At least the false pretence would vanish if both support 100%

What false pretense? They dictate two different ways of sending messages with different capabilities.

If they were functionally equivalent, why signal a difference? What's the benefit, you think? I'm not saying that they definitely would signal a difference, but in this hypothetical, if the color difference remained, it would be obvious why.

because they can’t support the same functionality. apple would add something new, they would want no constraints to what they can do.

> apple would add something new

Once again, I'm engaging with a hypothetical. Indeed this is how it would play out in reality.

there's two doors through which the message can leave your phone... the blue door and the green door. (Ignoring the SMS tiny door)

If the feature sets of the blue and green door happen to be the same for a time, that doesn't mean a message sent through the green door is "actually" leaving through the blue... The doors are actually different (even if the feature sets are the same (for a time))

We were (originally) talking about a mystical magical timeline where the two standards converge. You can make another hypothetical, where they converge, but only temporarily, but that's a new flavor on the hypothetical that was first posed way way back where the thread started. I'm sick of repeating myself, so I'll leave the musing to those who are more invested.

Branding. It’s that simple.

> If they were functionally equivalent, why signal a difference?

Equivalent does not mean the same. Sending an actual SMS can cost extra.

it's never going to 100%. can't play 8ball with an android

Never said it would be. Just playing hypotheticals with the GGP comment

What about when either changes? Do you expect them to alternate colour schemes as each protocol plays catch up or gets more features?

I was just engaging with a hypothetical - see my other replies to siblings in this thread if you need clarification. iDevices are my daily drivers, but I don't understand all the fanboys getting triggered here

it does leave the door open for pointing the finger for who's at fault when text groups with OS blends get all scrambled https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255769788?answerId=2607...

> It doesn’t matter if both support 100% identical feature sets, it’s gonna stay like that.

That's completely irrelevant. The problem was (obviously!) always about the incompatibilities rather than the color.

Not to Google. Green bubbles were a big social shaming issue affecting the sale of Android. This is all in the US only afaik. So in other countries with a similar iPhone market share there isn’t a green bubble social stigma.

That's false. The color green is irrelevant. If the Apple bubbles had been green, and the Android bubbles had been blue, still the Android bubbles would have been shamed. It was never about the color. It was because of the SMS/iMessage feature incompatibilities.

Let me spell it out: the arbitrary color lets you identify the ones who use Android. Some people think the reason for using Android is being poor. Others don’t want to be seen as poor, because social posturing is important to them.

Social posturing is important to everyone. You probably just socially posture differently.

I don't think it has to do with poverty. There are Android phones that are as expensive as iPhones. It was just because of incompatibility.

iPhone users perceive Android devices as poor. It’s naive and biased, but there’s at least some validity based on the fact that Android devices can cost anywhere from $100 for some basic model at Walmart to ~$2k for the bendy/foldies.

What most are saying is that there’s always been the perception that comes with green messages. When I was on Android (pretty much since the first Nexus all the way to the Galaxy Fold 4), I definitely noticed iPhone users avoiding SMSing with me or in groups, and instead using Facebook Messenger because of the issues that come with group texts involving non-iOS users.

Now that I’m on iOS, I’m aware of the differences, although I don’t particularly care since so many Android devices support RCS.

> Others don’t want to be seen as poor, because social posturing is important to them.

Then they should buy an iPhone if social posturing is important to them.

In all seriousness now: the green buble shows you that you’re sending SMSes which, based on carrier and/or country it can cost you, especially if you’re roaming overseeas where every SMS is 10/20/50c each.

Really shows how apple is only into privacy when it's self-serving.

How does it show that?

Blue bubbles don't mean privacy, and green bubbles don't mean insecure. I would presume encrypted RCS would satisfy privacy, and would remain green to indicate it doesn't support iMessage-specific features.

iMessage is encrypted. Blue means the “SMS” was sent over iMessage and it is secure. Green means it was sent as a normal SMS. This is super helpful for non-technical people that want privacy.

> Green means it was sent as a normal SMS

No it doesn't, and it would mean that even less when green messages start meaning end-to-end encrypted RCS.

What does it mean then? Genuine question.

Blue means iMessage, and supports iMessage features.

Green means not-iMessage and supports SMS / MMS / RCS features.

Presumably when Apple rolls this out, both blue and green messages could be end-to-end encrypted. It remains to be seen whether Apple will add an indicator for RCS (and potentially iMessage) encrypted messages. I could imagine them being jerks about it and not indicating when green messages are just as secure as iMessage, or they adjust their messages that iMessage is more secure/private because Apple trusts their own key exchange more than RCS.

Because it leaks the device type of your messaging partner.

As another commenter said: how? show your working?

You are at the very least letting this hypothetical scenario (that another random HN commenter posed) feed into your “damn Apple!” feedback loop.

Blue bubbles says nothing about privacy. It tells users which service is being used. It informs them about what to expect. Chill.

> Blue bubbles says nothing about privacy.

iMessage is encrypted, so it is pretty private. Am I missing something?

do you have evidence for this?

It’s the way Apple works, and their behavior so far has been consistent.

Blue bubbles are a branding thing, they wouldn’t share them with others. Then what’s the point of having the branding?

They do actually indicate a difference of functionality. RCS doesn’t support iMessage apps for example, not that those get much use.

But like I said, even at parity I think they’d keep the branding.

the issue is that it simply may not be up to them, at least in Europe. if the EU decides that keeping the blue bubbles contravenes the DMA, then the blue bubbles will go