2026-05-14 21:00:00
Wesley Hilliard is a cool guy who I often agree with, but his latest for AppleInsider is begging for a response: RCS & encryption haven't fixed the green bubble problem
In Messages on iPhone, you can now use SMS, RCS, end-to-end encrypted RCS, and iMessage. Sure, sending media to Android is better, but everything else is more confusing and frustrating than ever.
This is where I ask you, dear reader, has texting people gotten more complicated for you since RCS rolled out? Maybe if you care deeply about whether messages are RCS or SMS, and maybe you're surprised when it's SMS when you were expecting RCS, but I'm not sure what confusion he's referring to. I'm Apple tech support for most of my family and friends, so when something is weird in Apple world (Apple Photos, a hit of liquid glass, etc.), I hear about it. I've not heard a single complaint about RCS since its roll out.
The simple act of texting has become a divisive and sometimes irritating aspect of using a smartphone. Whether you care about technology or not, if you're an iPhone user, you've at the least subconsciously reacted to a green bubble text.
This is where I remind iPhone users that this is a one-way annoyance. iPhone users are annoyed by green bubbles but Android users aren't. Apple fans never want to blame Apple for any of this but it does give big ‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens vibes to it.
RCS is the bastard child of internet protocol messaging that is still somehow tied to carriers. It is a dumb idea that climbed to the top of dumb ideas and won out as the most suitable dumb idea.
The idea this won out compared to a bunch of options or why it's a dumb idea is not defended in this piece.
The thing is, it only made things more complicated and frustrating for the end user, especially for those on iPhone.
Now, not only do you need to pay attention to what kind of message it is, green or blue, you have to know if it's SMS or RCS. iOS 26.5 throws in another wrinkle — end-to-end encryption.
You literally don't have to think about any of this. If you've been sending green bubble SMS messages for 20 years on your iPhone, you literally have to change zero about your behavior to go to RCS or encrypted RCS. If you're someone like Wesley or me who finds protocols interesting, then you may notice at the top of your screen that it says RCS instead of SMS.
Not only that, but this "beta" feature for E2EE seemingly breaks RCS chats for some users. This is likely out of Apple's hands and more of a carrier/device issue.
When using RCS, you have to consider the device each person is using, the software version, the carriers in use, and whether or not end-to-end encryption has been enabled.
You don't have that problem with iMessage. It just works.
One, it's beta for Apple, not everyone else. Two, it would be nice to link to some viral post about how encrypted RCS was breaking chats, which I have not seen. Three, there is the "this surely isn't Apple's fault, the only platform where this is an issue". Four, again, you simply don't need to care about any of those things…that's a core value of the Messages app. Five, iMessage usually works, but I think a lot of people have experienced sync issues or lack of basic features like editing which Google and other messaging apps have had for many years. Six, ah, this is an argument for closed messaging systems.
Google has its messaging app, sure, but it doesn't compare in features or implementation to Apple's.
It isn't as if Google didn't have the money and engineering talent to build a killer universal chat app. It just chose not to for whatever reason.
A couple things here. I guarantee you 100% that if Google did have Duo or Hangouts or any of it's iMessage-style closed messaging apps take off, Apple fans would be avidly against it and would be writing similar posts about how bad it is compared to Apple and why you don't want your messages owned by Google. Also, the reason we need a good, universal standard for messaging that isn't owned by a single mega-corporation is that we need a good baseline to send messages back and forth. iMessage is cool, WhatsApp is nice, but I think there should be a standard that goes cross platform and does not lock someone into one platform. This appears to be something Wesley and I just don't see eye to eye on.
I wanted to link to this article not to go too hard on Wesley but because I think it illustrates a common thing I see in discussions around RCS. At the end of the day, most of them are arguments that iMessage is the only true messaging platform anyone should use. They refuse to use Meta's solutions, they refuse to use Google's, they refuse to use cross-platform solutions. They don't want iMessage to come to Android. They don't propose a better system for communicating between iPhones and Android phones, they think SMS sucks, and the only way to make messaging between platforms better is to give up and just wait for everyone in your life to buy an iPhone. Making those green bubbles better in any way is seen as counter to the real goal, which again, is to get everyone to just buy an iPhone.
