When it finally becomes a reality, iPhone owners and Android users will be able to share media like photos and videos in Messages in high quality. Read receipts and input indicators will also appear as the conversation unfolds, and Apple says users will be able to share their location within the text thread.
While this is a welcome change for consumers on both sides of the iOS-Android debate, Apple’s concession may also be intended to appeal to a different audience: European lawmakers. The European Commission has been trying to determine for months whether Apple’s iMessage is a large enough platform to be regulated by EU digital market law, which would force Apple to make iMessage compatible with competing messaging services. It may be possible to force them to do so.
Whatever the reason for the change in direction, Apple is late to the party. Almost every relatively popular messaging service out there has had these features for years. (Of course, this includes iMessage.) So why the delay?
Why aren’t these features available for iPhone users to send text messages to friends on their Android phones, and vice versa? ) is possible.
Over the years, Apple has chosen to flesh out its iMessage service with new features while relying on those older formats to send text messages and photos to and from non-iPhones. While that’s been happening, wireless carriers, device manufacturers, and even Google itself have been supporting his RCS standard and fleshing out the infrastructure to make it work.
Now, with RCS, Apple is also adopting a more unified type of messaging experience. That means it should feel pretty much the same no matter what type of phone you’re using.
“We believe RCS Universal Profile provides a better interoperability experience compared to SMS and MMS,” the company said in a statement.
But none of this means Apple will roll out RCS support in the same way as some rivals. Google has technically gone beyond the limits of the standard and introduced end-to-end encryption for RCS messages sent through Google Messages. That means it cannot be decrypted by the companies or networks it passes through as it travels from one phone to another. App.
Apple says it doesn’t plan to do this alone. Instead, they want to make the RCS standard itself more secure, but this process is unlikely to happen anytime soon.
It’s also hard to imagine that Apple’s announcement signals the end of the green-bubble-blue-bubble tension. The company says that iMessage isn’t being phased out, and that messages shared between Android devices and iPhones will continue to be color-coded as they are now.
RCS Messaging “works in conjunction with iMessage and continues to be the best and most secure messaging experience for Apple users,” the company said in a statement.
shortage buy an iphone As Tim Cook suggested to RCS supporters at the conference, Android users fed up with the green bubble stigma will need to turn to outside players working to bring iMessage to Android. Otherwise, we’ll have to wait and see if Europe forces Apple to open its platform to everyone.