Apple announced Monday that it will support rich communication services for iPhone, helping to alleviate the gap between the green and blue bubbles.
The update will arrive late next year and will work alongside the company’s iMessage system.
“We believe RCS Universal Profile will offer a better interoperability experience compared to SMS or MMS,” an Apple spokesperson said in a statement.
The announcement comes after years of resistance from the Silicon Valley giant, punctuated by Apple CEO Tim Cook telling a Guardian reporter: “Buy your mom an iPhone,” when asked about Improve compatibility between Android and iPhone messaging.
Tech rival Google said it is happy that Apple is adding RCS to iPhones.
“We welcome Apple’s participation in our ongoing work with GSMA to evolve RCS and make messaging more equitable and secure and look forward to working with them to implement this on iOS in a way that works well for everyone,” Google said. in a statement to 9to5Google. .
Apple also made the announcement ahead of a Thursday deadline to make arguments in the European Union that iMessage is not a “core” service under the EU’s Digital Services Act. If regulators find that iMessage is a “basic” service, the company will have to open the program.
New features supported by RCS
The company said adding RCS will allow users to send and receive high-resolution images and videos and provide more reliable group messaging.
Users will also have the ability to activate read receipts and share their location within a text thread, according to Apple.
Apple said it is working with members of the GSMA, the group that created the RCS standards, to strengthen encryption, but that RCS offers stronger encryption than SMS and MMS services.
