Apple in mid-November introduced that it should undertake Wealthy Communication Providers (RCS) in 2024, changing the SMS and MMS messaging requirements. Apple’s information got here as a shock as a result of Google had been aggressively pushing Apple to implement RCS for a number of years, however Apple hadn’t budged.
This information explains all the things that it’s essential to find out about RCS, together with the way it works, how you will apply it to Apple units, why Apple determined to undertake it now, and the advantages you could count on to see when help is added.
RCS Defined
Wealthy Communication Providers, or RCS, is a communication protocol developed by the GSM Affiliation and championed by Google. As a communication protocol, RCS is utilized by smartphone producers and carriers to ship text-based messages, photos, and movies between units. It is principally what’s going to energy the textual content messages that you just ship to individuals along with your iPhone and different Apple units.
RCS is a substitute for SMS (Quick Messaging Service) and MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service), each of that are used for information sharing over mobile networks. RCS combines the options of SMS and MMS, and provides extra performance. It will likely be what means that you can ship texts to individuals who do not have iPhones for iMessage.
RCS Options
There are a number of advantages to RCS in comparison with the prior MMS and SMS options. A lot of the enhancements shall be seen in iPhone to Android chats as a result of for conversations between Apple gadget house owners, iMessage will proceed to be the default.
- Help for larger decision photographs and movies.
- Help for bigger file sizes and file sharing.
- Audio messages.
- Cross-platform emoji reactions.
- Actual-time typing indicators.
- Learn receipts.
- Potential to ship messages over mobile or Wi-Fi (SMS is mobile solely). There isn’t a price to ship an RCS message over Wi-Fi.
- Improved group chats.
- Higher safety. Google’s model of RCS has end-to-end encryption, which Apple doesn’t intend to make use of. Apple will as an alternative work with the GSMA to develop a safer type of encryption that’s baked natively into RCS.
RCS vs SMS/MMS
SMS or Quick Messaging Service is supported by virtually all cellphones, and it’s designed to mean you can ship textual content messages from gadget to gadget. It’s accompanied by the Cell Messaging Service extension that helps photographs, movies, and longer textual content messages. Each of those requirements have been round for greater than twenty years and have fallen behind extra fashionable chat apps when it comes to options.
RCS is basically a modernized model of SMS/MMS that carriers and good cellphone producers began adopting proper round a decade in the past, nevertheless it has taken time for it to be supported and never all firms have added help (comparable to Apple), so the extra common (and extra restricted) SMS/MMS requirements have caught round too.
Maybe one of many greatest modifications is the way in which that SMS/MMS and RCS work. SMS and MMS are provider supported and require a mobile connection to perform. RCS is supported by carriers, however RCS messages will be despatched over a mobile or Wi-Fi connection, just like iMessages, so there is no particular mobile connection requirement.
RCS is actually rather more like WhatsApp, iMessage, Messenger, and comparable chat apps, however baked right into a smartphone’s default textual content messaging app. It helps options that SMS/MMS don’t, like typing indicators, high-resolution photos, file transfers, and video calls.
RCS and iMessage
RCS works alongside iMessage, and it doesn’t substitute iMessage. For iPhone to iPhone conversations and texts on any Apple gadget to a different Apple gadget, iMessage would be the default.
After RCS help is applied, in the event you flip off iMessage in your iPhone, it should seemingly default to RCS on supported units as that would be the textual content messaging commonplace for non-iMessage communications.
iMessage will proceed to perform precisely because it does now with no change for communications between Apple gadget customers.
What RCS Means for iPhone Customers
When you have associates or members of the family which have an Android gadget, you will see an enchancment in a few of the frustrations that include cross-platform messaging.
Group texts between Android and iPhone customers shall be much less buggy, and there will not be the identical limitations on picture and video measurement that may trigger media to not ship. The tapback reactions that you just use on an iPhone can have an emoji response equal on Android, so tapbacks will not be fairly as complicated to your Android utilizing associates.
