when they’re sent through iMessage.
Android users don’t receive anything at all through iMessage
Your whole argument is based on failing to distinguish sending from receiving. You understand those are different things, right?
Comment on Google and major mobile carriers want Europe to regulate Apple's iMessage platform
kirklennon@kbin.social 7 months ago
On the tech side, Android users also get lower-quality photos and videos when they're sent through iMessage.
Android users don’t receive anything at all through iMessage; the whole conversation becomes SMS/MMS. I suppose getting major, relevant tech details is hard for an outlet like Engadget.
lolcatnip@reddthat.com 7 months ago
kirklennon@kbin.social 7 months ago
There is nothing to distinguish here. iMessage is the protocol and messaging platform. An iMessage sent remains as an iMessage when received. Android users are not sent and do not receive iMessages. They are sent SMS/MMS and they receive SMS/MMS.
lolcatnip@reddthat.com 7 months ago
iMessage is the protocol and messaging platform.
You’re forgetting the most important thing it is to users: an app. An app that sends messages. Messages that can be received by Android devices because iMessage automatically sends over SMS.
An iMessage sent remains as an iMessage when received.
This might be true from a certain technical perspective, depending on what you mean by “an iMessage”, but it’s certainly not true from a user perspective. The user sends a message from the iMessage app and doesn’t care much whether it’s delivered by iMessage or SMS. Messages sent by iMessage are automatically degraded when sent over SMS if they contain media or use iMessage-specific features. Ergo a message is sent by iMessage and received by an Android device as an SMS message.
If all of the iMessage servers exploded right now, nothing at all would change in Apple to Android messaging because iMessage was never involved.
iMessage the app is always involved.
kirklennon@kbin.social 7 months ago
You’re forgetting the most important thing it is to users: an app.
iMessage is not an app. It has never been an app. It is one of the ways a message can be sent/received in the Messages app.
snowe@programming.dev 7 months ago
iMessage isn’t an app… you’re not paying attention to what they’re saying at all. iMessage has never been an app. It’s a protocol for Apple messages through their server hardware. Messages is the app, Messages can send emails, sms, mms, and iMessages.
someguy3@lemmy.world 7 months ago
So you want “when their sent [from] iMessage”? I think you’re being really pedantic.
kirklennon@kbin.social 7 months ago
They’re not sent from iMessage. That is the point. If you write an article in a tech publication talking about messaging apps and protocols, you need to get the names right.
someguy3@lemmy.world 7 months ago
From what I know the user is still using iMessage, they are just translated into SMS and sent out.
kirklennon@kbin.social 7 months ago
The user is using the Messages app, which launched with support for SMS and MMS. Years later, Apple added iMessage as a third protocol to the app for use when messaging other Apple devices if they both turn iMessage on. If you message with an Android user, it remains with the default SMS and MMS. Nothing is being translated or downgraded; it's just the original, default functionality of the app.
SinTacks@programming.dev 7 months ago
Low quality SMS. There are lots of things Apple could do to improve the experience of texting people without iMessage, lots of things built into the SMS standard that they do t implement.
fartsparkles@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
What on earth is “low quality SMS”? And what parts of the SMS communication protocols don’t they implement?
kirklennon@kbin.social 7 months ago
Basically Apple hasn’t adopted industry standard SMS improvements. There’s a whole campaign to try to get them to.
This is an advertising campaign to get Apple to adopt Google's proprietary version of RCS, which is not the SMS standard. It is, functionally, Google's own version of iMessage, running Google software on Google servers.
SinTacks@programming.dev 7 months ago
This is just false, it’s sent over carrier networks and the carriers decide whose infrastructure to use. Google is one of several options. RCS is an open standard and it is the industry standard for SMS. It’s literally why every other non iphone can send high quality pictures to each other. Apple not adopting it is anti competitive.
kirklennon@kbin.social 7 months ago
it’s sent over carrier networks and the carriers decide whose infrastructure to use.
The carriers never bothered to implement RCS; they just outsourced the whole thing to Google.
RCS is an open standard
That nobody uses.
it is the industry standard for SMS.
It's meant as a replacement for SMS. It's not just some new version of SMS that Apple hasn't upgraded to, which is what you were basically saying earlier.
It’s literally why every other non iphone can send high quality pictures to each other.
It's a messaging service used exclusively by Android phones. iPhones all support iMessage; Androids (mostly) all support RCS. All of those iMessages go over Apple's servers; all of those RCS messages go over Google's servers.
For what it's worth, iPhones have supported sending full-quality pictures to everyone over a legitimately open protocol since launch day. It's called email.
Apple not adopting it is anti competitive.
Google's attempts to legally force Apple to adopt its proprietary platform is transparently anticompetitive.
kogasa@programming.dev 7 months ago
RCS is not SMS and has nothing to do with the SMS standard.
lemmylommy@lemmy.world 7 months ago
What exactly?
sanpo@sopuli.xyz 7 months ago
I think you’re just being pedantic here.
I’m pretty sure they meant when messages are sent using the iMessage app - from the point of view of iPhone user distinction between iMessage protocol and SMS/MMS doesn’t matter.
kirklennon@kbin.social 7 months ago
The app is called Messages. The entire point of the article is to discuss the iMessages versus SMS so I absolutely do think it’s important to get the distinction right in this case.
sensiblepuffin@lemmy.world 7 months ago
But the statement is not incorrect.
(When photos and videos are sent to an Android user through iMessage), (Android users receive lower-quality photos and videos [via being downgraded to SMS/MMS).
kirklennon@kbin.social 7 months ago
The statement in the article is literally incorrect. You cannot send a message to an Android user through iMessage. That fact is at the core of the discussion and they got it wrong.