Is Google finally managing its messaging mess? Instead, of a simple answer about how messaging will work on Android, the actual answer is as it ever was. (Deep breath.) RCS is the more advanced replacement for SMS and if the carriers and phones of all texters in a thread support it then you'll get chat-like features like typing indicators and bigger attachments. But there's no real way to know whether or not you'll be getting RCS or plain old SMS until you open up a chat window with one or several people and then wait to see what you get. If your carrier doesn't support RCS, you can still get it via Android Messages and let Google handle RCS for you, but it will still fall back gracefully to SMS or MMS. In any case, none of these solutions offer truly end-to-end encryption and there's no indication Apple is even faintly interested in supporting it on the iPhone. Good grief. And yet, I'm going to take a run at that football. Because while I don't think there's going to be a simple answer, I do see signs that Google is making tangible progress towards better answers. The most recent news is that T-Mobile will finally begin supporting proper cross-carrier RCS messaging via the "Universal Profile." Until now, T-Mobile could technically say it supported RCS but in reality it only worked between certain T-Mobile phones. If you're reading this and are an Android user, chances you think this whole thing is moot because Google is already providing RCS services to anybody who wants them via its Android Messages app. But the most common Android phones are Samsung phones and Samsung ships its own texting app by default. And most people just use the default. So T-Mobile figuring out how to get its RCS to talk to Google's RCS via the globally accepted default is meaningful progress. That doesn't mean we don't have more confusion in store. Last year the major US carriers signed on to a joint agreement called the Cross Carrier Messaging Initiative that was designed to do the thing Google had been asking them to do all along: support RCS Universal Profile. What does T-Mobile's announcement mean for the CCMI? Stay tuned I guess! All of this RCS interconnect confusion and politicking would just be a morbid fascination of mine if it weren't for the fact that it all has direct and tangible effects on Android users' real lived experiences with text messaging. So while I apologize for belaboring the minutiae, I am doing so to make a point: even though you're paying a monthly bill, your needs are not the priority for your mobile carrier. It's much more important in the boardrooms of these carriers to make sure they're not accidentally giving up anything to another major tech company than it is to move more quickly towards the correct solution. That's not to absolve Google, but as its CEO Sundar Pichai told me in our interview earlier this month, "RCS is where we are like United Nations. We try to herd a bunch of people." Google is committed to keeping Android at least somewhat neutral in the tug of war between carriers and Google itself. That's why progress is so slow. But all of this is just a new version of the SMS status quo, honestly, because RCS by default is not end-to-end encrypted. Unlike iMessage and Signal, your texts are not as private as they could be. Apparently that might change, as an internal dogfooding build of Android messages has a bunch of strings and settings for end-to-end encryption. As it promised last July, Google is clearly working on some kind of solution. What will that solution look like? We're still a little too early to say, but if I had to guess I'd say it will be something that's available for people who use Google's Android Messages app, but if anybody in the texting chain doesn't it'll fall back to regular RCS or even SMS. See, the way RCS works is your app sends a ping to the other phones to ask whether it too can do RCS in a process called "capability exchange." If both apps support RCS, then you're off to the races. There's no technical reason that capability exchange couldn't also include a "hey do you support end-to-end encryption?" message, too. Maybe it will be more broad-based than that and become part of the official GSMA Universal Profile spec, such that apps like Samsung Messages will also work with it. But if I had to guess, I'd say Google's going with the minimum viable product. Or maybe that's just what I hope Google is doing, because the fastest way to create pressure is to show real consumer demand. Right now, iMessage users have the option for secure, end-to-end encrypted messages when they text other iPhone users, built right into the default experience. If Google comes through with encrypted messaging in Android Messages, it'll have the same option for Android users when they text other Android Message users — again, built right into the default. It would be nice if I didn't need to add so many provisos to those sentences. It would be really nice if, as they have done with exposure tracing, Apple and Google could work together to create a system that protects user privacy in messaging as well. If Google actually enables end-to-end encryption, who will be holding the secure messaging football? Google? The carriers? Apple? All I know is I'm standing here under a leafless tree, a determined glint in my eye, getting ready to take another run at it again. Knowing full well that one of them is definitely going to yank it away. Rats. | 
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