Very much as expected… fragmented, incomplete, and highly dependent on carrier. Google’s non standard E2EE extension will likely only work if messages are routed through their servers, which based on the observations here, even from the Android side it doesn’t seems to be routed through Google. Larger file means better quality pictures via green bubbles, anyone who’s sent/received a garbage and cares enough knows to send via third party messaging apps anyway, so nothing life changing here.

Let’s see if Apple applies pressure and push everyone to use Google’s servers for E2EE as they move towards iOS 18, but other than that… I’m still inclined to think the down play during keynote is apt.

Terrible. The next evolution to SMS MMS shouldn't be proprietary and fragmented.Google Messages is meh and is the only RCS Unless you have a carrier device and use Samsung Messages which is soon going away. Apple and iMessage being Apple only ruined universal messaging and all users on Apple or Android should have not let this happen.

Such a sad world we live in. When the internet was hitting the mainstream, virtually everything was standardized. There were RFCs for probably every standard the internet operated on. Email, HTTP, DNS, TCP/UDP/IP, etc.

Today, we live in a world where we can't even decide on a fucking chat protocol without making it a proprietary piece of garbage. The internet has been consolidated into giant companies that see interoperability as a weakness that enable their competitors and prevent them from oppressing and exploiting their users.

A small group of gatekeepers that kill anything nice for their own short-term gains: it is sad but true that it feels like any technology that's commercially successful will end this way.

Why would they go with RCS though when Google's proprietary messenger is the only Android client for that standard? Why not something open, like Matrix?