zlacker

>>quenti+(OP)
SMS was, in my opinion, the killer feature for Signal. Telling people to install yet-another-inbox which was only going to be used by their one privacy-weirdo friend was a non-starter.

Saying "this is a better SMS app" got people on-board and let them "upgrade" to secure messaging. That's why I started using it in the "TextSecure" days.

But, sadly, I agree with Signal's reasoning here. Mixing the two protocols was annoyingly complex. If someone stopped using Signal, messages you sent to them would never arrive - with no notification. And there's no obvious way to "downgrade" to SMS.

I was working on RCS a decade ago. I'm glad to see it is finally getting somewhere - but I'm sad it is at the expense of better and more secure protocols.

>>edent+X9
Problem is Signal people had really odd visions how to make basic functionality work. This isn't really because SMS/MMS are bad(yes they are).

But there are threads in their issue tracker where Signal people would disagree with basically functionality of responding to text messages on dual sim devices. "We'll always use the Signal registered number as default".

One part of this is a terrible(but working) protocol, the other is really weird product management where basic needs of the consumer are brushed aside with a "I know best approach" that doesn't really work when you're not in the shoes of apple and have the ability to just replace SMS altogether.

>>rjzzle+ib
Agreed. I remember when - years ago - they unilaterally switched all Android devices to use the Apple emoji. No consultation, no investigation with users, no reason other than they wanted consistency across their apps.

Took a lot of grumpy users before they backtracked.

I use and like Signal. I'm not smart enough to disagree with some of their technical decisions, but I wish they could have found a way to make SMS/RCS work.

>>edent+Kb
I can see why some people would want a toggle, but defaulting to Apple emoji seems like the obviously correct thing to do. I suspect a major reason why HNers hate emoji in general is because they see different images from what gen-z sees and therefore have a hard time understanding jokes that rely on how these images look.

>>NavinF+se
This used to be a problem but has been largely solved for the last 3-5 years. Emoji while slightly different looking are tonally consistent across devices.