How to send good quality videos by text?

[Android Central Question]

Afters years of using iPhones I decided to make the switch to Samsung galaxy S10 after watching all good reviews. I'm amazed of all the things Galaxy does that iPhones dosen't, I spent two weeks waiting YouTube videos on tips and tricks for my new phone and it's fascinating BUT the one bad thing I have to say about it is the video quality when sending a text, most of my family and friends are iPhone users and at first i was trying to explain to them to think outside the apple bubble and realize Galaxy is way better but soon i discovered that sending videos is a frustrating experience, yes yes I've heard you can send videos through other apps like WhatsApp,email, youtube links, Samsung link etc but this is very inconvenient. On iPhone is all there while texting no need to click a link or use other apps, must of my family and friends don't use WhatsApp or the other apps that i see people recommend online, and the Samsung link takes time to upload and more time the recipient to see. Is there a way to send good quality videos by the Samsung message app or android app? I was loving the switch from iPhone to Galaxy until i realized this. Can at least get this fix for text between androids( like imessage for iPhones). I don't know much about technology but this seen a basic feature that a $1,000 phone should have.
Once again, I love all this amazing things the galaxy ca do but if there's no fix for this I think I'm going back to Iphone.

Thanks

 

[SpookDroid]

Well, that's because you were never using 'texts' (or MMS, more accurately) to send videos when on iPhone. iMessage IS NOT texting. It's its own thing, just like Whatsapp or Facebook Messenger or Telegram. Apple made the excellent choice of merging the two experiences together into a seamless one, and that is fantastic... until you realize the 'good' portion of it only works with iPhones. If you were to use the regular SMS/MMS protocols, things are a lot less polished since they're ancient protocols that only allow for so much. Video, when the MMS protocol was introduced, was barely a thing on mobile, so the file size limits for this are quite small for any good quality video to be sent out. This is why link services like Drive, Samsung's own link sharing service, etc. work when you're trying to share larger, good-quality files. It's not an Android limitation, it's a protocol one (and you'd have that on iPhone too IF you were to use MMS to transfer images and videos... but again, most people don't turn off iMessage for obvious reasons).

While RCS is supported on your phone (and this increases the file limits of MMS and adds a slew of other options like chat indicators and such), the reality is that it's still not completely adopted and only phones and carriers that support them can use that (and for some godforsaken reason, Android locks RCS to only the stock messaging app, so using 3rd party apps borks that as well). Not sure iPhones support RCS, but I think they don't (yet).

If this is a huge deal for you, then yes, you need to go back to iMessage. There's a workaround to have iMessage on your Android but that needs you to have a Mac computer running at all times (basically running iMessage on your Mac and relaying that back and fort with your Android phone).

 

[Frangg02]

Thanks for the info!
I'm going today to switch back to iPhone, I think I'm in between the 14 days no fee returns. I did like this phone but this is a big deal at least for me, I don't think I can convince others to switch to Galaxy with this video quality issue. I've been reading about RCS and it looks it won't be implemented all over in the near feature. I hope android get a fix for this and maybe I'll come back.
Thanks.

Well, that's because you were never using 'texts' (or MMS, more accurately) to send videos when on iPhone. iMessage IS NOT texting. It's its own thing, just like Whatsapp or Facebook Messenger or Telegram. Apple made the excellent choice of merging the two experiences together into a seamless one, and that is fantastic... until you realize the 'good' portion of it only works with iPhones. If you were to use the regular SMS/MMS protocols, things are a lot less polished since they're ancient protocols that only allow for so much. Video, when the MMS protocol was introduced, was barely a thing on mobile, so the file size limits for this are quite small for any good quality video to be sent out. This is why link services like Drive, Samsung's own link sharing service, etc. work when you're trying to share larger, good-quality files. It's not an Android limitation, it's a protocol one (and you'd have that on iPhone too IF you were to use MMS to transfer images and videos... but again, most people don't turn off iMessage for obvious reasons).

While RCS is supported on your phone (and this increases the file limits of MMS and adds a slew of other options like chat indicators and such), the reality is that it's still not completely adopted and only phones and carriers that support them can use that (and for some godforsaken reason, Android locks RCS to only the stock messaging app, so using 3rd party apps borks that as well). Not sure iPhones support RCS, but I think they don't (yet).

If this is a huge deal for you, then yes, you need to go back to iMessage. There's a workaround to have iMessage on your Android but that needs you to have a Mac computer running at all times (basically running iMessage on your Mac and relaying that back and fort with your Android phone).

 

[SpookDroid]

Fair enough, but again, NOT an Android problem. You're just using a whole different system for 'texting' when using iPhone to iPhone. It's the same as using Whatsapp or other IM.