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1y ago

Apple announces that RCS support is coming to iPhone next year

Apple announces that RCS support is coming to iPhone next year - 9to5Mac

In a surprising move, Apple has announced today that it will adopt the RCS (Rich Communication Services) messaging standard. The feature will launch via a software update “later next year” and bring a wide range of iMessage-style features to messaging between iPhone and Android users.

Apple’s decision comes amid pressure from regulators and competitors like Google and Samsung. It also comes as RCS has continued to develop and become a more mature platform than it once was.

73 comments

Nothing phone in shambles.
- We need to thank the nothing phone for this. They're only responding like this after severe market pressure. Thank you Nothing
  
  Do you honestly think Apple cares about Nothing in any capacity? They are irrelevant and apply zero market pressure on Apple.
  
  Beeper too. They got a lot of buzz a while back for a similar feature.

That means google is going to open the rcs api up to other devs soon too...right? Right??
- It says in the artical they plan to use rcs the standard as currently published by the GSM Association. So I assume they won't be using Google version. Unless I'm misunderstanding it.
  
  deleted

This is great but surprising news. Hopefully the implementation is actually good
- I imagine they'll probably keep the blue bubbles and some features exclusive to iMessage users, but this is still great news.
  I wonder if this will encourage Google to allow Fi users to have RCS while texting from PC...
  
  Yep, they’ll definitely stick to the blue green system that already exists, threads with greens will just be improved from what they were/currently are
  
  What do you guys think is going to happen with like an open RCS standard? RCS is only available on Google messages.
- They're going to implement the open standard ... which isn't what most Android users are actually using. Does Google's Messages app gracefully transition to the RCS standard if that's what the other person is using?
  
  No idea but, I suspect that Apple will have some negotiating power here, hopefully weakening Google's control and making it mostly open

Alright so who do you think implements it first: Google Voice or Apple?
- Please, I'm dying over here. Is there an alternative that does support it?
  
  I'm crossing my fingers textra will get rcs, but I can understand 1) the security concerns and 2) the hoops they'd have to jump through to get it cleared because of said security concerns

Waiting for Apple to play it off like they weren't the problem the whole time.

This was a big shock but welcome nevertheless. I think the looming EU Digital Rights Commission helped apply the pressure needed to make the change

ok so the main hope here as a non google messages user is that this forces google to actually open up rcs more
because the fact that on android its de facto completely controlled by google (yes, i know its an open standard, thats why apple can do it separately, but you can still functionally monopolize an open standard) really sucks
like man i just want apis for rcs in aosp finally is that too much to ask for :(

I wonder if this comes due to the EU

I asked this in another RCS thread but didn't get a conclusive answer. My understanding is that RCS, although there are claims that it's an open standard, is essentially controlled by Google. Looking this is up doesn't lead me far. Most articles just say that SMS sends blurry videos and that RCS is better at that. They don't discuss who develops RCS or how it works. Am I wrong, is it really open? SMS has serious flaws, but a corporporate controlled "standard" is even worse in my mind.
- RCS is an open standard that states to be formalized over ten years ago, and was planned to replace SMS. However, SMS is a service offered by the cell network providers, so these were addressed to get together and implement it in all networks, so everyone can reliably use it, just like SMS works everywhere. it's not a feature of phone or OS manufacturers. They simply use the SMS protocol that is already available in the network implementation.
  Sadly, the big network providers have failed to reach a consensus on if and when and how to implement RCS. Some say they simply had nothing to gain from it, and I believe they might be right. So they dragged their feet so long that Apple implemented iMessage to offer more features. Google held out longer waiting for the providers, but ultimately gave up as well and implemented their own messaging solution. And while the implementation is proprietary, it's still based on the open RCS standard, unlike the fully closed iMessage protocol and implementation. This means that as long Apple supports the RCS standard, it matters little to the end user if they build their own proprietary implementation. Google and Apple will be able to talk to each other via RCS. So why is it still not great, even if everyone will be able to use RCS this way?
  Well, look a bit further. Any non-Android and non-Apple phone will not be able to participate unless they submit to Google it Apple. No more indie phones with truly independent RCS. The services are also owned and controlled by Google and Apple, two companies that are notoriously resistant to regulations. Unlike cell network providers, which are under comparatively strict federal regulatory control, and even international treaties on minimal requirements for consumer protection. They are well supervised and have to adhere to high security and privacy standards. It's definitely not perfect, but the current development is much worse. With RCS, it's now two global supranational companies that will handle your private communications, and history has shown that they are much less worried about adhering to local national laws.
  
  Ok, so the gist of this that I'm getting is that there is an genuinely open RCS standard, but no one has implemented it. Instead, Google has their thing that's been modified for their benefit at the expense of consumer privacy, and that Apple seems to be making their own similar version. So RCS itself isn't bad, but it's being ruined by bad actors, and as of yet there are no good actors.

So what will the color of the bubbles be this time? Red?
(Assuming that SMS and RCS aren't merged)
- I read somewhere that they will still be green. It's confirmed by Apple as well.
  
  Oh.
  So I guess this won't really fix the blue bubble problem.

Fucking thank you. I’m so sick of not having typing indicators and read receipts with my parents lmao.
- Mostly I just want videos that aren't compressed into oblivion

Still better than WhatsApp, but i would bet this will haunt us for many more years. I couldn’t convince others to use any alternative messenger to WhatsApp, unfortunately. It is easy too pupillary here
- I finally deleted my WhatsApp account and it feels good to not have any Meta tentacles on my device.
- There's always going to be a group of plebs sucking on corporate balls. Think of this as the digital version of people buying some slave trade Nikes because they are super cool.

As an iPhone convert this is a good thing.

Until we get an API for RCS on Android as well as FOSS implementations of RCS, I will happily continue using Signal. Even after RCS gets rolled out, Signal will probably still be a better option, because it shares as little metadata as possible and as much of it as possible is end-to-end encrypted.

- What are you talking about? Google doesn't have a proprietary chat app that they force on everyone. The Messages app is for SMS, MMS, and RCS, just like every phone that's ever gone out has had a messaging app for SMS.
  And Apple purposely hamstringing their messaging features in favor of iMessage for so long has been anti-cooperative and anti-consumer.
  Allowing for better interoperability between Android and iPhone is a good thing and it's asinine to think otherwise.

- RCS is a universal standard.

Does Nothing get credit?
- This has nothing to do with Nothing, in fact imessage forwarding software has been around long before the announcement by nothing (i was using airmessage back in 2021). And yes, i own a nothing phone 1.
  This has more to do with the impending investigation and potential legislation from the EU. Apple needs to get ahead of the curve before the EU starts putting down heavy regulations on their business practices.
  
  Yes but the software existing is different from it being used by a major-ish brand in this space

Man, I’ve been saying they’re gonna do this soon and I’ve been piled on by so many people on lemmy for it. Some of you really are clowns and are blinded by your hate for Apple.
Edit: hurt some butts again lmao. Cowards.
- 😅

- Apple relies too much on lock-in effect to actually offer that - instead of taking $5/month and having to develop and maintain such interoperability they'd really prefer you just get on their platform instead.
  
  They sell hardware, everything they make is there to want you to purchase the next version of it.
  Their lockin game is on point. I was reading an article about how kids bully other kids who are not using apple products because their icons are another color.
  I think ideally we should all use something that's open source, e2e encrypted, and platform agnostic, but you are not going to get either Apple or Google on board with that since you can't really make money off it.

73 comments