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Tag Archives: invitation
India’s government replaces ‘India’ with ancient name ‘Bharat’ in dinner invitation to G20 guests – Yahoo News
- India’s government replaces ‘India’ with ancient name ‘Bharat’ in dinner invitation to G20 guests Yahoo News
- India’s Modi gov’t replaces country’s name with Bharat in G20 dinner invite Al Jazeera English
- Mindgames To Trump ‘INDIA’ Group? Political Bomb Detonates On India India Today
- India or Bharat? President’s G20 dinner invitation sparks name-change row Reuters India
- India’s government replaces ‘India’ with ancient name ‘Bharat’ in dinner invitation to G20 guests The Associated Press
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Chrissy Teigen And John Legend Had A Staycation At Barbie’s Malibu DreamHouse, And Man, Am I Upset Because My Invitation Must’ve Gotten Lost In The Mail – BuzzFeed
- Chrissy Teigen And John Legend Had A Staycation At Barbie’s Malibu DreamHouse, And Man, Am I Upset Because My Invitation Must’ve Gotten Lost In The Mail BuzzFeed
- John Legend and Chrissy Teigen Take Kids to Barbie’s Malibu Dreamhouse TMZ
- Chrissy Teigen and John Legend Dress Up as Barbie and Ken During DreamHouse Visit With Luna and Miles Yahoo Entertainment
- Chrissy Teigen and John Legend Dress Up for Barbie’s DreamHouse Tour Us Weekly
- Chrissy Teigen and Shay Mitchell Recreate Barbie Shoe Moment — and One FAILS! Entertainment Tonight
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Champion LSU women accepting Biden invitation to White House – The Associated Press
- Champion LSU women accepting Biden invitation to White House The Associated Press
- LSU Plans to Visit White House Despite Angel Reese’s Alternative Suggestion Sports Illustrated
- Opinion: The white privilege behind Jill Biden’s runner-up White House invite to Iowa The Denver Post
- Sunny Hostin Suggests First Lady Jill Biden Has “Racial Blindspots” and “Unconscious Bias” on ‘The View’ Decider
- Angel Reese responds to Jill Biden, Braylon Edwards ignites the Ohio State/Michigan rivalry & snakes on a plane Yahoo Sports
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Fetterman says he will debate Oz ahead of Pennsylvania Senate election after refusing to accept invitation
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Democrat John Fetterman announced he will debate his Republican challenger Mehmet Oz ahead of the upcoming Pennsylvania Senate election between the two — though the date of the debate is unclear.
Fetterman’s commitment to a debate came during an interview with Politico, in which Fetterman, the current lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania, said he is “absolutely going to debate Dr. Oz.”
“We’re absolutely going to debate Dr. Oz, and that was really always our intent to do that,” Fetterman said. “It was just simply only ever been about addressing some of the lingering issues of the stroke, the auditory processing, and we’re going to be able to work that out.”
While it is unclear which debate Fetterman will take part in, he said it will be featured on a “major television station” in the state and will take place “sometime in the middle to end of October.”
DR. OZ DOUBLES DOWN IN PENNSYLVANIA SENATE FIGHT, SAYS FETTERMAN IS SCARED TO DEBATE OR IS LYING ABOUT HEALTH
Democrat John Fetterman told Politico Wednesday that he will debate Dr. Oz, his GOP challenger in the Pennsylvania Senate race, sometime in October.
(Hannah Beier/Bloomberg | Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
Following Fetterman’s commitment to engage with Oz in a debate, Brittany Yanick, the communications director for Oz’s senate campaign, released a statement claiming Fetterman had agreed to a “SECRET DEBATE.”
“BIG NEWS! John Fetterman has agreed to debate at a SECRET DEBATE. We don’t know WHERE. We don’t know WHEN. We don’t know HOW. It’s a big SECRET,” Yanick said.
“John Fetterman’s campaign is embarrassing themselves,” Yanick added. “Let’s be clear – Dr. Oz’s campaign won’t agree to a SECRET debate. It has to be a REAL one with REAL journalists asking REAL questions. Sorry John – imaginary debates don’t count!”
FETTERMAN SAID DEBATES ARE ‘IMPORTANT PART’ OF DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY
Fetterman’s announcement that he would participate in a debate with his GOP challenger in the race comes after he declined to take part in a debate during the first week of September, which the Oz campaign said was proof he was either not healthy enough to debate, or afraid to defend his policies. The Oz team said Fetterman’s refusal to debate was “insulting” Pennsylvania voters’ intelligence.
Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, the Democratic nominee for the state’s U.S. Senate seat, speaks during a rally in Erie, Pa., on Friday, Aug. 12, 2022.
(AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Last week, after Fetterman denied an invitation to a September debate and claimed he was “eager” to put his record up against Dr. Oz’s, Yanick questioned when he would be ready to debate.
“We heard John Fetterman won’t debate Oz in the ‘first week of September.’ OK, so when will he debate? He won’t ever say – not even in his latest whiny statement,” Yanick said. “John Fetterman’s campaign is insulting the intelligence of Pennsylvania voters.”
DR. OZ DOUBLES DOWN IN PENNSYLVANIA SENATE FIGHT, SAYS FETTERMAN IS SCARED TO DEBATE OR IS LYING ABOUT HEALTH
Oz took aim at Fetterman over his refusal to debate during a recent interview with Fox News Digital, saying that he is either scared to present his views to voters, or is unable to debate because of poor health following his stroke.
“John Fetterman has been ducking, dodging these debates, which is insulting to the voters of Pennsylvania,” Oz told Fox News Digital. “And he has to own the reasons for his desire to avoid a debate with me. Either he’s healthy, which he says he is, and doesn’t want to answer for his radical positions in past statements, or he’s lying about his health.”
Pennsylvania U.S. Senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz speaks during a Republican leadership forum at Newtown Athletic Club on May 11, 2022 in Newtown, Pennsylvania.
(Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
“Either way, the voters of Pennsylvania deserve an answer, and I think they deserve that answer pretty quickly, since the absentee ballots will be mailed out in the next two to three weeks,” Oz added.
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In February, Fetterman said in a tweet that debates were “an important part” of the Democratic primary for Senate.
“Debates are an important part of this primary,” Fetterman wrote in a February tweet, prior to the Democratic primary election for the Senate seat. “We believe voters deserve no fewer than three network televised debates – including all candidates who make the ballot – before major media markets across PA.”
Fox News’ Thomas Phippen contributed to this report.
‘The Invitation’ Leads Worst Weekend This Summer – Deadline
SATURDAY AM UPDATE: The bowels of the summer box office have been reached, with Sony’s new C CinemaScore horror movie The Invitation leading with $6M-$7M at 3,114 theaters. Like the late Andy Rooney, I get a lot of mail from sources. But in this instance, it’s about why it’s important to be gentle when covering the box office: We’re still in the pandemic, we’re not back yet, it’s not good for our business to be nasty, blah blah blah.
However, simply putting random movies in theaters without any great P&A spend doesn’t do the box office, or exhibitors, any favors. This weekend will rank as the lowest-grossing weekend to date of summer, with an estimated $54M for all titles (some even have it lower). If it makes anyone feel better, it’s not the worst weekend of the year. That belongs to Jan. 28-30, when all titles made $34.9M, per Box Office Mojo.
On some level, I get it: It’s late August. A majority of kids are back in school (Comscore says 32% K-12 were out yesterday, with 38% colleges on break), and Sony traditionally has had a horror film during this latter part of the summer. Don’t Breathe was a wonderful hit for them back in late August 2016, opening to $26.4M and ending its run at $89.2M.
But let’s be honest, the more you spend, the more you gross. True, the diagnostics here on this period vampire thriller at a 29% critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes and 53% audience score doesn’t warrant a studio to spend wads of cash to open it. But we’ve seen Sony do better with less: Their August 2018 movie Slender Man, which had a D-, 8% critic score, and 17% audience on RT, opened to $11.3M and had a 2.7 multiple for a $30.6M domestic end game.
Social media chatter on The Invitation wasn’t horrible at mixed-leaning positive, according to RelishMix, with “fans comping and calling-out Vanilla Sky, Ready or Not, Twilight, Meghan Markle and Jordan Peele films, too. Chatter wonders how these ingredients look right for a wild date-night vampire outing.”
Let’s get away from the pandemic excuse that people don’t want to go back; it’s simply about product. Disney proved that last year by opening a Marvel movie over Labor Day weekend with Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings to holiday record results of $94.6M. Great movies will get people out at any time of year.
Yes, theaters need that, that being product. But let’s put some umpf behind it if we’re serious about the theatrical window and the longevity of this part of the business. What’s sad as exhibitors’ Covid bailout money runs out is they’re desperate for anything, and are powerless when it comes to a major studio dictating that the first big franchise title of the summer, Halloween Ends, goes theatrical day-and-date. Let’s not be morons, that maneuver will siphon grosses. Enough of this widest audience crap between streaming and theatrical. Peacock is starving for paid subs.
