We're well into the process of converting the Messaging app included in GrapheneOS into a modern app. We'll be making a new release later today with a completely overhauled user interface written in Android Compose. We've made a massive amount of other improvements and bug fixes beyond that too.
I’m surprised it took this long, given how insecure SMS and MMS are.
On the other hand, I don’t think I know anyone that uses SMS regularly, so maybe it just wasn’t a priority? Pretty much the only SMS messages I get are automated. It’s more common to see people using either Messenger, WhatsApp, Signal, or Telegram (or iMessage in the USA but that’s mostly an outlier compared to the rest of the world).
RCS isn’t an open platform in practice. It isn’t even as open as SMS/MMS. It heavily depends on proprietary Google and carrier infrastructure in practice. We can start by replicating Google’s approach and then we can work on only using carrier services for carriers where it’s actually supported.
It heavily depends on proprietary Google and carrier infrastructure in practice.
This is the same as practically every carrier feature though. Carriers are a pain to deal with and all their infra is proprietary, so usually only the big companies like Google and Apple have the motivation to integrate with them and build out new services.
RCS planned, I’m all for it
I’m surprised it took this long, given how insecure SMS and MMS are.
On the other hand, I don’t think I know anyone that uses SMS regularly, so maybe it just wasn’t a priority? Pretty much the only SMS messages I get are automated. It’s more common to see people using either Messenger, WhatsApp, Signal, or Telegram (or iMessage in the USA but that’s mostly an outlier compared to the rest of the world).
From one linked thread:
So yeah, probably why it took so long
To be clear, it’s not done yet. The past tense in the post title is misleading.
This is the same as practically every carrier feature though. Carriers are a pain to deal with and all their infra is proprietary, so usually only the big companies like Google and Apple have the motivation to integrate with them and build out new services.