As Android and mobile carriers plan to adopt the next-generation RCS standard for texting, Apple appears to be one of the sole remaining holdouts.
Verizon on Tuesday announced that it would adopt the Rich Communications Service (RCS) standard beginning in 2021, joining AT&T and T-Mobile. It marks the final step toward replacing SMS with RCS on Android.
As The Verge points out, Apple has yet to announce any plans or interest in adopting RCS support for iPhone.
Through iMessage, Apple users have long had the features that RCS offers to Android owners. Likely because of that, Apple has been absent from conversations about adopting RCS.
What this means, essentially, is that both Android and iPhone users will be able to take advantage of rich texting features and end-to-end encryption, just not when messaging with each other. If an Android user messages an Apple user, or vice versa, the text will default back to SMS, which isn’t end-to-end encrypted and has no enhanced texting features.
However, with Google’s Android and all three major carriers in the U.S. adopting the RCS standard, Apple may be more interested in bringing support for the next-generation texting standard to its iPhone.
It likely won’t replace iMessage, but RCS adoption could make communications between Android and iPhone users more feature-rich and secure.
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I don’t see what this has to do with the carriers, are they trying to stay relevant?
If Apple switched to RCS, how would a government be able to to silently spy on you by sending it an iMessage?
I wouldn’t trust this standard.
Just had a quick read through the history and current status of RCS on the Wikipedia page. Sounds like a real mess of carriers trying to market it as their own (joyn, message+, etc) and different levels of support. Not surprising Apple wants to steer clear of it for now. EDIT: Not to mention there are security issues
EDIT: Totally misread someone’s post. Sorry.
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