It’s not like the PG-13 rated The Invitation is some older-skewing movie: It’s aimed right at the 18-34 crowd who’s attending movies right now, that demo repping 57% of the pic’s ticket buyers to date. Like the run-of-the-mill PG-13 horror title, The Invitation skewed more female at 57%. Those under 35 repped 70% of the crowd with diversity demos showing 44% Caucasian, 23% Latino and Hispanic, 18% Black, and 15% Asian/other. The Jessica M. Thompson-directed movie was accepted the most on the coasts and in the South. Seven of the top ten runs were in LA, which leaned toward Latino and Hispanic moviegoers.
And not to pick on Sony, but of late, yes, you, Lionsgate, are guilty of shortchanging P&A on YA film Fall, which opened to $2.5M, and stands at $5.9M, and with diagnostics of 74% critic reviews on RT and 78% audience score, along with B CinemaScore. With results like that, there seems to be money left on the table there. That pic could have potentially grossed more. In sum, let’s stop with the cutesy economic slide rule games at the box office, and how we’re profiting off less B.S., and really commit to theatrical. Can we do that, studios? Obviously, if it’s a bad movie, send it to to the home market, just like they used to do with movies like The Last Seduction II. Sending terrible movies to the home market isn’t some brand new business model.
Given the lack of product this weekend, MGM/UAR went significantly wider than anticipated on George Miller’s Cannes Film Festival premiere 3,000 Years of Longing, which, off of a 67% Rotten Tomatoes and B CinemaScore, is opening to $2.9M at 2,436 theaters. Guys actually showed up for this Idris Elba-Tilda Swinton genie romance, with 51% between 17-34, and 48% over 35. Diversity demos were 55% Caucasian, 16% Latino and Hispanic, 13% Black and 16% Asian/other. Pic’s ticket sales are from the big coastal cities, with AMC and Alamo owning the top ten runs.
But, hey, Amazon, why aren’t going wide on a Sylvester Stallone movie? When are you guys going to grow up, realize you bought MGM and start releasing wide theatrical titles and reporting box office? I mean, like the tentpole kind of ones!? Cherish and behold the theatrical studio you bought, don’t squander it!
Why in God’s name is the movie direct to service? The last Stallone movie Rambo: Last Blood opened to $18.8M. That’s a diamond mine by pandemic box office standards. I agree with Warner Bros Discovery Boss David Zaslav on this one: Why are you shedding the patina (and future ancillaries) of a theatrical movie by sending it straight to homes? Did it occur to you that perhaps more toilet paper could be sold off a title with a theatrical window than merely dropping it on the service? I mean, you have the billion-dollar cost of Lord of the Rings: The Power of the Rings series next weekend (the rights alone were scooped up by the streamer for $250M). That alone should trigger an early Christmas season for the marketplace site. On Rotten Tomatoes, audiences love Samaritan at 82%.
RelishMix noticed the online convo for the film, and believes Samaritan coulda been a contender at the box office, with fans expressing “absolute adoration for Stallone, everything that he represents in the film industry, and the heroic characters that he’s played,” to those who “are also intrigued that this aging superhero project is not a Marvel or DC production and that in of itself has fans interested in a unique way.”
The objective is to get people to leave their homes, not stay at home.
Top ten films for the weekend:
1.) The Invitation (Sony) 3,114 locations, Fri $2.6M, 3-day $6M-$7M/Wk 1
2.) Bullet Train (Sony) 3,513 (-268) theaters, Fri $1.54M (-31%), 3-day $5.5M (-31%)/Total $78.1M/Wk 4
3.) Top Gun: Maverick (Par) 2,962 (-7) theaters, Fri $1.35M (-13%), 3-day $4.9M (-17%), Total $691.3M/Wk 14
They have to get this to $700M. C’mon!