It's also complaining without suggesting any solutions. Ok, you don't like RCS, what is your suggestion for making communication between iPhone and Android users better? You brought up WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, but those are already solutions and it doesn't sound like you're using them. Somehow I doubt the message here is "we should embrace Meta," right? So what is it? What standard should Apple be using in Messages to make communication with Android users as good as it can be? What's the RCS alternative they should have chosen? Or are you actually saying that green bubbles should have continued to suck even more for longer? It kinda feels like that's the real argument here most of the time.
And finally, I can not stress enough how these "the RCS experience isn't good and it's not Apple's fault" are entirely people complaining about things bad in the Apple world, not in the Android world. This is like when I say that Gmail sync isn't good in Apple Mail or Calendar, when it's outstanding in literally every other email and calendar app I use, but Apple fans tell me it's Google's fault. Again, ‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens.
My opinion on RCS remains the same as it has for years at this point: it's not as good as iMessage, but it's better than SMS in meaningful ways, from read receipts to higher quality media attachments to typing indicators to better threading and now to encrypted messages. Given the simple fact I'm not going to get everyone I interact with to switch to an iPhone, I want the experience of messaging my friends and family to be as seamless as possible, and RCS gets me a better experience than SMS ever did.
I also truly believe that there must remain a standard for messaging between phones that doesn't reside with a single company. My iMessage account is tied to my Apple account, my WhatsApp account is tied to Meta, and if I leave those companies behind, I leave my messaging behind as well and need to start over. In the US, thanks to the Telecommunications Act of 1996 I own my phone number and can take it with me if I become unhappy with my carrier (I've taken my current number from Verizon to T-Mobile to Visible, and could go somewhere else in the future if I want). Unless someone is going to argue for a truly open messaging system, and these articles always argue for more centralized control over messaging, I'll take the best option available. Is RCS perfect? No, but I'm not out here letting perfection be the enemy of the good.
2026-05-13 20:13:29
Tim Culpan: Apple Doubles MacBook Neo Production, Orders Fresh Batch of Chips
As a result, it’s now asking suppliers to prepare capacity for 10 million units of the debut version of the Neo, up from an initial estimate of 5 million to 6 million, my sources tell me. Delivery times for the laptop have ballooned to as much as four weeks as Taiwan’s Quanta and Foxconn rush to fill orders from factories in Vietnam and China.
We'll never get it but I'd love to have a peek behind the curtain to see what the MacBook Neo does to unit sales of the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro. IDC reported that Apple sold 25 million Macs total in 2025, so if Culpan's reporting is accurate, Apple looking to move 10 million Neos in a year is quite notable. What percentage of those 10 million buyers are new to the Mac versus how many would have bought an Air (or even a Pro) previously?
My suspicion is that the majority of those buyers are going to be new to the Mac. However at least some percentage are going to be people who would have bought an Air previously because they just wanted a Mac and now that there's a cheaper option they just found a way to save $500. I know it's anecdotal, but I still think about my recent flight where I walked past first class and there were 2 Neos out and in use among people who paid $2,000+ for their tickets.
2026-05-12 22:00:32
This feels like the sort of post that can get some people to go, "well actually…", but screw it, I think there's something here. As Marques points out, in good light, the iPhone 11 and iPhone 17 are very hard to tell apart. But once you introduce more challenging lighting (night, harsh backlight, etc.), then suddenly the newer phones capture something more usable. I think a few things have gone on here.
One, for years and years, smartphone reviews have pointed out any detail lost in shadows or highlights as bad things in phone cameras. Phone makers listen to these reviews, and over the years it has moved them to deliver camera systems that move everything to the middle in terms of lighting, which is why our photos feel more sterile than they used to.
Two, smartphones have gotten so good at rescuing any photo someone might snap, that it's raised the bar for how bad a photo from your phone can be, but this "rescue everything at all cost" behavior it's also lowered the ceiling you get from the stock camera on your phone. I bring my Canon R6 to family events because it can get amazing photos, and sometimes people pick it up and snap photos with it. They all treat it like taking photos with a smartphone, and many of their photos come out pretty rough (they do get some bangers too, though). This is happening because they shoot with it like it's a phone. They point and shoot at anything, regardless of light or movement or giving the lens a quarter second to focus, and the photos don't come out how they want.
To be clear, this isn't a slight on my family members, I'm just trying to illustrate how smartphones have trained us to take photos differently and to expect a crisp photo with everything visible no matter what.
