Good. Everything Google touches needs to be forked.
For those who got too excited by the title: read the original messages from the GrapheneOS. RCS de-facto is not an open technology, there’s a massive amount of work and multiple steps are needed to get anywhere near the proper independent implementation. It’s gonna be amazing if the GrapheneOS team pulls it off, but don’t get too excited about the release dates and its availability for other systems (e.g. Linux).
To be honest, I’d rather they use the effort elsewhere (as a very happy gOS user). The number of people on gOS who wouldn’t prefer Signal (without phone number rego) / Threema etc. is probably vanishingly small, but that takes going up against the incumbents with heavy resistance.
There’s only so many irons you can keep in the fire. That said, gOS devs (sans drama) are freaking awesome, and seems to keep growing in number, if they can pull it off it will be a true coup.
That’s true on one hand, but on the other there are also family and friends with who we still want/need to communicate via the “normies” protocols, and it’s better to do it without explicit spyware on your phone (aka Play Services or Whatsapp). So yeah, it’s an absolutely ungrateful work what they’re doing, but huge thanks to them for that.
yooo! while i wait for mobile linux to be realistic for my device this is a win
Hopefully this work is able to be used to help further that as well
As a basic sms user, is RCS the reason my conversations now sometimes get flooded with messages like, “so-and-so loved this”?
Yup
Quik, an open source SMS app on FDroid, handles this already without needing a specific OSes RCS.
Unless there is something fundamental thats wrong with Quik and its development, I dont see why one would be excited about another vendor specific solution. Quik works on any degoogled android, not just Graphene.
I might try Quik again at some point, but to be honest I don’t care enough about sms messaging apps to go beyond the default one usually. I think I remember I stopped using Quik because at least at the time it didn’t have link previews, which is a hell of a lot more convenient to me than emoji react buttons.
Patiently waiting for supported devices expansion and no i don’t want them to rush, i just don’t want to buy a new phone to be free of Google.
I bought a second hand pixel 8 pro.
I get the vibe there’s not much intention to expand compatibility.
My current daily driver is an HMD Skyline and it’s been great thus far and repairability is good but it isn’t listed anywhere as being supported by alternative OSs.
The skyline has a locked bootloader that can’'t be unlocked by users.
Wasn’t aware of that… well shit…
They’re working with Motorola to make a device
Only phones that can have the bootloader relocked by Graphene will be supported. New Motorola phones are coming but they will be expensive. Get a Pixel (not 11).
That’s just one of the things required for graphene, there are a lot of hardware security features that are also required. Only Pixels (not Pixel 11) have these so far, but the Motorola phones will change that of course.
Yeah but can you really trust pixels? Google hardware, ewww. I would rather pay more for proper hardware
Google put out a surprising amount of documentation that allowed graphene to build everything they needed from the ground up. It basically wasn’t possible to do anything as secure and independent of Google software on any other model.
Ironically, the phone Google makes is the only option right now to get fully away from Google. Motorola is working with graphene to release a model that meets the main criteria, but it’s not out yet.
Pixel 4a is great and less than $100
Very much needed.
This has been missing for yearsIt’ll be a while I’m sure, but I’m here for it 🙌🏾
This would be great. Definitely one of the few missing features.
RCS is finally good now!
Think again
Is there a reason we can’t just all use Quik across the de-googled OSes? Vendor specific solutions only further the closed ecosystem problem.
While that is a good SMS app (in fact, it’s the one I’m currently using), it does not support RKS.
QUIK handles bare SMS.
Oh shit. So, grapheneOS is reinventing the wheel, when we have one? Interesting.
We don’t.
Dude, go read a book or something.
Meh, RCS is too little, too late, and archaic in design.
We moved away from hardware-based network identifiers in the 1980’s, and RCS requires a unique hardware ID. It’s fucking backwards.
I will never use the garbage that is RCS - it’s already dead, just needs to be buried.
You say that until you cant even text your family or friends because every messaging application requires RCS. In the US, almost everyone is using RCS or we are using Windows with Microsoft Teams because of work. We dont use WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, etc, unless its about traveling out of the country. Apple and Google really want SMS and MMS to kick the bucket but if GOS can pull this through, Im 100% for it.
The US doesn’t matter.
Besides, almost everyone in the US has WhatsApp for their Latino friends. And if they manage not to have Latino friends, they’re almost in certainly a racist pos
What the hell does having Latino friends have anything to do with what type of messaging services they use? Your completely missing the point or your just trying to start drama.
Because >99% of people in Latin America has WhatsApp. And their family too. And their friends too.
What a terrible comment
Honestly the best news I’ve seen in a while. It was RCS that drove me back to stock android. I’ll be switching back to Graphene as soon as this lands.
I like how the one comment on that article is a guy baselessly saying that RCS is an open standard.
It’s open as BGP. Public documentation, nobody will connect to you if you’re a nobody.
A quick search shows that it is technically true, though…?
GOS team is so ambitious and I think we kinda need it too
