I used to unlock the bootloaders for a couple of years on all my phones, 10 years ago or so. I installed cyanogenmod and used it the way it was supposed to: rooted. But then Google Pay came along as well as banking apps that actually did their jobs better then the banks' web sites. You couldn't use either of that reliably with a rooted phone. So now I am back to stock android and I am actually quite happy with it. I like the google services, including Google Pay. Also, stock android improved a lot since the early 10s.
Google Messages is a mess. It NEVER falls back to SMS if you lose data connection, making it very unreliable.
As a result I've had several messages fail, with no notice unless I open the app and see the "failed" message.
As a result I disabled RCS and the app and installed QKSMS and only use SMS. It's 100% reliable. For chats I use WhatsApp.
Add to that they are now blocking rooted users WITHOUT TELLING THEM, and it's really a pile of steaming sh!t.
Suchai needs to go. Google as a whole is getting worse under his leadership.
Even Android has stagnated under him. It should be way better than it is but he doesn't inspire creativity and excitement in the staff. They are all playing it safe, with zero innovation.
We did. RCS was made over a decade ago by mobile phone OEMs
Except now that everything runs Android and theres so few OEMs left, Google gets to dictate a ton of stupid requirements even though it's open source and runs off the Linux kernel.
They already paid Samsung to remove RCS from their messages app so that google messages would be the only major app with support.
Incidentally, it runs like complete garbage compared to even the OEM SMS apps of Android jellybean.
So when they go around making a hissy fit about imessage, I really don't care because I can't even use RCS without using their shitty gapp.
The current alternative is a data based app like signal.
Honestly how fucking dare they mess with communication like that, especially with no notice. I've been missing messages from my roommate and dad with no sign of anything being misconfigured. It's one thing for things to be inadvertently broken from rooting, but doing it on purpose under the table is disgusting behavior
They say that it's for reducing spam but then i read that in india they allow businesses to pay for sending unsolicited spam to the point that enabling RCS it's like stating "i like spam, please send more"
RCS is walled off by design, so that users are dependent on Google and their phone carrier. If they wanted an open standard they would have adopted something like XMPP.
No... RCS is a protocol (from GSMA) anyone can implement, Google just spearheaded it and developed Jibe to make it easy for operators to implement, but by doing this it means Google gained a lot of control of it and added their own features to such as end-to-end encryption.
I'm on LineageOS, rooted, and RCS is working for me. Is the block tied to the device safety attestation?
My device (somehow?) passes safety check, and I've had no problems with my banking app, Pay, or other annoying apps that insist you don't own your own device.
You can use Simple Play Integrity Checker on IzzyOnDroid (fdroid repo) or the play store. It also checks safetynet.
If gpaywallet works that would indicate 2/3 play integrity if your android is recent I think, so it might be unrelated to the api. 3/3 isn't enforceable yet afaik, too many legitimate devices can't pass it.
Apps can still bring their own root checks, but magiskhide should allow you to pass those.
Unless the app is quite nasty and checks for the mere presence of apps that don't do much without root or xposed, in which case there are also modules that allow you to limit what apps other apps can see being installed (really seeing installed apps should be a permission, but sadly it isn't on most roms yet)
