In a surprising move, Apple has announced today that it will adopt the RCS (Rich Communication Services) messaging standard. The feature will launch via a software update “later next year” and bring a wide range of iMessage-style features to messaging between iPhone and Android users.
Apple’s decision comes amid pressure from regulators and competitors like Google and Samsung. It also comes as RCS has continued to develop and become a more mature platform than it once was.
Love to see Apple being forced into making good decisions against their will.
I’m hoping that they also force Google to do the same. Pushing for a universal RCS E2E encryption standard is great. I’m sick of Google saying RCS is the open alternative to iMessage, when key things like their E2EE implementation are not open at all.
What kind of openness are you hoping for? Google has built their solution with a bunch of already open pieces.
RCS + Signal protocol + MLS
https://www.androidauthority.com/google-messages-mls-3346918/
https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/20/23801536/google-messages-app-mls-support-announce
@Ghostalmedia
The Signal protocol and MLS are useless without access to the key servers.
WhatsApp is also basically Signal’s protocol, but writing your own WhatsApp client is still very difficult. Without a documented implementation, you’ll still be reverse engineering Google’s solution if you want to inter-operate. Apple will easily be able to get the necessary documentation from Google, but right now that openness is vague and noncommittal.
Google said they were moving MLS into Android’s code, but every article says Google “announces” or “claims” or “promises”. When it comes to the actual source code, there’s nothing public out there right now.
Accessing the keys from the server isn’t really a mystery or hidden. It’s technically possible for Apple to write software to query servers run by Google as well as any servers they created for themselves.
You don’t need implementation source code when you have open standards already.
WhatsApp actually used Signal’s development team to rollout the Signal protocol for them, but that app is still untrustworthy.
@skullgiver
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Here are the links to the documentation for these standards:
MLS - https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/mls/documents/
Signal Protocol - https://www.signal.org/docs/
RCS - https://www.gsma.com/futurenetworks/rcs/universal-profile/ & https://www.gsma.com/futurenetworks/resources/rcs-up-2-4-uni/
@skullgiver
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