Google Is 'Pausing' Work On Allo In Favor 'Chat,' An RCS-Based Messaging Standard (theverge.com)

An anonymous reader shares an exclusive report from The Verge about Google's next big fix for Android's messaging mess: Instead of bringing a better app to the table, it's trying to change the rules of the texting game, on a global scale. Google has been quietly corralling every major cellphone carrier on the planet into adopting technology to replace SMS. It's going to be called "Chat," and it's based on a standard called the "Universal Profile for Rich Communication Services." SMS is the default that everybody has to fall back to, and so Google's goal is to make that default texting experience on an Android phone as good as other modern messaging apps. As part of that effort, Google says it's "pausing" work on its most recent entry into the messaging space, Allo. It's the sort of "pause" that involves transferring almost the entire team off the project and putting all its resources into another app, Android Messages. Google won't build the iMessage clone that Android fans have clamored for, but it seems to have cajoled the carriers into doing it for them. In order to have some kind of victory in messaging, Google first had to admit defeat. Some of the new features associated with Chat include read receipts, typing indicators, full-resolution images and video, and group texts. It's important to keep in mind that it's a carrier-based service, not a Google service. It won't be end-to-end encrypted, and it will follow the same legal intercept standards. The new Chat services will be switched on in the near future, but ultimately carriers will dictate exactly when Chat will go live. Also, you may be persuaded to upgrade your data plan since Chat messages will be sent with your data plan instead of your SMS plan.

Comments

Why does it need to be carrier based?

[nine-times]

Maybe I'm missing the point, but why are we working on a carrier-based replacement for SMS at all? Building services into the fabric of cell carriers makes everything less transparent and portable, and opens opportunities for them to play hanky-panky with pricing and restrictions. In my view, carriers should accept a role as a dumb-pipe wireless Internet service, and services should be platform agnostic.

Could we just come up with a messaging standard that everyone can agree to? Get Facebook, Google, Apple, and Microsoft all to agree on a set of protocols and standards. The same way that a Gmail user can email and Office 365 user, a user of Apple Messages should be able to message a Facebook user. Why is that so hard?

As far as I can tell, it's not. It's just that all these companies all want their own little walled gardens so that they can abuse their customers, or else are suffering from Not-Invented-Here syndrome.

Re:Why does it need to be carrier based?

[gehrehmee]

It's called XMPP. It's an open IETF standard, and it supports federation in exactly the way you're talking about -- multiple organizations can run their own infrastructure, and talk to each other, just like you can with email. It's extensible, and it *used* to be exactly how Google Talk works.

The key feature it's missing is the lock-in walled-garden features all the major players want.

Re:Why does it need to be carrier based?

[Anonymous Coward]

Could we just come up with a messaging standard that everyone can agree to?

Good (no-brainer!) idea.

Get Facebook, Google, Apple, and Microsoft all to agree on a set of protocols and standards.

Whoa, stop. You suddenly jerked to 180 degrees away from the previous sentence. Those are the enemies of standards. Those companies are why you're not already using a standard. The only reason to invite them to the table, would be if you'd like them to sabotage progress.

Use a standard (XMPP). All the power is in users' hands. And then those companies can join the game, or they can be left out. But they need to be led; under no circumstances should you be asking any of them to lead, because they have reasons to prevent you from using a standard. They want you to use their app and look at the ads they were paid to show, and have your plaintext go through their marketing analytics. We've been through this before and it's part of the reason why people switched away from standards to proprietary IM where users are locked into using specific apps instead of having competing implementations using interoperable protocols.

You have to choose between getting what your want xor using those companies' products.

Color me surprised

[OneHundredAndTen]

Google dropping the ball on a project. Who would have thunk. Google has shown to be pretty good at two things. First, at launching products that are supposed to be kind of flagship, only to abandon them completely after a while. Two, at making sure that their product naming is as confusing as possible. The Google culture, indeed.

Because using standards is so 2000 & late

[ArhcAngel]

XMPP (formerly known as Jabber) has been around since 1999 and has most if not all of these features. Any it is missing can be submitted and added as it's an open standard. Google has essentially embraced its role as the new Microsoft and has begun their EEE march. Chrome has become the new IE6 with all of the non-standard extensions they've rolled out without so much as submitting anything to W3C for consideration. I'm now looking for alternatives to all Google properties.

Re:SMS is a useful "last resort"

[MMC Monster]

For me, the "always works" aspect is important. If you send a message and the receiver is a cell phone, they will get the message at some point.

That's much more important than getting it immediately or not at all (as is sometimes the case with Apple's iMessage). And Apple understands that. Which is why when iMessage fails, they give the opportunity to resend as SMS.