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Comment on Nothing Phone builds a blue bubble iMessage bridge while Google and Apple fight over RCS

I predict one of two outcomes once Apple becomes aware of this. Either they’ll modify the iMessage protocol to break Nothing Phones compatibility, or they’ll sue Nothing Phone for violating some kind of IP law. Apple absolutely wants to maintain their walled garden and letting a non-Apple product transparently interact on equal footing with Apple products runs counter to that.

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gregorum@lemm.ee ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Outcome 3: they buy whatever company is responsible for creating this compatibility layer, integrate it so they can skate past several international regulations trying to open iMessage, and declare victory.

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- nuzzlerat@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Why would they buy a company that is using a workaround when they could just make an iMessage app for android
  
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  - orclev@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Because that’s not their goal, they absolutely don’t want iMessage to work on Android, at least not without severe limitations. They want Android to look like a second class citizen. If they bought the intermediary company it would be with the intent of strangling it not expanding it. They’ll just slow walk the murder so that regulators don’t take too much notice.
    
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  - gregorum@lemm.ee ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    For one: it helps them avoid any adjudication that would force them to do just that while avoiding admitting they have the ability to.
    
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ChicoSuave@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
The messaging is provided by a third party who is dedicated to working on their iMessage compatibility. Apple has no reason to stop this because this is a good move for them in the larger battle between mobile messaging standards.

Google owns Jibe, the company behind RCS messaging found on all Android phones and an emerging, competent product from the only game in town that can compete with Apple. Google has decided to take this to the government level and push for a unified phone messaging standard, normally a good thing, but people their own RCS solution.

Apple is pushing iMessage as a protest against Google and their inevitable lawsuit to conform with RCS adoption. Android may win unless Apple shows it has parity and provides a non-legislative option: if enough people use iMessage then governments don’t have to make any laws or enforce changes. The company Nothing is using iMessage, which helps Apple prove there is both a significant user base, which would cause a burden on Apple and it’s customers to change, and there is no monopoly on iMessage or messaging in general. So if enough people use iMessage, Apple sees it as a good thing.

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- Jakeroxs@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  RCS is not a Google product, see en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GSMA
  
  Apple has been pushing iMessage for quite some time, but they want to keep it just to their platform and have made no attempt to make it open to other users. That’s Apples way and it’s not as a “protest” to Google lol
  
  That’s like saying they made the lightning port as a protest to USB standards, nah they just want their proprietary shit.
  
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  - nezbyte@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Google’s RCS service is unique in that it is not telecom based. I would advise looking at the RCS Wikipedia article here.
    
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    Jakeroxs@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Can you please point to me where it states Googles “version” of RCS can’t also interface with telecom based RCS?
    
    Because it seems from my reading the Google just has some enhanced features on top of RCS (like e2e encryption) when both sides are through Google, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t work with telecoms as well, unlike Apples walled garden of iMessage which doesn’t work with anything else lol.
    
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  - kirklennon@kbin.social ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    That’s like saying they made the lightning port as a protest to USB standards, nah they just want their proprietary shit.
    
    They wanted a new, compact, durable, reversible plug for their mobile devices. There was no industry-standard option that met their requirements, so they made their own. If USB-C had existed at the time, they would have used it (though as a physical connector, Lightning is still just plain better).
    
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    Th4tGuyII@kbin.social ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Do you really think that?
    
    Back when that would've been a good argument... but why then when USB-C did become a thing, and became robust and well-supported enough that even Apple used it on every other device they sold, didn't they adopt it onto the IPhone despite lightning being an inferior standard in basically every way?
    
    Why did they literally have to be forced by the EU to adopt the very standard they helped to create, a standard that was de-facto almost everywhere else?
    
    Because they wanted that sweet, sweet proprietary monopoly. Plain and simple, the rest is just excuses.
    
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    Poggervania@kbin.social ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Lmao, how is Lightning better than a USB-C? They’re both practically the same thing, even in durability. Apple might’ve made Lightning first, yes, but then USB-C came out like 2 years later.
    
    Be real here: Apple only stuck with Lightning because it’s stupid easy money for them. Cables are hella cheap to make, and if you make them in-house, you basically spend like $2 at most to manufacture 1 cable. Lightning has the upside of both that and forcing people into the Apple ecosystem because their old phone cables can charge the new phones.
    
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    Jakeroxs@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I don’t buy this argument at all, they could have contributed towards a combined connector with the usb-if, but instead they made their own proprietary connector.
    
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  - gregorum@lemm.ee ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Apple’s ideology behind not expanding iMessage to other platforms has been - at least in part - due to the security of the iMessage platform and how it authorizes senders and recipients. Apparently, Apple has low confidence in the diaspora of Android devices and just decided to forget even trying to create a client for Android it could tie down to hardware authentication due to not having a reliable hardware base. This was many years ago.
    
    I don’t know if this is still true or even necessary today, or if they’ve even bothered to explore it recently, but that’s Apple’s main issue. Sure, it also benefits them in other ways such as driving users to their platforms, but this is their main issue.
    
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    Jakeroxs@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Not according to the leaked emails… x.com/TechEmails/status/1589450766506692609?s=20
    
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- helenslunch@feddit.nl ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  Apple has no reason to stop this because this is a good move for them in the larger battle between mobile messaging standards.
  
  Uhhhh no? Don’t know if you’ve noticed but Apple is winning the battle between messaging standards, and they like it that way.
  
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Rootiest@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Nah, Apple doesn’t care.

These bridges like the ones found in Beeper/Matrix require a Mac server to perform the handshake with Apple’s.

As long as these servers require Apple hardware to function Apple is making money.

It’s roughly equivalent to running iMessage on your Mac at home and making an Android/PC app that remotely sends/receives messages to/from that iMessage app on your Mac.

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- thekinghaslost@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Nah, if it gets big enough, Apple will care. They literally said (based on court document) that iMessage on Android is a horrible idea because it’ll make it easier for people to switch platform.
  
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