1184
GrapheneOS is building its own RCS support to cut Google Messages out of the picture
(www.androidauthority.com)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2026
1184 points (99.9% liked)
Android
22112 readers
23 users here now
The new home of /r/Android on Lemmy and the Fediverse!
Android news, reviews, tips, and discussions about rooting, tutorials, and apps.
🔗Universal Link: !android@lemdro.id
💡Content Philosophy:
Content which benefits the community (news, rumours, and discussions) is generally allowed and is valued over content which benefits only the individual (technical questions, help buying/selling, rants, self-promotion, etc.) which will be removed if it's in violation of the rules.
Support, technical, or app related questions belong in: !askandroid@lemdro.id
For fresh communities, lemmy apps, and instance updates: !lemdroid@lemdro.id
📰Our communities below
Rules
-
Stay on topic: All posts should be related to the Android OS or ecosystem.
-
No support questions, recommendation requests, rants, or bug reports: Posts must benefit the community rather than the individual. Please post to !askandroid@lemdro.id.
-
Describe images/videos, no memes: Please include a text description when sharing images or videos. Post memes to !androidmemes@lemdro.id.
-
No self-promotion spam: Active community members can post their apps if they answer any questions in the comments. Please do not post links to your own website, YouTube, blog content, or communities.
-
No reposts or rehosted content: Share only the original source of an article, unless it's not available in English or requires logging in (like Twitter). Avoid reposting the same topic from other sources.
-
No editorializing titles: You can add the author or website's name if helpful, but keep article titles unchanged.
-
No piracy or unverified APKs: Do not share links or direct people to pirated content or unverified APKs, which may contain malicious code.
-
No unauthorized polls, bots, or giveaways: Do not create polls, use bots, or organize giveaways without first contacting mods for approval.
-
No offensive or low-effort content: Don't post offensive or unhelpful content. Keep it civil and friendly!
-
No affiliate links: Posting affiliate links is not allowed.
Quick Links
Our Communities
- !askandroid@lemdro.id
- !androidmemes@lemdro.id
- !techkit@lemdro.id
- !google@lemdro.id
- !nothing@lemdro.id
- !googlepixel@lemdro.id
- !xiaomi@lemdro.id
- !sony@lemdro.id
- !samsung@lemdro.id
- !galaxywatch@lemdro.id
- !oneplus@lemdro.id
- !motorola@lemdro.id
- !meta@lemdro.id
- !apple@lemdro.id
- !microsoft@lemdro.id
- !chatgpt@lemdro.id
- !bing@lemdro.id
- !reddit@lemdro.id
Lemmy App List
Chat and More
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
Sounds like you haven't met anyone. Or more likely, it's everyone not-you who is weird.
Genuinely nobody I know has sent an SMS message for at least a decade, who are you still sending SMS to in this day and age when internet-based messengers exist?
Ever heard of older people or just less techy ones? Guess not. I always find it weird when people get on some high horse about sms or any other tech topic. By the way you talk, one would think you literally think hundreds of millions or more people don't use a texting capability built-in to their phone. But you clearly don't think that. You apparently just have a need to "other" people who do use it.
Ps. You live in a world where people still use fax machines, checks, floppy disks, and AOL over dialup. People use old tech. It's not that crazy and much of it has to do with older people not liking change.
Look, I'm not trying to be a smartarse here, I'm genuinely interested in different ways people use technology. I am telling you that every person I know, regardless of age, defaults to using WhatsApp for communications; even my elderly relatives.
Ok, perhaps I misjudged you. For me, even younger people typically don't use other messengers besides sms. I've only ever successfully gotten like 5 people to install signal. The other most popular messengers in the us, Facebook messenger and Whatsapp, are probably much worse for privacy than sms, due to meta ownership.
Yeah I've got about half of my friends and family using Signal, but when even a single one refuses then the whole group chat ends up staying in WhatsApp. WhatsApp does at least seem better than Facebook messenger though, as it allegedly implements the Signal protocol so should still be E2E encrypted. "Allegedly", because it's closed source and run by the trustworthy philanthropists as Facebook who I'm sure are data mining as much as they can from it, but I think people would have found out if it was a total lie. Still better than SMS though which may as well be public.
Where in the world are you? I speak for the UK when I talk about WhatsApp being the de-facto messenger. How do people do group chats or send files if they're still using SMS?
Well, yeah, Whatsapp is e2e encrypted but also I'm pretty sure it's known that the app can/does use chat data on the client side. If they aren't doing that, they could always start someday because for the conversations to be readable they are decrypted on the device end for each user. And I would put nothing past Meta.
I'm in the US. Group chats infamously have this "green/blue bubble" issue where many iPhone users would have a group chat (automatically using iMessage) and then if an android user gets added, the chat gets downgraded to MMS I think and the android user shows as a green bubble. It's a weird cultural thing where the iPhone users (as designed by apple) think the android user has a crappy phone because they designed their ecosystem like that. I am sure overall many people use non-sms apps but it's pretty rare for someone to assume I use Whatsapp, they typically ask first. And people using signal is also rare ime. But I'm sure all this would be much different for younger people than me. I know Snapchat is still pretty popular and I've barely used it (hated it).
Wow, I've heard about "green bubbles" but I assumed that was something teenagers grew out of. Hearing that Snapchat is still around is crazy, I used it back when smartphones were still a cool toy and haven't thought about it since!
In the UK we've all got unlimited calls and texts (i.e. SMS) but MMS never became free. Or maybe it did (though I've not seen an operator mention it for over a decade) but by then everyone was already using internet-based IMs. WhatsApp had already become the main one before Facebook bought it, and you already know how resistant people are to change.
You'd think and hope so lol. But just a couple years ago my partner was in a work related group chat where that happened. Full grown adults chastising others for defiling their blue bubbles or whatever. Super silly but afaik still a thing.
That's super interesting concerning MMS messages still costing extra in the uk. My understanding of that tech is that it was just a wrapper around email. Each phone number would have an email address like phonenumber@mms.carrier.com and all the carrier is doing there is translating phone numbers to email addresses and vice versa and kinda hiding that it's doing it. I haven't really known if MMS affects my plan for a long time, I think those usually were included with unlimited texts for the most part. Anyhow yeah for some reason in my experience Americans usually only use Whatsapp due to having international friends or for large group chats that might have international folks in them. And signal is used frequently by more tech savvy people, but most "normies" I know would likely have never tried it. My parents probably haven't even heard of Whatsapp. It's largely a cultural thing.
Hmm, according to Wikipedia it seems like the sender uploads their picture (or whatever the MMS is) to a server, then the receiver gets a SMS with a link to the URL which is opened to download the content in their WAP browser. Seems you can also send an email to that secret email address but that's a separate path.
I did a quick check and my network doesn't even seem to support MMS anymore!
sounds like you live in the land of the free, I mean the land of forced to use SMS becausd apple NPCs can't be bothered to use a proper IM service
Sounds like you never have been to Europe...
I have and I'm not sure I get your point. I have an ability to understand how other people use technology. Which is aided by travel, not hindered by it.