The Evolution of SMS and MMS: From Restricted to Robust Messaging

SMS, or Short Message Service, has been around since the late 1990s, allowing users to send short text messages between mobile devices. However, with the advent of multimedia messaging, known as MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service), a new era of messaging emerged. While SMS was limited to text-only communication, MMS offered the ability to send photos, videos, and audio clips, making it a more engaging way to communicate.

MMS builds on top of SMS and includes features such as video, images, or audio messages, with each message limited by size constraints. These limitations can vary depending on the carrier but are typically around one megabyte, making it challenging to send high-quality multimedia content without significant compression. For instance, photos may appear okay after heavy compression, but videos tend to suffer from noticeable quality loss due to the small storage capacity.

Moreover, SMS messages often face issues with security and reliability, including lost messages and spoofing, which can be frustrating for users. In contrast, iMessage has largely addressed these concerns by utilizing end-to-end encryption, ensuring that messages are delivered securely and reliably. This platform also offers features such as read receipts, allowing senders to know when their message is received, and works over the internet, eliminating data constraints.

The benefits of iMessage are evident in its ability to send uncompressed photos and attachments up to 100 megabytes, resulting in minimal loss of quality when sharing videos between iPhone users. While iMessage has many advantages, there's a solution to most SMS and MMS problems that isn't tied to a single company: RCS (Rich Communication Services). Developed over time, RCS offers features similar to those found in iMessage but is available on any phone, not limited to Apple devices.

RCs enables high-quality photo sharing, video sharing, read receipts, typing indicators, end-to-end encryption, and even video calls. Many of the unique aspects of iMessage are now common across various devices, making RCS a significant step forward for consumers. However, RCS also faces some limitations and challenges, including potential incompatibilities with the RCS Universal Profile standard, which ensures compatibility across different platforms.

The main reason Apple is against implementing RCS support on its iPhone devices is to maintain control over messaging and create a more exclusive user experience. By only using iMessage for communication between iOS devices, Apple encourages users to stay within their ecosystem. However, this approach has been criticized for creating obstacles for families who want to give their children Android phones.

Apple's stance on RCS is further complicated by the company's lawsuit with Epic Games, where software chief Craig Federighi mentioned that implementing iMessage-like functionality on Android would simply remove an obstacle to iPhone users switching to Android. Instead of promoting a universal messaging standard like RCS, Apple focuses on developing exclusive features for its iOS ecosystem.

Despite this, many experts agree that RCS implementation is a necessary step forward for the industry, enabling better and more secure messaging across devices. By supporting RCS, manufacturers can offer robust messaging capabilities without relying on proprietary systems like iMessage. Ultimately, the future of messaging will depend on the adoption of standards like RCS, which prioritizes user experience and security over exclusivity.

