Google's RCS messaging is coming to iPhone in 2024
Following years of pressure from Google for Apple to adopt the presently flawed RCS system within iMessage, Apple has committed to doing so during 2024.
Messaging on iPhone will include RCS support in 2024
Android does not have a true equivalent alternative to Apple's iMessage on iPhone -- despite the Nothing company trying -- and Google's previous attempts have failed. Consequently, Google has been trying to argue that Apple is failing customers by not supporting its nearest attempt, RCS, and finally Apple has caved in.
In a statement to AppleInsider, and other venues, an Apple spokesperson was clear about the RCS debut.
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.
Part of the pressure on Apple to adopt RCS has been to do with how -- in the US -- there is a perceived stigma between the blue and green text messages of iMessage and other users. It's a distinction that is simply not noticed in the rest of the world, where WhatsApp has typically far greater penetration than iMessage.
It's not clear whether Apple's support of RCS will give Android users the same blue button appearance as iMessage users.
However, it should improved issues such as sending images and videos between iPhone and Android. At present, Android users in a group message chat will receive scaled-down images sent over traditional MMS.
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
Keeping the blue bubble/green bubble distinction would be an advantage for Android users using the E2EE Google Messages (Apple users too if they understand what it means) since it will designate the conversation as potentially insecure. But I've been seeing claims the bubbles are going away. I don't know how true that is, as I thought blue and green indicated the level of encryption.
I think they will go with a third color in the red family, with pink being the most likely. If the RCS standard gets E2EE, there might be a 4th color (purple?) that denotes that. Why 2 different colors for RCS? Because older implementations that don't support E2EE will still be around for quite a while and you need to be able to distinguish them from those that do.
RCS requires data, just like iMessage. SMS is the fallback for both when data (over cellular or wifi) is not available.
RCS supports Delivery and Read status. I suspect that the bubbles will remain green, but with the extra indicators to distinguish RCS from SMS.
I am happy to hear that Android users in a group chat will start getting full images/videos under RCS. That was indeed a flaw of SMS/MMS, and something that needed to be fixed out of common courtesy. I’m glad found an acceptable alternative to support.
PS. GatorGuy earning his commission today LOL
I'm wondering if this business model is going to start making its way into other professions too. Where, say, architects and engineers create buildings for free, and make money by installing cameras, microphones, and special wireless signal monitoring systems into those buildings. How far do we take this "everything must be free" mentality?
I get the fact that, eventually, interoperability is needed/desired. Would would be ideal is compensating the creator of the technology when it's decided that it should be opened up for interoperability. Much like the FRAND system on the hardware side of things. That would ensure that companies which want to focus on innovating and creating technology products can avoid being forced to fund their work via advertising, or cloned and owned by competitors who come along after them. And yes, the technology they create should be evaluated to determine if they truly added value to it rather than just repackaging something which already existed.
The reality is that Google end-to-end messaging system, while built on RCS, is as proprietary and closed as iMessage. That's why non-Google versions of Android such as Graphene which ship the stock (open source) messages app don't have support for encrypted RCS. If you want that on Android, you and all your friends have to be using Google's closed-off software.
But at the moment the only way to E2E encrypt your RCS messages will be for Apple to secure them on Apple servers or use Google to do so. It doesn't appear Apple wants to go to that trouble and expense and will wait out carriers to take responsibility for it whenever GSM finalizes.