Learn receipts and typing indicators shall be obtainable for iPhone to Android communications and will not simply be restricted to iPhone to iPhone iMessages when RCS rolls out.
On the whole, iPhone house owners and people with different Apple units do not want to consider RCS or fear about it. It is a change that is going to occur within the background with no consumer interplay required. Communication shouldn’t be altering between iPhones, and between iPhone and Android customers, messaging would be the identical, however improved when it comes to reliability.
RCS and Android
Textual content conversations with Android customers are the first method iPhone customers will expertise RCS when it comes out. RCS will solely be obtainable when all contributors within the dialog have a tool and a provider that help it, however that ought to embody most Android customers in america.
Android units have had RCS for a while as Google and Samsung have supported it for a number of years and had been pushing Apple to undertake it.
Proper now, sharing photographs and movies with Android customers will be tough for an iPhone consumer, and typically photographs and movies are too giant or will not ship. There are additionally typically points with group conversations between Android and iPhone customers, each when it comes to supported options and stability.
Speaking to an Android consumer ought to be much less of a trouble than it’s now when RCS rolls out as a result of options like emoji reactions shall be supported, there shall be typing indicators, and recordsdata and pictures shouldn’t fail to ship.
Inexperienced Bubbles vs. Blue Bubbles
Whereas it will likely be much less irritating to speak with “inexperienced bubble” individuals on an Apple gadget, chat bubble colours usually are not altering.
iMessage conversations will proceed to be denoted with blue chat bubbles, and RCS messages will proceed to be inexperienced, the identical as SMS/MMS messages are actually. Be aware that SMS and MMS aren’t going away. They’re going to proceed to be obtainable on networks that do not help RCS and in conditions the place RCS is unavailable.
RCS requires the entire units taking part in a dialog to have help for the characteristic, and the community must help it too. So in the event you occur to message somebody who makes use of a provider that does not help RCS or who has RCS turned off, it should fall again to SMS.
A Be aware on Encryption
Google’s implementation of RCS for Google Messages helps end-to-end encryption on Android units, however it’s value noting that Apple is adopting the RCS Common Profile created by the GSM Affiliation and never a model of RCS modified by Google. RCS messages shall be safer, however will not be end-to-end encrypted as iMessage conversations are, at the least not till updates are made to the usual.
Apple says that it plans to work with the GSM Affiliation on additional enhancements for RCS, together with higher encryption.
RCS Worldwide
Google, Samsung, and all U.S. carriers have adopted RCS, however in some international locations, native carriers might want to add help earlier than RCS between iPhones and different units shall be useful.
Why Is Apple Supporting RCS Now?
Google has been virtually begging Apple to implement help for RCS since 2022, launching an internet site, beginning a social media marketing campaign, filming advertisements, and establishing billboards all with the intention of convincing Apple to help the messaging commonplace.
In September 2022, Tim Prepare dinner mentioned that adopting RCS was not a precedence for Apple. “I do not hear our customers asking that we put numerous power into that at this level,” he mentioned. So what’s modified? It is not solely clear, however regulatory points have seemingly performed an element.
Apple is going through scrutiny over App Retailer, iMessage, and different proprietary applied sciences in a number of international locations around the globe, so by adopting a common messaging commonplace, Apple is exhibiting a willingness to help gadget interoperability.
Within the European Union, legislators are creating legal guidelines that will require Apple to make modifications to iMessage to make it obtainable on different platforms in order that iMessage customers aren’t locked in to Apple units. With RCS, iMessage can have fewer advantages which can be unavailable cross-platform, and nearer characteristic parity shall be obtainable on iPhone and Android units.
When Will Apple Undertake RCS?
Apple mentioned that it plans to undertake RCS “later subsequent yr,” which suggests in some unspecified time in the future in 2024. The “later” wording means that it may come extra towards the tip of the yr, maybe in iOS 18, however that isn’t confirmed as of but.