In conclusion, the evolution of SMS and MMS has led to the development of more sophisticated messaging platforms, including iMessage and RCS. While each offers unique features and benefits, the industry is moving towards a universal standard that prioritizes user experience and security. As we look to the future, it's essential to consider the impact of these developments on consumers and the need for a more inclusive approach to messaging.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enback at google i o you probably caught google's jabs at apple for failing to adopt rcs but what is rcs how does it compare to what imessage offers and is it time for apple to support rcs on iphones let's take a look there's no denying that imessage offers a great experience most of the time it's not perfect but if you send a message from one iphone to another the additional features imessage brings with it offer a much improved user experience these include typing indicators high quality photo transfers over the internet and more the experience is made even better with imessage on other devices if you get sent a message you can read it and reply to it on your iphone ipad or mac now there are some issues with imessage i've had an issue where one contact shows up as multiple different people in a group conversation one with their icloud email and one with their phone number but these issues are pretty minor compared to the dramatic user experience improvements that come from the service before we go into rcs and imessage though let's talk about why these newer services are needed the limitations of sms and mms messages sms stands for short message service while mms stands for multimedia message service sms is the standard texting that's been around for decades it supports up to 160 characters so a bit more than tweets used to be and over 100 less than tweets currently are mms builds on top of sms with as the name implies multimedia messages this includes up to 40 seconds of video images or audio messages the commercial adoption of mms began in the early 2000s while you could send photos mms has some rather restrictive size limitations these limitations can vary by the carrier but are typically around one megabyte so in order to send a photo or video it must be heavily compressed photos well they'll probably end up looking okay at the end but videos yeah good luck you've probably seen quite a few videos sent to you that end up looking like this one megabyte just is not enough storage for good looking video there are also security and reliability issues with sms messages with many being lost and spoofing too easy so what about imessage well imessage fixed almost all of these issues as far as security and reliability imessage is a night and day improvement over previous standards utilizing end-to-end encryption as far as features our message adds read receipts so the senders know that their message went through and can see when the recipient read it and imessage works over the internet so data really isn't the constraint that it used to be imessage will send uncompressed photos and attachments up to a hundred megabytes that's why you don't have the dramatic loss in quality when sharing videos from one iphone user to another but there's a solution to most of the problems of sms and mms that isn't tied to a single company like imessages and that's rcs rcs or rich communication services has been in progress for quite some time some of the first phones to support rcs launched from samsung back in 2012 it offers many of the same features that imessage brought but in an open way they can be implemented on any phone rather than being limited to those of a single manufacturer rcs adds support for high quality photo sharing video sharing read receipts typing indicators end-to-end encryption and even video calls many of the features that were special about imessage are now commonly available on other devices and i'm not trying to say rcs is perfect it isn't if carriers decide to run their own implementation rather than just using google's jive backend it can be costly and if not properly implemented has some security issues a t's initial implementation led to incompatibilities with the rcs universal profile which is the standard implementation used by google and others that guarantees compatibility but it's a dramatic step forward for consumers especially when the alternative is sms or mms so why is apple against rcs apple hasn't implemented rcs support on the iphone and it's not hard to understand why imessage's features work well on iphones but throw an android phone into the mix and you can expect some utterly awful group chats with reactions sending us additional messages and the person with the android phone being the cause for the dreaded green bubble that's because the iphone reverts back to sms and mms when communicating with android devices this creates some additional pressure for those with android phones to switch over to apple devices if you want to send high quality photos enjoy group facetimes and not be the odd one out in the group message you need an iphone but if apple implemented rcs as a fallback for when imessage isn't available much like how sms and mms are integrated now it would create a better customer experience for iphone users and android users alike android phones and iphones could send higher quality pictures back and forth messages would have read receipts so you actually know that the recipient got what you sent them and group messages up to a hundred people could be supported but apple would lose some of that additional push to keep families and friends within their ecosystem some of this lock-in strategy came to light during apple's lawsuit with epic when software chief craig federighi said the imessage on android would simply serve to remove an obstacle to iphone families giving their kids an android phone adding rcs to imessage would similarly reduce this obstacle but google isn't looking to get imessage on android google just wants apple to integrate the new industry standard that makes messaging better and more secure for everyone and imessage still has its advantages the ability to use apple pay to send money back and forth and the imessage apps and games are still great imessage specific features and those with iphones can still send messages from all their devices iphones ipads and macs apple should continue to build its user base by continuing to innovate and create better devices rather than relying on a lock-in strategy that relies on pushing others to a worse user experience if apple wants