4.) Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero (Cru) 2,941 theaters (-77), Fri $1.3M (-88%) 3-day $4.83M (-77%)/Total $31M/ Wk 2
5.) Beast (Uni) 3,754 (+11) theaters, Fri $1.3M (-70%) 3-day $4.3M (-63%)/Total: $19.5M/Wk 2
5.) DC League of Super-Pets (WB) 3,284 (-253) theaters, Fri $1.065M (-25%), 3-day $4.3M (-24%)/Total $74.1M Wk 5
7. ) 3,000 Years of Longing (UAR) 2,436 theaters, Fri $1.16M, 3-day $2.9M/Wk 1
8.) Minions: Rise of Gru (Uni) 2,494 theaters (-160), Fri $670K (-29%), 3-day $2.73M (-27%), Total: $354.77M/Wk 9
9.) Thor: Love and Thunder (Disney) 2,450 (-305) theaters, Fri. $694K (-35%), 3-day $2.65M (-35%)/Total $336.5M/Wk 8
10.) Nope (Uni) 1,909 (-472) theaters, Fri $630K (-40%), 3-day $2.19M (-39%), Total $117.6M/Wk 6
11.) Where the Crawdads Sings (Sony) 2,216 theaters (-392), Fri $650K (-28%), 3-day $2.15M (-31%)/Total $81.7M/Wk 7
Washington Commanders owner Dan Snyder declines invitation to testify at June 22 congressional hearing
ASHBURN, Va. — Washington Commanders owner Dan Snyder informed the House Oversight Committee by letter that he won’t testify at their June 22 hearing, saying he would be out of the country.
It had been long expected that Snyder would decline to testify. In the four-page letter, attorney Karen Patton Seymour said Snyder was willing to testify but that the committee “is not willing to consider changing the date of the hearing.”
The letter stated that Snyder had a “longstanding Commanders-related business conflict and is out of the country on the first and only date the Committee has proposed for the hearing.”
According to a committee spokesman, “The Committee intends to move forward with this hearing. We are currently reviewing Mr. Snyder’s letter and will respond.”
Congress started investigating Snyder and Washington’s workplace culture under him in October. It also is investigating claims of sexual misconduct by Snyder, a charge levied by former employee Tiffani Johnston, in a roundtable session before the committee.
On June 1, the House Oversight Committee invited Snyder and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to testify at the June 22 hearing. It’s uncertain if Goodell will testify. The committee could still opt to change the date of the hearing as sometimes happens in less publicized situations. It could also issue a subpoena to Snyder.
Attorneys Lisa Banks and Debra Katz, who represent at least 40 former Commanders employees, said in a statement that “We, along with our clients, are disappointed but not surprised that Dan Snyder does not have the courage to appear voluntarily. We fully expect the Committee will issue a subpoena to compel Mr. Snyder to appear. It is time that Mr. Snyder learns that he is not above the law.”
According to the letter, Snyder’s attorneys responded five days later by asking the committee to provide more information about the scope of the inquiry. It also stated that the committee would not guarantee that the questions directed to Snyder would be limited to the organization’s historical workplace issues.
Nor would the committee agree to provide copies of documents that “members of the Committee intend to question Mr. Snyder about.” Seymour wrote it’s a courtesy that “I understand is often extended to witnesses at congressional hearings.”
The letter also said Snyder’s attorneys requested “basic information” about Johnston’s allegations — “such as when and where it supposedly occurred, and who else was present.” According to the letter, the committee declined to provide the information. Snyder has denied the charges.
The NFL also hired attorney Mary Jo White to investigate Johnston’s claims. The league fined Washington $10 million on July 1, 2021, as a result of its investigation into the workplace culture under Snyder.
The attorney generals in Virginia and Washington, D.C., are investigating claims of financial improprieties alleged by a former employee. The team responded with a 105-page letter with signed affidavits refuting the charges.
Mexico’s president snubs Biden invitation to summit
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said officials have been speaking to López Obrador and other Latin American leaders for more than a month and the administration was not caught off guard by the announcement. But she said Biden nonetheless felt compelled to take a “principled stand” on the human rights abuses of the three countries.
López Obrador’s move reflects the challenges of Biden’s oft-stated view that the world is facing a broad confrontation between democracies and dictatorships.
In an effort to offset the announcement, Jean-Pierre said López Obrador would visit Washington in July to meet with Biden directly. She also praised Mexico’s contributions to this week’s summit — which focuses on issues such as democracy, clean energy, politics, migration and recovery from the coronavirus pandemic — and noted that the country’s foreign minister would attend.
“It is important to acknowledge that there are a range of views on this question in our hemisphere, as there are in the United States,” Jean-Pierre said. “The president’s principled position is that we do not believe that dictators should be invited, which is the reason that the [Mexican] president has decided not to attend.”
During the summit, which officially started Monday, leaders and others from North, Central and South America, and the Caribbean plan to explore economic and general goals for the Western Hemisphere. But the meeting is also a test of U.S. influence in the region, particularly as Biden’s foreign policy has been largely focused on Europe and Asia.
