Apple has announced that it will finally add support for the RCS (Rich Communication Services) messaging standard in iPhone’s Messages app.
The company provided a statement to 9to5Mac, in which it revealed that the support for RCS will be added to the iPhone later next year.
Here’s the statement provided by Apple about RCS on iPhone.
Later next year, we will be adding support for RCS Universal Profile, the standard as currently published by the GSM Association. We believe RCS Universal Profile will offer a better interoperability experience when compared to SMS or MMS. This will work alongside iMessage, which will continue to be the best and most secure messaging experience for Apple users.
– Apple Spokesperson
With RCS support messaging between iPhone and Android will see a significant improvement. With this change cross-platform messaging between iPhone and Android will finally have features like read receipts, typing indicators, high-quality photo and video sharing, and more.
RCS support does not mean the iMessage service will become available on the Android platform. The RCS support will be available on iPhones through the Messages app and messages and media will be transferred between iPhone and Android over the Internet. However, iMessage will remain exclusively available on Apple’s own platforms and devices.
Before RCS whenever iPhone detects you are sending a message to a non-iPhone user, it switches to SMS or MMS. However, after RCS support when the iPhone detects a non-iPhone user on the other end of the chat, it will switch to RCS-based chat and allow users to send media, typing indicators, and other modern features that are not available via SMS.
With the RCS support iPhone and Android users will be able to enjoy a better messaging experience compared to SMS and MMS, which will still be available when there’s no Internet connectivity.
Apple has been under pressure to bring RCS support to iPhones from Google and Samsung, however, the company has resisted the pressure so far. However, with this sudden change in its stance, it’s the users who are going to benefit from a better messaging experience with their Android friends.
