After years of lobbying from Google, Apple has finally cracked. The iPhone manufacturer has announced that its mobiles will support the RCS format from next year.
Is it the threat of a European fine? Is it weariness in the face of Google’s fierce fight? Difficult to say, but the fact remains that Apple has finally announced its future support for the RCS format on iPhone. Owners of powered mobiles will be able to benefit from the new features of this communication standard from next year. A giant step forward for interoperability… but the devil is still in the details.
What is RCS?
It was the specialized site 9to5Mac which got the scoop on the information. “ Sometime next year we will add support for RCS. […] We believe that the RCS standard will provide a better interoperability experience compared to SMS or MMS “, Apple said in a statement.
On this precise point, it is difficult to contradict them. The RCS protocol was designed to replace our good old SMS. Built on the Internet rather than the “classic” telephone network, it offers many features not present in SMS conversations: acknowledgment of receipt and reading, real-time input indicator, sharing of high-quality multimedia elements. , etc. To put it simply, RCS brings traditional messaging apps closer to a WhatsApp model. Everything is, in addition, completely invisible to users since many SMS capture applications already support RCS.
But the big advantage of RCS is that it is a standard. Promoted by the GSMA, an association which brings together more than 750 operators and manufacturers, this protocol can be integrated into any application and by any manufacturer, without restrictions. Over the years, RCS has become a cornerstone of the Android ecosystem, but Apple has always refused to play the game.
iMessage will continue to be “the best experience” on iOS
And if the situation will change in 2024, the manufacturer is not going to abandon iMessage. As Apple explains, the integration of RCS will be done “ alongside iMessage “. To put it more simply, messages exchanged between Apple devices will continue to use iMessage and those sent to Android devices will soon use RCS rather than SMS, in order to benefit from the advantages of the new protocol. The separation of “blue bubbles” and “green bubbles” will therefore continue to exist, even if the functionality gap between the two protocols will be less marked.
In order to still stand out in the face of this partial opening of its system (probably forced by the threat of the DMA in Brussels), Apple explains that iMessage will remain despite everything “ the best and safest email experience for Apple users. » In doing so, Apple therefore continues to promote its messaging protocol compared to industry standards… but not without reason. iMessage text messages are effectively end-to-end encrypted, which is not the case, by default, for RCS messages (even if some manufacturers have added this layer of security to their applications).
Apple has nevertheless indicated that it wants to work with the GSMA to develop the protocol in order to make it more robust and more secure. In the meantime, the integration of RCS on iPhones will not be the end we expected to the “blue bubble versus green bubble” debate, which represents, particularly in the United States, a real social stigma.
Source : 9to5Mac
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