What you need to know
- Apple will enable RCS support on the iPhone in 2024.
- The company says it will enable better interoperability between iOS and Android.
- Google has been publicly pestering Apple about the lack of RCS support for some time, arguing that SMS is less secure.
- Regulators have also been looking into iMessage and whether or not to consider it a gatekeeper.
It’s official: RCS is coming to the iPhone. Apple announced the surprising move in a statement to 9to5Mac on Thursday, saying that bringing RCS will enable better interoperability between the platforms:
“Later next year, we will be adding support for RCS Universal Profile, the standard as currently published by the GSM Association. We believe RCS Universal Profile will offer a better interoperability experience when compared to SMS or MMS. This will work alongside iMessage, which will continue to be the best and most secure messaging experience for Apple users.”
Apple did not say specifically when RCS support will drop on iOS, but from the statement, it could likely be part of the next major update. However, when it does drop, Apple says it will live alongside iMessage in the Apple Messages app, which will remain separate for iPhone users.
Bringing RCS to the iPhone is a major deal because it promises to fix many of the problems users have when messaging between Android phones and iPhones. The problem is a predominantly North American one, but in its current state, group chats or sending media between iOS and Android is a bit of a mess. Photos and videos sent through MMS are low quality, and that one Android friend in a group chat can effectively downgrade the experience.
With RCS, many of the problems should hopefully be a thing of the past while enabling more secure messaging between users. The standard has been pushed by Google for years and has effectively become a default on Android devices via the Google Messages app. It enables features like typing indicators, read receipts, high-quality media, and more.
And like Android, Apple plans to use SMS/MMS as a fallback when necessary.
Google hasn’t been shy about trying to convince Apple to adopt RCS, going as far as to publicly shame the company for refusing with campaigns like #GetTheMessage. On the one hand, the move could be seen as a way for consumers to better understand why messaging between the platforms was not particularly great. On the other hand, it eventually started to seem a little desperate on Google’s part.
More recently, it was reported that Google went to regulators to try to get things moving. The E.U. has already been looking into iMessage and whether or not it should be opened up, and while that is still not happening with this move, it’s unclear how this will affect things going forward.
Updating…
