Apple has confirmed that it will be adding RCS messaging standard support to the iPhone early next year. This move comes after the company steadfastly refused to support RCS messaging until now. The RCS standard will work alongside iMessage, which will continue to offer the best and most secure messaging experience for Apple users.
With the addition of RCS support, iPhone users will now be able to send and receive high-resolution photos and videos to and from Android phones. Group messaging will become platform agnostic, and Android users will be able to share their location with iPhone users through RCS-supported messaging.
However, the RCS standard still does not support end-to-end encryption, which has been a staple of Apple’s messaging service for over a decade. Apple hopes to work with the GSM Association to add encryption to the standard.
The news of Apple’s decision to support RCS comes after competing companies like Samsung and Google have already added RCS support to their devices. Google has been particularly critical of Apple’s refusal to support the standard.
The decision also comes after Nothing brought iMessage to its Android phones, prompting speculation about how Apple would respond. The European Union’s Digital Markets Act may have played a role in Apple’s decision to adopt the RCS standard.
No details have been provided yet on which iOS update will include RCS support, or how many generations of iPhone will support the communication standard. Furthermore, it is also uncertain whether RCS support will introduce a third message bubble color.
The move to support RCS will undoubtedly have wide-reaching implications for messaging across different devices, and it appears that Apple is finally embracing the universal messaging standard.
