apple REALLY cared” argument is a good one because you could also make the argument that if Apple really cared about their users’ security, they should somehow add an encryption layer to SMS. Or somehow add an encryption layer to email.
I mean, you can only do so much. At least Apple drew a line and it’s a pretty clear (well, green) line.
So in the context of the DOJ lawsuit, is there some sort of obligation on Apple’s part to offer iMessage on Android?
The security features are better for a stalking airtag on an iphone than on an Android. iphone will automatically notify you if an ‘unknown’ airtag is around you for too long. There is an app that you can download (not built in natively) for Android but I understand you need to actively press the “search for unnown devices” button, or whatever it’s called. Most people not so paranoid that they’re going to press that button every 30 mins or hour.
Also, while the airtags chirping is good, you won’t hear it if your ex taped it to the underside of your bumper, outside of your car.
That’s a failing that isn’t unique to Apple; it will happen with any tracker that doesn’t natively communicate with all nearby devices.
So as an example, a Google Pixel owner isn’t going to know if they are being stalked by a Samsung Galaxy Smart Tag because it only talks to Samsung devices and as far as I can tell is not compatible with Android’s Find My Device service.
But Apple and Google (and I think Samsung, Tile and other tracker manufacturers) are currently working on an industry standard that will make trackers detectable across all platforms. Well, Bluetooth trackers that utilize Find My type networks, anyway. Good luck with GPS trackers.
I’ve had my android alert me about being tracked by an AirTag. It was completely innocent tracking, but I did get an alert when an AirTag was following me, and the AirTag was not near its home device.
I use both Apple’s app and one called air guard, and both can manually scan, but that’s not a requirement to detect trackers, as long as the apps are allowed to run in the background.
According to reviews in the play store, where there are more one-star ones than all of the other stars combined, the apple one does not run in the background.
AirGuard definitely runs in the background and scans periodically to detect trackers. Additionally Tracker Detect only shows AirTags that aren’t with their owner, while AirGuard shows all AirTags, and then will tell you if the owner is nearby or not. AirGuard can also show other devices, like Tiles, iPhones, iPods, Chipolo, etc.
To bring this around to the OP: AirTags cannot be located from the FindMy web interface. You must use an iPhone or Ipad to locate them. I can’t think of any good technical reason I can locate my tablet, but not my AirTag, from the web. AirTags have by far the largest network of reporter devices out there, but Apple severely limits their usefulness unless you have an Iphone. Apple is free to make their products work (almost) any way they want, unless they are a monopoly. Deciding that seems to be the point of this case.