It appears that Google’s continued bullying has brought great shame to Apple and its blue bubble empire, as the Cupertino giant has confirmed that it has RCS messages standard “Early next year.” YES, we’re not kidding. Just a day later No chats was announced to bring iMessage support to Android, Apple has played its trump card.
Apple will embrace the RCS messaging standard, finally enabling smooth communication between iPhone and Android phones. This will put an end to the blue-green-bubble drama and the humiliation that several Android users face in group chats just because they are not part of Apple’s walled garden.
In an official statement (via 9to5Mac), an Apple spokesperson told the company “will add support for RCS Universal Profile, the standard currently published by the GSM Association.” RCS is enabled “a better interoperability experience” on iPhones and Android phones compared to SMS and MMS, which iMessage currently relies on, she added.
It’s amazing (yet surprisingly) to see Apple finally agreeing that RCS is better than standard SMS and MMS. But there’s a catch, and a very important one. RCS does not replace iMessage on iPhones. Instead, the company will be offers RCS support in addition to iMessage.
Communication between iPhone users will continue to rely on iMessage, as highlighted in the 9to5Mac article. This means that most of the exclusive iMessage features, be it Memoji, handwritten notes and much more, will be limited to iPhone users. However, the adoption of RCS will enable a host of cross-platform messaging features, such as typing indicators, read receipts, the ability to share high-resolution images and videos, and location sharing, among others.
When is RCS coming to your iPhone?
With this, Android phone users will no longer feel like they are not part of the cool club, at least if their friends don’t make them feel that way. A question you may have is: When is RCS coming to iPhones? Well, Apple didn’t share an exact date and simply mentioned that RCS messaging support will be added to iPhones with a software update sometime in early 2024.
Google’s efforts and the online movement against the pesky blue bell finally paid off. Tim Cook can no longer make you buy your mother an iPhone. Finally, for those who don’t know, RCS stands for ‘Rich Communication Services’ and is replacing your age-old SMS and MMS. It offers several benefits such as no character or media file size limitations, read receipts, and more.
Moreover, RCS doesn’t just limit you to mobile data and also works over Wi-Fi. However, RCS does not natively support end-to-end encryption, which iMessage does. So of course Apple is quick to point out that iMessage is the “best and most secure messaging experience for Apple users” in his official statement.
The fact that Apple is finally adopting RCS is obviously a big thing, but we think the green bubbles are here to stay. Well, the reason for that is of course clear and simple. Apple likes to do things its own way, and perhaps it doesn’t want to do away with iMessage’s identity; After all, it’s the blue bubbles that make it different from Android.
We’ll have to wait and see what Cupertino’s engineers are cooking up. Until then, share your thoughts and opinions on this announcement in the comments below.
