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Google and major mobile carriers want Europe to regulate Apple's iMessage platform (www.engadget.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

203 comments fedilink hide all child comments

The long fight to make Apple's iMessage compatible with all devices has raged with little to show for it. But Google (de facto leader of the charge) and other mobile operators are now leveraging the European Union's Digital Market Act (DMA), according to the Financial Times. The law, which goes into effect in 2024, requires that "gatekeepers" not favor their own systems or limit third parties from interoperating within them. Gatekeepers are any company that meets specific financial and usage qualifications, including Google's parent company Alphabet, Apple, Samsung and others.

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago (45 children)

This feels a bit like asking MS Teams to play nice with Google Meet, or demanding that Apple’s office suite (Pages, Numbers, etc.) deliver the exact same product when files are saved in an OpenOffice format. This doesn’t seem to be an issue with any other products…

Apple have designed their product to work well with their devices. The Messages app still functions with non-Apple devices. SMS messages can be sent and received to anyone. The fact that pictures and whatever come through like crap is more an issue with the SMS platform than it is with Apple’s app.

Ultimately, Google dislikes the fact that there is a “green bubble” stigma (for lack of a better word) on Apple devices that encourages those who care about such things to prefer Apple devices. Because Google doesn’t have their own widely used iMessage equivalent, they can’t turn around and make messages outside their platform appear as red bubbles or something, so they are attacking from this angle instead.

Sent from my iPhone

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (26 children)

Google is pushing RMS, which they would control, and is designed to push you ads and usage metrics back to them.

I haven't seen a valid reason to get rid of SMS though.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Bingo. This whole case is designed to make Apple look like the bad guy whilst Google hides their real agenda of forcing Apple to use a protocol Google controls and thus stamp out Google’s competition.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

From what I've read, Google just owns the reference implementation. Apple could implement it themselves, but then lose out on certain non-cross-platform features, like e2e encryption.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I’ve read the specification. Google’s implementation is the only real implementation (raw RCS is basically a dead project) as Google have added a load of custom extensions to RCS that means, to be interoperable, you’d need to use Google’s (which I imagine requires licensing since it doesn’t appear to be open source).