Apple plans to add support for the RCS standard to iOS next year, the iPhone maker said Thursday in a major turnaround that will resolve the widespread text message compatibility issue between iPhones and Android smartphones, but has failed to eliminate it where colloquially known as the “green bubble” scare.
Apple’s long-standing reluctance to support RCS has perpetuated fragmentation in messaging ecosystems, particularly affecting Android users, critics have argued over the years. Apple’s stance, often seen as maintaining ecosystem exclusivity, has sparked debate in the tech community about interoperability and user convenience.
Well, no more. In one abrupt announcement Today, Apple also said it believes that “RCS Universal Profile will provide a better interoperability experience compared to SMS or MMS.” The company, which plans to roll out support next year, added: “This will work alongside iMessage, which will continue to be the best and most secure messaging experience for Apple users.”
The big twist follows Google’s repeated request — and public pressure on Apple — to add support for RCS to iPhones. “People have been talking about ‘green bubbles’ as an Android problem,” said Hiroshi Lockheimer, a Google vice president. he tweeted last year, referring to the visual distinction seen when a message is sent from an Android user to an iPhone, where it appears in a green bubble.
While Apple plans to adopt RCS, it has confirmed that these messages will be made it still appears in green bubbles.
“We’re not asking Apple to make iMessage available on Android. We ask Apple to support the industry standard for Contemporary Messaging (RCS) in iMessage, just as it supports older SMS/MMS standards. By not integrating RCS, Apple is holding back the industry and hindering the user experience not only for Android users but also for their own customers,” he tweeted.
Apple, too, isn’t shy about its RCS feel. Apple chief Tim Cook rejected the idea of his company adopting RCS in iMessage a year ago and suggested to a questioner at a conference that he buy his mom an iPhone.
Rich Communication Services, or RCS, is the collective effort of a number of industry players to supercharge traditional SMS with modern features such as richer text and end-to-end encryption. Google, Samsung, and a number of other companies, including telecom carriers, have rolled out support for RCS to more than 800 million users worldwide in recent years.
Critics argue that the disruption in group chats and interactions between Android and iPhone users has historically kept many from switching to Android smartphones — and that’s by design. This tactic came to light in Apple’s legal battle with Epic Games, where internal discussions revealed a conscious decision to keep iMessage in its ecosystem.
During the litigation, a number of internal Apple documents became publicly available. These documents exposed a protracted internal debate about bringing iMessage to Android-powered devices. “Unless there’s a strategy to make it the primary messaging service for the majority of mobile users, I worry that iMessage on Android would only serve to remove barriers for iPhone families to give their kids Android phones,” Craig Federighi, Apple’s chief software officer. , he said in a 2013 email.
Phil Schiller, then-chief marketing officer, echoed that sentiment in 2016, advising Cook in an email: “Bringing iMessage to Android will hurt us more than it will help us.” That same year, an email from a former Apple executive warned that iMessage creates significant user retention, describing it as “severe lock.”
Apple’s decision on Thursday, coincidentally, follows Google and many telecom carriers recently urging EU regulators get Apple to designate iMessage as an “essential” service under the new Digital Markets Act, forcing the iPhone maker to make the chat app fully compatible with competitors. As TechCrunch first reported this month, Apple revealed in a filing that it “expects to make” several policy changes to comply with the new guidelines that take effect next year.
