Just "Chat": how Google wants to replace SMS with Android
Google is preparing a kind of response to the service iMessage, which is so used to users of the iPhone. The company has teamed up with mobile operators to promote new messaging technology. It will work on most Android devices.
What now?
At the moment, Google has four applications for communication. The Hangouts service reoriented to the corporate segment some time ago. For ordinary users, they created a video chat Duo, which unexpectedly shot and is popular even among iPhone owners - they account for a quarter of calls. But the messenger Google Allo with the "smart" Assistant did not live up to expectations. For a year and a half it was downloaded to Google Play less than 50 million times, while the WhatsApp audience already exceeds 1.5 billion users.
Google decided to admit defeat, and now almost the entire Allo team switched to Android Messages. This is the standard Chat application with chat support, as the company called messaging based on Rich Communication Services (RCS).
SMS on steroids
Group chats in Android Messaging
RCS supports dialing and reading indicators and besides text it allows you to send high-resolution images and video. Also there are group chats. Tariffication is based on the traffic consumed. If the interlocutor does not have access to the Internet or the standard is not supported by the device / operator, the messages are delivered in the form of ordinary SMS.
The technology itself appeared in 2007, but since its implementation differed from operator to operator, no one took RCS seriously. Google in turn puts on a standardized version of the Universal Profile , which already plans to support more than 50 operators, including VimpelCom / Veon (Kyivstar and Beeline), Tele2, Vodafone and Turkcell (which owns lifecell):
This is not your messenger
"Chat" is not a Google service and does not use end-to-end encryption. It is a service of a cellular operator that can store messages on its server and provide special services with access to these data. That is, the maintenance rules are identical to SMS. The advantage of RCS is that the technology works out of the box in a standard messaging application, but it's not a replacement for WhatsApp or Telegram.
On its side, Google also plans to create a web interface for messaging, but it will only complement the mobile application, as in the case of Allo:
When to expect?
Chat will start working in the US until the end of 2018, there is no information on other countries. Perhaps, over time, the initiative will support Apple, but so far the company's plans for this are unknown.
Not all smartphone manufacturers use the Google messaging application today, but nobody forbids embedding Chat into their versions. In addition, users can download Android Messages themselves in the store .
Source: The Verge