to put user experience first rcs implementation is a clear step forward so what do you think do you hope apple will add rcs support to their devices let me know in the comments down below if you like this video consider liking and subscribing youback at google i o you probably caught google's jabs at apple for failing to adopt rcs but what is rcs how does it compare to what imessage offers and is it time for apple to support rcs on iphones let's take a look there's no denying that imessage offers a great experience most of the time it's not perfect but if you send a message from one iphone to another the additional features imessage brings with it offer a much improved user experience these include typing indicators high quality photo transfers over the internet and more the experience is made even better with imessage on other devices if you get sent a message you can read it and reply to it on your iphone ipad or mac now there are some issues with imessage i've had an issue where one contact shows up as multiple different people in a group conversation one with their icloud email and one with their phone number but these issues are pretty minor compared to the dramatic user experience improvements that come from the service before we go into rcs and imessage though let's talk about why these newer services are needed the limitations of sms and mms messages sms stands for short message service while mms stands for multimedia message service sms is the standard texting that's been around for decades it supports up to 160 characters so a bit more than tweets used to be and over 100 less than tweets currently are mms builds on top of sms with as the name implies multimedia messages this includes up to 40 seconds of video images or audio messages the commercial adoption of mms began in the early 2000s while you could send photos mms has some rather restrictive size limitations these limitations can vary by the carrier but are typically around one megabyte so in order to send a photo or video it must be heavily compressed photos well they'll probably end up looking okay at the end but videos yeah good luck you've probably seen quite a few videos sent to you that end up looking like this one megabyte just is not enough storage for good looking video there are also security and reliability issues with sms messages with many being lost and spoofing too easy so what about imessage well imessage fixed almost all of these issues as far as security and reliability imessage is a night and day improvement over previous standards utilizing end-to-end encryption as far as features our message adds read receipts so the senders know that their message went through and can see when the recipient read it and imessage works over the internet so data really isn't the constraint that it used to be imessage will send uncompressed photos and attachments up to a hundred megabytes that's why you don't have the dramatic loss in quality when sharing videos from one iphone user to another but there's a solution to most of the problems of sms and mms that isn't tied to a single company like imessages and that's rcs rcs or rich communication services has been in progress for quite some time some of the first phones to support rcs launched from samsung back in 2012 it offers many of the same features that imessage brought but in an open way they can be implemented on any phone rather than being limited to those of a single manufacturer rcs adds support for high quality photo sharing video sharing read receipts typing indicators end-to-end encryption and even video calls many of the features that were special about imessage are now commonly available on other devices and i'm not trying to say rcs is perfect it isn't if carriers decide to run their own implementation rather than just using google's jive backend it can be costly and if not properly implemented has some security issues a t's initial implementation led to incompatibilities with the rcs universal profile which is the standard implementation used by google and others that guarantees compatibility but it's a dramatic step forward for consumers especially when the alternative is sms or mms so why is apple against rcs apple hasn't implemented rcs support on the iphone and it's not hard to understand why imessage's features work well on iphones but throw an android phone into the mix and you can expect some utterly awful group chats with reactions sending us additional messages and the person with the android phone being the cause for the dreaded green bubble that's because the iphone reverts back to sms and mms when communicating with android devices this creates some additional pressure for those with android phones to switch over to apple devices if you want to send high quality photos enjoy group facetimes and not be the odd one out in the group message you need an iphone but if apple implemented rcs as a fallback for when imessage isn't available much like how sms and mms are integrated now it would create a better customer experience for iphone users and android users alike android phones and iphones could send higher quality pictures back and forth messages would have read receipts so you actually know that the recipient got what you sent them and group messages up to a hundred people could be supported but apple would lose some of that additional push to keep families and friends within their ecosystem some of this lock-in strategy came to light during apple's lawsuit with epic when software chief craig federighi said the imessage on android would simply serve to remove an obstacle to iphone families giving their kids an android phone adding rcs to imessage would similarly reduce this obstacle but google isn't looking to get imessage on android google just wants apple to integrate the new industry standard that makes messaging better and more secure for everyone and imessage still has its advantages the ability to use apple pay to send money back and forth and the imessage apps and games are still great imessage specific features and those with iphones can still send messages from all their devices iphones ipads and macs apple should continue to build its user base by continuing to innovate and create better devices rather than relying on a lock-in strategy that relies on pushing others to a worse user experience if apple wants to put user experience first rcs implementation is a clear step forward so what do you think do you hope apple will add rcs support to their devices let me know in the comments down below if you like this video consider liking and subscribing you\n"