Google responds to Apple’s announcement about adding RCS support to the iPhone next year،
Earlier Thursday, we announced the big news of the day: Apple has agreed to add Rich Communication Services (RCS) support to the iPhone next year. RCS offers most of the same features as iMessage, such as end-to-end encryption, read receipts, keystroke indicators, high-quality photos and videos, and the ability to send larger messages. RCS can be used over mobile data connection and Wi-Fi. Apple will also add a feature in RCS that will allow users to share their location in discussion threads.
Google, joined by Samsung earlier this year, had been pressuring Apple to add RCS support to the iPhone. Without such support, whenever Android users send a message to an iPhone user, they automatically do so through the old-school SMS platform that shares low-quality photos and videos and only provides not the aforementioned features that iMessage and RCS offer.
By 9to5GoogleIn a statement released this afternoon, Google said: “Everyone deserves to communicate with each other in a modern and secure way, no matter what phone they have. That’s why we’ve been working closely with the mobile industry to accelerate RCS adoption. , and we are happy to see Apple take the first step today by joining RCS. We welcome Apple’s participation in our ongoing work with the GSMA to evolve RCS and make messaging fairer and more secure, and we look forward to working with them. to implement this on iOS in a way that works well for everyone.
Last April, end-to-end encryption was added to RCS.
Apple has already announced plans to add RCS as a separate messaging option for iPhone users to use when it becomes available. Apple plans to add this support via a software update that it will send “later next year.” SMS messages will always be available as backup.
Apple called iMessage “the best and most secure messaging experience for Apple users” and said it wanted to work with the GSMA, the organization representing mobile network operators around the world, to add stronger encryption to RCS.
At the Google I/O developer conference in May, Sameer Samat, vice president of the Android ecosystem, said that by the end of this year, RCS will have 1 billion users worldwide. Samat also said at the event: “We hope that every mobile operating system will understand the message and adopt RCS so that we can all chat together as a group, no matter what device we are using.” This will become a reality next year.
