I’m so happy to see someone else is finally talking about this. RCS, as implemented by Google, is distinct from the actual open RCS standard. Google added a proprietary middle layer which is how they get features working which RCS doesn’t support.
And that proprietary middle layer (Jibe being part of it) is why there aren’t a million third party RCS clients out there. Google must give API access. They are gatekeepers. And they only share keys with strategic partners (Samsung being one of them, telcos with their own app like Verizon used to have being another).
But in the end Google did what Google does best: fragmented a product. And now Google holds the leash for RCS proper. I bet Apple isn’t too keen to route all customer data through Google servers even when encrypted. Because it’s another piece that Apple doesn’t control.
Well, RCS was originally more fragmented before Google. Each carrier wanted to handle RCS messaging differently. T-Mobile made their own, but it only worked with other T-Mobile users.
Google was tired of waiting for all the carriers to agree and come up with their universal cross-carrier RCS platform, so they decided to come up with something that works with Google Messages, which is generally accepted as the RCS standard now.
I’m so happy to see someone else is finally talking about this. RCS, as implemented by Google, is distinct from the actual open RCS standard. Google added a proprietary middle layer which is how they get features working which RCS doesn’t support.
And that proprietary middle layer (Jibe being part of it) is why there aren’t a million third party RCS clients out there. Google must give API access. They are gatekeepers. And they only share keys with strategic partners (Samsung being one of them, telcos with their own app like Verizon used to have being another).
But in the end Google did what Google does best: fragmented a product. And now Google holds the leash for RCS proper. I bet Apple isn’t too keen to route all customer data through Google servers even when encrypted. Because it’s another piece that Apple doesn’t control.
Well, RCS was originally more fragmented before Google. Each carrier wanted to handle RCS messaging differently. T-Mobile made their own, but it only worked with other T-Mobile users.
Google was tired of waiting for all the carriers to agree and come up with their universal cross-carrier RCS platform, so they decided to come up with something that works with Google Messages, which is generally accepted as the RCS standard now.