He has devoted much of his attention to Ukraine, which is struggling to defend itself against the Russian invasion. And he visited Japan and South Korea last month in an effort to blunt the growing economic and military might of China.
Biden has sought to stress that his presidency marks a step away from “America First” polices under President Donald Trump that treated relationships, particularly in Latin America, as more transactional. He has sought to strengthen ties with countries that share American values.
Still, that can be a tricky criterion. Biden held a “Summit for Democracy” in December, for example, but invited some countries like Pakistan and the Philippines that hardly seemed to qualify.
The United States is hosting the Summit of the Americas for the first time since its inception in 1994 and, as host, has wide leeway over the official invitees. But the summit has exposed both regional disputes and bilateral tensions.
Several Latin American leaders had already opted to not attend, including the leaders of Guatemala and Honduras, northern triangle countries that have been at the center of the administration’s efforts to stem illegal immigration. Honduras is sending a lower-level delegation in protest of the exclusion.
Jean-Pierre said 68 delegations and at least 23 heads of government would be represented at the summit, allowing participants to engage in conversations about matters of regional importance. “Our attendance is going to be on par with what we’ve had in the past,” she said. “Yes, we’re going to have these couple of countries that are not attending, but [Biden] believes that he needs to stick by his principles.”
Yet the decision to not invite the trio of authoritarian countries has opened up the United States to criticism over which countries in labels as totalitarian pariahs.
Chilean President Gabriel Boric said Monday that while he would never stop using his voice “to defend human rights,” the United States’ exclusion of Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela was “not the right path.”
“We think it’s an error, a mistake,” he told reporters in Ottawa at a news conference with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, “and we’re going to say that during the summit.”
He added that the snub might be counterproductive, allowing the excluded leaders to cite it as evidence of the United States’ hostility. “When the United States claims to exclude certain countries from the summit, they’re actually then reinforcing the position that these other countries take in their own countries,” Boric said.
Trudeau added that it’s “extremely important that we have an opportunity to engage with our fellow hemispheric partners — some like-minded, some less like-minded.” He did not say explicitly whether he agreed with the exclusion of the three countries, but noted that Ottawa has long had an approach to Cuba that differs from Washington’s.
At Wednesday’s press briefing, Jean-Pierre faced questions about why the United States continues to deal with oil-rich Saudi Arabia, whose crown prince is accused of being the architect of the murder and dismemberment of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. Saudi dissidents have been angered by reports that Biden is planning a presidential trip to Saudi Arabia without demanding accountability for Khashoggi’s killing or improvements in human rights.
In March, the Biden White House sent a delegation to discuss energy sanctions with Venezuela, another country with significant oil reserves. The meeting happened weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine, as the administration sought to blunt the political and economic impact of soaring gas prices. The regime of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is being investigated by an international criminal court for crimes against humanity.
Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he was pleased that the administration was excluding “authoritarian thugs,” but that López Obrador’s absence “will unfortunately set back efforts to continue repairing the relationship and to cooperate on issues pertinent to the well-being of both our nations.”
He accused López Obrador of choosing to stand “with dictators and despots over representing the interests of the Mexican people in a summit with his partners from across the hemisphere.”
But Jean-Pierre stressed that the United States’ relationship with Mexico was unaltered, saying, “We see them as a friend.”
Amanda Coletta contributed to this report.
Ambient Music Isn’t a Backdrop. It’s an Invitation to Suspend Time.
And yet, the dominant vision of ambient music today is a cartoonish inversion of these aspirations. In a multibillion-dollar wellness industry, streaming platforms and meditation apps frame ambient as background music — something for detached listening and consumption. It is spa and yoga music, or field recordings for undisturbed, restful sleep. Instead of embracing ambient’s potential — its capacity to soften barriers and loosen ideas of sound, politics, temporality and space — the music has become instrumentalized, diminished into sound-as-backdrop.
It is a funny thing to think about ambient music as utility, as if it is something that allows for selective engagement. Like the musician Lawrence English wrote, “To ignore music is not to listen to it.” Rather, experiencing ambient music — to allow its political, philosophical and oppositional knowledge to become visible — requires a full use of the senses. It means tapping into the sensorial vitality of living: the tactile, spatial, vibrational and auditory experiences that being human affords us.
