people forget that google has every interest in playing up the situation, and perversely this incentivizes them to refuse compromise or half-measures that might actually improve user experience. It's in google's interest for your apple<->google experience to be as poor as possible too, not just apple.
They absolutely can be. Apple could officially do what Beeper Mini did unofficially.
There's clearly a market of people on Android who would be willing to install an Apple messaging app in order to have secure messaging with their iOS contacts, and we know now that there's no technical barrier in front of an app like that existing.
Even if not every Android user installed that app, even if it was only a portion -- it would still represent a large security increase for a non-trivial number of messages sent from Apple devices. It would not require Google's permission for Apple to launch a messaging app on Android, nor would it require Apple to use Google's proprietary encryption extensions (or to even use RCS at all).
I agree that both Google and Apple have a vested interest in refusing interop, but it's not a stalemate -- both companies, individually, could take actions to improve security regardless of the other's position. It's not Apple's fault that Google has completely botched the entirety of RCS. It's not Apple's fault that Google is now disingenuously pushing a broken standard under the deceptive guise of interop. But it's also not Google's fault that Apple is forcing iOS users to use less secure communication methods for their Android contacts even in situations where Android users are demonstrating that they would be willing to install separate applications just to secure those communications.
Both companies have -- completely of their own free will -- chosen to leave the situation in its current state, and both companies could take steps to actually address these problems on their own if they wanted to. And neither Google nor Apple can blame the other for their failures to protect their own users.
paulmd|2 years ago
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/06/google-enables-end-t...
people forget that google has every interest in playing up the situation, and perversely this incentivizes them to refuse compromise or half-measures that might actually improve user experience. It's in google's interest for your apple<->google experience to be as poor as possible too, not just apple.
danShumway|2 years ago
They absolutely can be. Apple could officially do what Beeper Mini did unofficially.
There's clearly a market of people on Android who would be willing to install an Apple messaging app in order to have secure messaging with their iOS contacts, and we know now that there's no technical barrier in front of an app like that existing.
Even if not every Android user installed that app, even if it was only a portion -- it would still represent a large security increase for a non-trivial number of messages sent from Apple devices. It would not require Google's permission for Apple to launch a messaging app on Android, nor would it require Apple to use Google's proprietary encryption extensions (or to even use RCS at all).
I agree that both Google and Apple have a vested interest in refusing interop, but it's not a stalemate -- both companies, individually, could take actions to improve security regardless of the other's position. It's not Apple's fault that Google has completely botched the entirety of RCS. It's not Apple's fault that Google is now disingenuously pushing a broken standard under the deceptive guise of interop. But it's also not Google's fault that Apple is forcing iOS users to use less secure communication methods for their Android contacts even in situations where Android users are demonstrating that they would be willing to install separate applications just to secure those communications.
Both companies have -- completely of their own free will -- chosen to leave the situation in its current state, and both companies could take steps to actually address these problems on their own if they wanted to. And neither Google nor Apple can blame the other for their failures to protect their own users.
meepmorp|2 years ago