What is the perfect sms messaging service around?

[Milo Williamson]

I tried Chomp, it felt pretty good up until my girl did not get her text, I tried Textra but the photos will not load onto a message plethora.
VSM I am highly against, so is there a sms that can do all three?

- send and receive text in a heartbeat without a stop sign beaming up to each message?


- Also send images without the stop sign on it and said "This has been on your forward, would you let it flow?"

I want one that can become a custom notifications, and the colors of the bg, with each string of text being customizer,
Not looking for Go launchers either.

 

[AugieTN]

SMS is being replaced with RCS (Rich Communication Services)

 

[Dannydet]

YAATA - SMS/MMS messaging - Apps on Google Play

YAATA is powerful SMS/MMS app. It's fast, easy to use and fully configurable.

play.google.com

 

[Hadron]

SMS is being replaced with RCS (Rich Communication Services)

Well, not really. RCS only works between android phones, just like iMessage only works between Apple devices, so neither actually replaces SMS. In fact it's even more like iMessage because just as iMessage is hosted by Apple, RCS is hosted by Google (it's actually an open protocol, and not invented by Google, but so few networks wanted to spend money on upgrading their systems to support it that Google host the service themselves). So while the original idea was that this would be a universal replacement for SMS, it's now become just another proprietary messaging service run by a single company, except that the app, Google Messages, is pre-installed on most Android phones - again, very much like iMessage.

(In fact one thing that bothers me about it is that as far as I know the only 2 apps that support it are Google Messages and Samsung Messages, and from what I've read that's because Google restrict the API (Samsung presumably getting special treatment because of their size in the Android market). Which makes me wonder why? Because if their interest was in making RCS a success they'd encourage third party apps to support it rather than preventing them, but instead they seem to want to make people use their app even if that reduces RCS takeup, or forces other apps out, and that leaves a bad taste with me.)

All SMS apps are just interfaces to the same service (unless you also want to do RCS). So things like speed of notification will be the same for all apps. Things like "stop signs" will be controlled by a setting in the app - I've never seen one for an SMS (I don't use MMS, i.e. pictures in text messages, because the quality is the worst of any message protocol while in the UK they charge absurd amounts to send MMS, and an expensive way of sending bad quality pictures makes no sense to me).

To be honest, different SMS apps have different appearances, can have different options for what they put in a notification, and can be faster or slower when scrolling through lists of messages, but I've never found any difference as far as sending and receiving go.

 

[Dannydet]

There is no perfect sms messaging app.
There's too many variables, from cellular signal, location, personal preferences, and each individual app.
Trail and error until you find the one that works the best, really.

 

[AugieTN]

@Hadron Glad you posted that, it gave me the chance to do some reading on it.

 

[The_Chief]

I used Pulse for a long time, and it's great for use on multiple platforms. Since Link to Windows actually works now, I decided to shift back to Samsung Messages. After reading about it, I switched to Google Messages a couple of days ago... other than some basic spam protection, I'm not impressed. Its lack of features or customization make me wonder what the fuss is all about.

 

[AugieTN]

I have a friend who is a Google Geek. To him if it's not Google it sucks. A few years back a text message I sent to him wasn't in the RCS mode, of course he noticed it and thought I turned it off. I didn't even know what RCS was at that time. He explained RCS to me as the future, the bees knees.

 

[The_Chief]

So are UFS microSD cards... remember the big deal about microSD slots converting to Universal Flash Storage? Huge capacities! Fast read/write speeds! MicroSD slots have all but disappeared! RCS may be the bee's knees: but if there aren't enough bees around, what good are they? Until all messaging services use RCS, it's all hat & no cattle (as they say in Texas).

 

[Hadron]

The funny thing is that the RCS protocol dates back to about 2007, and was devised by the GSMA (same outfit who originally specified SMS). But the networks didn't implement it (would cost money, and they presumably decided they were fine with what they had). Google tried pushing it late last decade, with the intention of having a modern messaging system available out of the box across platforms. Apple refused to support it, because if there was something equivalent to iMessage that worked on all phones then they'd lose one of their lock-ins for their users. And without that support even with Google pushing it most networks were reluctant to spend money on implementing it, so its adoption was very limited. So after a couple of years of promoting it with limited results Google decided to host an RCS service themselves, which means that dedicated network support is no longer needed and so it's available to almost all Android devices.

But the result is that rather than being a universal advanced message system as originally intended, available to anyone and not owned by any one company (like SMS or MMS), it's actually become a proprietary message system operated by one company - just like iMessage, WhatsApp, Signal, FB Messenger or whatever. It differs from the third party services in that it only works on one platform, is operated by the owner of that platform, and comes pre-installed on most devices running that platform, which means that it really is best thought of as a Google/Android version of iMessage.

(I watched this story closely, because if the original vision of a universal advanced messaging service had happened then it would have been a real positive development. But both Google's motivation (undermining Apple's lock-in) and Apple's (preserving that lock-in) were so clear that it probably never had a chance. It would have been interesting to see what would have happened if the initiative had come from elsewhere, e.g. the standards body mandating it as part of 4G or 5G (because RCS is older than 4G) - that would have made it harder to defend the walled garden. But as it is it's just another story of corporate self-interest taking precedence over the interests of their customers, with the only winners being the third party services who would have lost many of their users - or been forced to upgrade their offerings - had this gone ahead in the way it was intended.)

 

[mikedt]

I've never seen RCS myself.

 

[svim]

RCS being Google's text messaging protocol has a lot of baggage weighing it down. Google currently offers it as a free to use protocol but it still retains its licensing so the proprietary aspect is a limiting factor in actually being accepted as an Android platform default standard (Google's track record on supporting its own products and services is not a selling point, especially when it involves text messaging.) Add in that Apple has refused to include even cursory RCS support into its iMessage app, a very significant aspect that puts RCS in line to eventually just be another Google Graveyard item.

A decade and a half of instability: The history of Google messaging apps

Sixteen years after the launch of Google Talk, Google messaging is still a mess.

arstechnica.com

But getting back to a good SMS app, I'm going to suggest Simple Mobile Tool's SMS Messenger app:

Simple SMS Messenger - Apps on Google Play

SMS messaging and MMS messaging app for Android, send messages fast, nice UI

play.google.com

For several years I was a big Signal Private Messenger app fan but its management opted to drop SMS/MMS support because of their inherent limitations with current security protocols so I had to switch just because necessity. Simple's app has turned out to be a nice, no-frills, basic SMS and MMS substitute. I do miss the peer-to-peer encryption aspect that Signal provided by default but encryption involves the exact same app on both ends, so secured text messaging exchanges were only occasional anyway. (Most people I interact with over texting use different messaging apps so there can be no exchange of encryption keys to authenticate both the sender and the receiver with each other).

 

[Milo Williamson]

There is no perfect sms messaging app.
There's too many variables, from cellular signal, location, personal preferences, and each individual app.
Trail and error until you find the one that works the best, really.

So yeah looking for a way on not opped out on different photos though. Hmm...Like Error this cannot be sent.