We’ve recognized that Wealthy Communication Companies (RCS) can be coming to iPhones in some unspecified time in the future this 12 months, because of an announcement by Apple towards the latter finish of 2023. Now we lastly have affirmation what model of RCS will arrive in your iPhone.
After Apple’s WWDC 2024 keynote confirmed that the iOS 18 model of Messages would have RCS help, Google supplied additional particulars about that RCS integration, which Android Authority reviews shall be primarily based on the RCS Common Profile commonplace printed by the GSM Affiliation.
For those who’re not aware of RCS, it is a messaging platform that has been round for a while. Basically, its a successor platform to SMS and MMS, which powered textual content messaging virtually from the start of texting.
The platform was created by Google to interchange SMS and MMS and has till just lately been deployed by wi-fi carriers in partnerships with Google. After carriers tried to create their very own messaging platform, Google flipped the RCS swap on all Android units, and the provider platform fell aside when T-Cell purchased Dash.
On the identical, Apple customers have iMessage, and the corporate has been loath to increase help for that platform to Android. Google and the GSM, a lobbying group made up of cell operators, have been pushing Apple to permit RCS onto iPhones for years.
Presently, the RCS Common Profile is as much as model 2.6. Throughout a convention, EMEA improvement supervisor at Google Tim Atkinson stated that Apple will help RCS Common Profile 2.4. Apart from end-to-end encryption and another Google-specific options, Apple may have what’s mainly probably the most up-to-date model.
Including RCS help will enhance chats between iOS and Android customers. New options will embody higher-quality media sharing, group messaging, learn receipts and increasing character limits. The inexperienced bubble on iPhone received’t go away, however that’s a query about elitism for one more day.
The addition of RCS help in iOS 18 could not fully be by Apple’s selection. There’s hypothesis that laws in each China and the EU are forcing Apple’s hand relating to including RCS to their platform.
A public beta of iOS 18 is meant to reach in July, which is after we’ll see if Apple has carried out RCS help. Not each introduced function reveals up straight away in iOS public betas, so it might be a while earlier than we see how the promised enhancements in iOS-to-Android texting.
