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Comment by schmorptron | Hacker News Reader

Sounds interesting, seems like they're basing this on the Signal Protocol again. I wonder if the ease of access for this will lead it to replace Whatsapp in Europe, which would just be moving from one tech giant to the next. Is there any chance they'll implement something in Android itself so other apps like Signal can use RCS to send messages?

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From the whitepaper it still seems to use RCS for the transport, just encrypting it and using a special mime type. I know that carriers have various RCS apps, but they likely have special access. Cross-carrier apps like Signal would require OS support for RCS APIs.

IIRC there are plans to add such APIs to Android. I've found old threads [0] that it may be included into Android 11 but nothing in the official docs [1].

So maybe it'll be added to Android 12?

[0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/UniversalProfile/comments/g6r4av/an...

[1]: https://developer.android.com/about/versions/11/features

Interesting, thanks for the info!

Doubt people will move from Whatsapp to Android Messages.

Whatsapp is deeply cross platform, which means it captures a much larger fraction of the userbase.

> Whatsapp is deeply cross platform

it requires a smartphone with android, ios or kaios. so, no.

Pretty sure the only one of those platforms that supports RCS is Android (with Google's newly updated default app, rather than any of the many third party SMS apps).

That's true.

how can it be true when almost everyone works on a platform that cannot run it without piggyback to a smartphone?

At this point, at least for me, whatsapp is less "messenger client" and more "private social media". So the usual network effects and userbase arguments apply.

I don't see myself dropping whatsapp anytime soon given that most my (global) digital social life happens on the app.

So Whatsapp being dethroned by Android messenger is like Google+ taking down Facebook.

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