The experimental music pioneer Pauline Oliveros foresaw how a sensorial approach to music and listening could cultivate politically dynamic thinking. She spent her life developing a theory of deep listening, a practice that promotes radical attentiveness. In this approach, there is a distinction between hearing versus listening; the former is a surface-level awareness of space and temporality, and the second is an act of immersive focus. “Deep Listening takes us below the surface of our consciousness and helps to change or dissolve limiting boundaries,” she wrote in 1999. “Listening is directing attention to what is heard, gathering meaning, interpreting and deciding on action.”
In 1974, in response to the tumult of the Vietnam War, Oliveros published a series of text-scores called “Sonic Meditations,” a precursor to her deep listening theory. The project explores how body-centered sound exercises can foster focused perception. Oliveros developed “Sonic Meditations” from gatherings of women she organized at her home. In these meetings, the group, which emerged in the context of the women’s liberation movement, would do breathwork, write in journals and practice kinetic awareness exercises each week. The experience was designed to be collective, using intimacy and introspection to nurture a sense of healing.
I practiced deep listening with my “if you need to breathe” playlist, especially with the new-age innovator Laraaji’s composition “Being Here.” It is hard to pinpoint exactly when “Being Here” clicks: maybe it’s at the 10-minute mark, or the 15-minute mark or even at its beatific, 25-minute close. Laraaji, who has been releasing music since the late 1970s, produces aural glossolalia — divine, luminescent melodic debris. Listening to his music, I am held in an unspoken embrace with his vision of the present, notes refracting like sunlight caressing the azure waters of the ocean. This is music that curls into the ears, mutating into an imagined Elysium, stopping time and space. It’s not just scenery, not a simple balm for immeasurable pain.
SVP of Android offers open invitation to help Apple put RCS texting on the iPhone
In a tweet earlier today, Google SVP Hiroshi Lockheimer called on Apple to support RCS, the next-generation texting standard that’s supposed to supplant SMS. He offered an “open invitation to the folks who can make this right” and said “we are here to help.” Translation: the “folks” are Apple and “we are here to help” is Google’s offer to assist Apple in implementing the new standard.
RCS is finally starting to gain traction around the world. Its biggest champion has been Google, which finally landed on using it as the default texting solution for Android phones after trying every other solution. RCS is far from perfect, but it’s clearly superior to SMS (which is, of course, a low bar). After securing deals from US carriers to commit to the standard in the next year, Google is setting its sights on a new target for evangelism: Apple.
Apple has yet to reply with comment to any inquiry from The Verge over several years on whether it intends to support RCS on the iPhone, and declined to comment on this story. It seems unlikely that RCS is coming to iOS anytime soon.
Group chats don’t need to break this way. There exists a Really Clear Solution. Here’s an open invitation to the folks who can make this right: we are here to help. https://t.co/4P6xfsQyT0
— Hiroshi Lockheimer (@lockheimer) October 7, 2021
Lockheimer’s tweet followed a cheeky chain of tweets that started with a story about how pro golfer Bryson DeChambeau was breaking iMessage group chats with his green bubbles, which led to the official Android account cringingly drawing a parallel between green bubbles and the famous Masters green jacket. Lockheimer jokes that there is a “Really Clear Solution” (RCS) to group chats not breaking.
RCS has had a long, convoluted (and unfinished) slog towards becoming the default texting experience on Android. Beginning in March 2021, Google began securing deals from US carriers to get them to commit to using Google’s Android Messages app as the default on all Android phones sold on their networks. It started with a blockbuster deal with T-Mobile, followed later by smaller deals with AT&T and Verizon. Once all those deals are implemented, Android users who text each other will switch over to RCS, which supports typing indicators, better group chats, and bigger multimedia messages.
Importantly, RCS on Android Messages also supports end-to-end encryption for one-on-one chats. That will mean Android users texting each other will have a higher level of privacy and security than when they text iPhone users — and vice versa. A recent hack on SMS company Syniverse is just the latest example of why encryption is important in messaging — especially for the default.
RCS has problems of its own, though. As with iMessage, it’s possible for messages to get lost in limbo when switching phones. It’s also a standard that is championed by Google but theoretically agreed upon by carriers around the world. The association with Google has tainted RCS in the eyes of many, and of course requiring carriers to agree on anything is a recipe for problems. There are also technical limitations, as Ron Amadeo explains here.
Nevertheless, it seems inevitable that RCS will replace SMS eventually — but only if Apple decides to support it. As more carriers adopt it and as more users realize that SMS is inherently less secure, Apple could begin to feel enough pressure to adopt RCS. Thus far, however, it hasn’t shown any signs of that.