Apple says that, in 2024, the iPhone will add support for RCS messaging, the newer standard used by most Android phones. This comes after Nothing, the phone company owned by OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei, recently launched Nothing Chats an app that would bring iMessage-style messaging to its Android phones.
ALSO READ: Nothing Chats brings iMessage to its Android phones
“Later next year, we will be adding support for RCS Universal Profile, the standard as currently published by the GSM Association,” Apple spokesperson Jacqueline Roy says in a statement. “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.”
The iPhone adopting RCS could enable support for encryption, read receipts, typing indicators, high-res images and videos, and more when sending texts between iPhone and Android devices. What will not change is that RCS messages will be green for Android users, like SMS messages are now. Apple says that RCS will instead replace SMS and MMS and “exist separately from iMessage when available.”
Just like Apple’s change to USB-C, the adoption of RCS is has come from regulatory pressure from the European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), a rule that requires major companies, such as Apple, to make their services interoperable with other platforms. In September, the European Commission opened up an investigation into iMessage to determine whether it should be considered a “core platform service.” However, Apple reportedly argued iMessage isn’t popular enough in Europe for the rules to apply, and it’s planning to file an appeal against the government’s regulation of its App Store.
Apple may not be doing this out of its own willingness, but the addition of RCS is a more-than-welcome change for anyone who has had to deal with the many issues of texting between iPhones and Android phones, such as the sending of low-quality videos and SMS’s lack of encryption.
