Sign is starting to section out assist for sending and receiving customary textual content messages from its Android app after years of supporting the power to have them alongside your Sign messages, that are end-to-end encrypted and despatched utilizing information. The corporate says that in case you have its app set as your default SMS and MMS shopper, you’ll have to choose a brand new app to deal with these duties.
In response to a Wednesday blog post, customers may have “a number of months to transition away from SMS in Sign” and emigrate their messages to a brand new app. After all, the put up additionally recommends attempting to transform the folks you have been texting into Sign customers. Should you do use the characteristic (you’ll be able to test by going to Sign’s settings display screen, then to Chats > SMS and MMS and seeing if “use as default SMS app” is enabled), you’ll begin seeing notifications reminding you that you just’ll have to vary over quickly.
Sign needs to make it clear what its app is for: sending safe messages
The corporate’s put up explains a couple of explanation why it determined to make the change, however all of them boil all the way down to simplicity; it’s anxious about having two very several types of messaging in its app, one in all which is end-to-end encrypted and makes use of information, and one which’s roughly fully insecure and has a separate billing scheme for some cellphone plans. (Sign particularly says it heard from customers who bought smacked with excessive cellphone payments as a result of they despatched SMS messages once they thought they have been sending Sign messages.)
Not included within the put up is any point out of Wealthy Communication Companies, or RCS, the usual that firms like Google, Samsung, and a few cell carriers are pushing as a alternative for SMS messaging. It’s not like RCS would’ve solved the confusion, although; it can support end-to-end encryption however isn’t essentially safe by default, and also you can’t send RCS messages to iPhones, that means you’d both must fall again to SMS or simply not have the ability to message some folks in your default texting app.
Sign didn’t instantly reply to The Verge’s request for touch upon whether or not its app supported RCS or whether or not the adoption of it as a messaging customary for Android performed into its resolution to take away textual content messaging from its app.