Three, I think the demands we put on smartphone cameras is impossible. We want some photos to be pin sharp without any detail lost. Sometimes we want motion blur. Sometimes we want the highlights to blow out. Sometimes the shadows should crush. Sometimes we want the focus to miss a little bit. Sometimes we want more color, other times less. I don't think we can have it all, but that's what we demand.
Part of the magic of those older photos we look back on and go "why does that look better?" is that those were literal snapshots in time from technology that was limited compared to what we have today. A disposable Kodak camera sucks compared to the phone in our pocket today, but somehow, it took some photos that make us go "damn, that's what I wish my iPhone took." Except, I don't think we really do. My camera roll is full of boring photos of things like price tags and signs and other things I simply want to document and save for later. I want maximum clarity on these, but then I take photos of my friends and family, and I want something different there. Oh, but on those family and friends photos, you better not assume I want motion blur when I don't or blown highlight, because then I'll complain about how bad this camera is on social media.
As you think about how to address those concerns, you probably get to something where the phone takes the most sterile photo possible with zero motion blur, collapsed dynamic range, and everything in focus. Then you give the user post-processing options to add those effects as they see fit. Or hell, "AI will solve this." 🥴
I think that fundamentally, if we want photos from our cameras to feel more like photos from "real" cameras or older point and shoots from our youth, we need to accept that some photos won't turn out quite as technically perfect as they do today. The randomness, the mistakes, and the luck are part of it, and I think we look back just on the old photos that turned out and think everything looked like that. I don't think this "some of my iPhone's photos literally miss focus and blow out highlights" reality is viable, and I don't even think people want it, so I get why this is such a hard thing for smartphone companies to figure out.
I was going to go point out how many popular photography apps on the App Store promised "unprocessed" photos, expressing a desire from people to get this, but this search actually turned up the opposite. In the US App Store today, there is one app in the top 100 free apps in the Photo & Video category that applies "vintage filters" to your photos, and there are 31 apps that call out "AI editing" in their name.
2026-05-12 20:11:21
I was checking out the App Store page for the new iRacing Connect App for the Vision Pro on the web, and I noticed that one of their first promo images was a setup screen with blatant display bugs in it (connect to my computer running on the sa…what???).
I saved the image to my computer to post something snarky, but it was actually something else that stood out once I had it in my downloads folder. This was a WebP image.
You can check it out as well, just use your browser's inspector on any of the promo images.
And just to note, developers are not allowed to upload WebP images. They must upload their promo images as JPEG or PNG. You can actually see that in the source URL, which is referencing a JPEG image on the server but is rendering it in the browser as WebP.
Is this a big deal? No. But as with all things supported by Google (looking at you, RCS), Apple fans have a really hard time coming to terms with the fact some of those things are good, actually, and while WebP is a good format for displaying images on the web, Apple fans have routinely told me over the years that actually it's bad and HEIF is the only new video and image format that matters. I don't have beef with HEIF, but while fanboys are battling over this, Apple is out here choosing WebP as the best tool for the job.
2026-05-12 05:39:49
John Voorhees: iOS 26.5 Adds RCS Encryption in Beta Starting Today
Apple announced that beginning today, users on iOS 26.5 will be able to send encrypted RCS messages to Google Messages users who are on the latest version of that app. Apple says that means a message that is intercepted in transit is unreadable. You’ll be able to tell if your messages are encrypted by a lock icon at the top of the screen.
Here's my regular reminder that if you didn't think Apple should implement RCS, you don't get to be excited about this. 😉
Seriously though, this is great to see start rolling out, and it will impact most folks here in the US since it works with Google Messages. Samsung recently announced that they were discontinuing their messaging app, and Samsung phones will now default to Google's app as well.
Support is excellent as well. Here in the US, all carriers that support RCS, also support encrypted RCS except for H20 Wireless and Total Wireless.
2026-05-10 22:21:38
A few years ago, a passion project from a few Zelda fans gave us a decompilation of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, which let it run natively on every platform known to man. Not only that, but it was able to run at higher frame rates, higher resolutions, and with some modern touches like autosave and updated texture packs. Or, you know, you could play it totally faithfully to the original, your call.
There have been some other projects doing these "decomps" in the years since, and today there is a new one called Dusk that is for The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, and does all the same things as the Ocarina of Time decomp.
For what it's worth, it's stuff like this that makes me enjoy being a PC gamer first and foremost. People with a passion are out there delivering amazing things that massive companies can't keep up with.