After slowly phasing the app out in some regions, Samsung has announced that it will no longer pre-install Samsung Messages...

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/17792695

After slowly phasing the app out in some regions, Samsung has announced that it will no longer pre-install Samsung Messages…

  • helenslunch@feddit.nlEnglish
    1·
    5 months ago

    Your point isn’t necessarily reliability but availability.

    It’s both. If it’s not always available, it’s not reliable.

    It’s an interesting perspective to hear that the US appears to be so behind (at least from a European perspective of course) when it comes to messaging apps

    I don’t think we are, at all. Sure some other countries have a unified messaging platform, but all of them are corporate-owned, controlled, monitored, and not federated. In that regard it’s barely a step up. Ideally we would have something like email (but of fucking course not email, because its atrocious) that doesn’t require any corporation or centralization involved, where we could run our own or choose which entity we want to host our data, and would be interoperable across entities. Anything short of that I wouldn’t consider much of an advancement (except Signal).

    But again, that appears to be far more common in the US?

    The only people that I talk to on Signal are the ones that I’ve been able to force to use it. If they send me messages on FB, IG, SMS or whatev, I just wont reply to them. I think there are quite a few more that use WA but I don’t know because I refuse.

    Do you ever miss the extra features that web messaging brings, like in-chat polls, voice messages, etc…?

    Nice to have but not necessary and not worth it.

    I’m not sure how much of that RCS supports (because almost nobody uses that here).

    Much like iMessage, Google Messages is the messaging app that comes pre-installed on most Android phones, so people who have those phones use them. There aren’t many but there are some. RCS is pretty dreadful, currently. iMessage is by far and away the most popular chat platform here, and is largely responsible for Apple’s local dominance in the smartphone market. Especially among teens it is WILDLY popular. Apple is moving to add interoperability with RCS soon (thanks EU).

    There are phone plans available here that don’t offer SMS messaging anymore

    I’ve never heard of such a thing.

    I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if SMS eventually just gets phased out.

    Not around here, for sure.

    • the_crotch@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      1·
      5 months ago

      Ideally we would have something like email (but of fucking course not email, because its atrocious) that doesn’t require any corporation or centralization involved, where we could run our own or choose which entity we want to host our data, and would be interoperable across entities.

      Thats called jabber and it’s existed for 25 years.

    • 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚒𝚛𝚖𝚊𝚗 𝙼𝚎𝚘𝚠@programming.devEnglish
      1·
      5 months ago

      I don’t think we are, at all.

      I mostly say it because SMS is so ancient. Not encrypted, messages are storied by the carrier and can be requested by the government, etc… In that sense, even a corporate-controlled messaging system that offers E2EE would be a step up. After all, SMS is pretty corporate-controlled too, just different ones. But again, this is very much a European perspective, I can see why in the US this might be different.

      iMessage is by far and away the most popular chat platform here, and is largely responsible for Apple’s local dominance in the smartphone market.

      Ah true, iPhones are much more popular in the US. Quite interesting actually how that happened, iPhones aren’t all that popular here at all and Android phones dominate the market. I wonder why Apple hasn’t managed to copy their dominance here as well?

      I’ve never heard of such a thing.

      Looks like Tello, Cricket, MobileX, US Mobile and T-Mobile can offer it at least. Apparently it’s often marketed as a Tablet plan, which I suppose makes sense, but it seems a lot of carriers allow you to disable SMS in their web portals these days. I thought it’d be more niche in the US but it seems a more common option than I thought.

      It’s been interesting to hear from you about your perspective on this, thanks!

      • helenslunch@feddit.nlEnglish
        1·
        5 months ago

        I mostly say it because SMS is so ancient. Not encrypted, messages are storied by the carrier and can be requested by the government

        Yes, I understand all of that. I just refuse to ask anyone or be complicit in using a corporate-controlled chat platform. I’ll ask them to either use Signal or use my Matrix server.

        Apparently it’s often marketed as a Tablet plan

        Well I’ve never owned or used a tablet so I can’t comment on that but I don’t think people are putting them in their phones.