Apple adopted Wealthy Communication Companies (RCS) with the launch of iOS 18, upgrading messaging requirements for non-iMessage conversations. Apple’s resolution to undertake RCS got here as a shock when it was first introduced in November 2023 as a result of Google had been aggressively pushing Apple to implement RCS for years, however Apple would not budge.
This information explains the whole lot that it is advisable learn about RCS, together with the way it works, the best way to apply it to Apple gadgets, why you may not see it, why Apple determined to undertake it now, and the advantages that you may anticipate from RCS now that help for the function is stay.
RCS Defined
Wealthy Communication Companies, or RCS, is a communication protocol developed by the GSM Affiliation and championed by Google. As a communication protocol, RCS is utilized by smartphone producers and carriers to ship text-based messages, pictures, and movies between gadgets. It is mainly what now powers the textual content messages that you simply ship to folks along with your iPhone and different Apple gadgets when iMessage is unavailable.
RCS is a substitute for SMS (Quick Messaging Service) and MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service), each of that are used for knowledge sharing over mobile networks. RCS combines the options of SMS and MMS, and provides extra performance. Like SMS, it enables you to to ship texts to individuals who do not have iPhones for iMessage.
RCS Options
There are a number of advantages to RCS in comparison with the prior MMS and SMS options. A lot of the advance will be seen in iPhone to Android chats as a result of for conversations between Apple system homeowners, iMessage continues to be the default.
- Help for greater decision pictures and movies.
- Help for bigger file sizes and file sharing.
- Audio messages.
- Cross-platform emoji reactions for textual content messages.
- Actual-time typing indicators.
- Learn receipts.
- Capacity to ship messages over mobile or Wi-Fi (SMS is mobile solely). There isn’t a value to ship an RCS message over Wi-Fi.
- Improved group chats with choice for including and eradicating folks, and giving chats a reputation.
RCS vs SMS/MMS
SMS or Quick Messaging Service is supported by virtually all cellphones, and it’s designed to let you ship textual content messages from system to system. It’s accompanied by the Cellular Messaging Service extension that helps pictures, movies, and longer textual content messages. Each of those requirements have been round for greater than 20 years and have fallen behind extra fashionable chat apps when it comes to options.
RCS is basically a modernized model of SMS/MMS that carriers and sensible cellphone producers began adopting proper round a decade in the past, but it surely has taken time for it to be supported and never all corporations have added help, so the extra common (and extra restricted) SMS/MMS requirements have caught round too.
Maybe one of many greatest adjustments is the best way that SMS/MMS and RCS work. SMS and MMS are service supported and require a mobile connection to operate. RCS is supported by carriers, however RCS messages will be despatched over a mobile or Wi-Fi connection, much like iMessages, so there is no particular mobile connection requirement.
RCS is in actual fact far more like WhatsApp, iMessage, Messenger, and related chat apps, however baked right into a smartphone’s default textual content messaging app. It helps options that SMS/MMS don’t, like typing indicators, emoji reactions, high-resolution pictures, file transfers, video calls, and calls and texts over Wi-Fi.
RCS and iMessage
RCS works alongside iMessage, and it doesn’t exchange iMessage. For iPhone to iPhone conversations and texts on any Apple system to a different Apple system, iMessage is the default.
If you happen to flip off iMessage in your iPhone, it’s going to default to RCS on supported gadgets as that’s the new textual content messaging normal for non-iMessage communications.
iMessage will proceed to operate precisely because it does now with no change for communications between Apple system customers.
What RCS Means for iPhone Customers
You probably have pals or relations which have an Android system, you will see an enchancment in a number of the frustrations that include cross-platform messaging.
Group texts between Android and iPhone customers might be much less buggy, and there will not be the identical limitations on picture and video measurement that may trigger media to not ship. The tapback reactions that you simply use on an iPhone have an emoji response equal on Android, so tapbacks will not be fairly as complicated to your Android utilizing pals.
Learn receipts and typing indicators can be found for iPhone to Android communications and will not simply be restricted to iPhone to iPhone iMessages when RCS rolls out.
Generally, iPhone homeowners and people with different Apple gadgets do not want to consider RCS or fear about it. It is a change that is taking place within the background with no consumer interplay required. Communication isn’t altering between iPhones, and between iPhone and Android customers, messaging is about the identical, however improved when it comes to reliability.
RCS and Android
Textual content conversations with Android customers are the first means iPhone customers expertise RCS in iOS 18. RCS is simply obtainable when all individuals within the dialog have a tool and a service that help it, however that encompasses most Android customers in america. All the main U.S. carriers help RCS. If you happen to’re texting with somebody on a service that doesn’t help RCS, it’s going to fall again to the outdated SMS/MMS normal.
Android gadgets have had RCS for a while as Google and Samsung have supported it for a number of years and have been pushing Apple to undertake it.
Pre-RCS, sharing pictures and movies with Android customers may very well be difficult for an iPhone consumer, as generally pictures and movies are too massive or will not ship. There have been additionally usually points with group conversations between Android and iPhone customers, each when it comes to supported options and stability.
Speaking to an Android consumer must be much less of a trouble due to RCS. Recordsdata and pictures shouldn’t fail to ship, there are typing indicators, and skim receipts are cross-platform.
Inexperienced Bubbles vs. Blue Bubbles
Whereas it ought to now be much less irritating to speak with “green bubble” folks on an Apple system, chat bubble colours aren’t altering.
iMessage conversations proceed to be denoted with blue chat bubbles, and RCS messages proceed to be inexperienced, the identical as SMS/MMS messages. Word that SMS and MMS aren’t going away. They’re going to proceed to be obtainable on networks that do not help RCS and in conditions the place RCS is unavailable.
RCS requires all the gadgets collaborating in a dialog to have help for the function, and the community must help it too. So for those who occur to message somebody who makes use of a service that does not help RCS or who has RCS turned off, it makes use of SMS.
A Word on Encryption
Google’s implementation of RCS for Google Messages helps end-to-end encryption on Android gadgets, however it’s price noting that Apple is adopting the RCS Common Profile created by the GSM Affiliation and never a model of RCS modified by Google. RCS messages from iPhone to Android customers are NOT encrypted on the present time.
iMessage to iMessage conversations are encrypted, however an iMessage to textual content message dialog isn’t. Apple is working with the GSM Affiliation to enhance RCS and so as to add encryption that can work for iPhone to Android conversations.
RCS Worldwide
Google, Samsung, and all U.S. carriers have adopted RCS, however in some nations, native carriers might want to add help earlier than RCS between iPhones and different gadgets might be purposeful. In case your service doesn’t help RCS, you’ll not see it as an choice in your iPhone. Examine your RCS settings by going to Settings > Apps > Messages > RCS Messaging. Be certain RCS Messaging is toggled on. If you cannot flip it on or do not see it, your service could not help it and you can be restricted to SMS.
Apple has a listing of carriers that help RCS on its web site.
RCS Options Not But Carried out
There are some RCS capabilities that Apple has not but added help for, as Google has identified on its RCS web site. Apple could add these options at a later date.
- React to media with emoji.
- Reply on to messages in group chats.
- Finish-to-end encryption.
Why Is Apple Supporting RCS Now?
Google has been virtually begging Apple to implement help for RCS since 2022, launching an internet site, beginning a social media marketing campaign, filming advertisements, and organising billboards all with the purpose of convincing Apple to help the messaging normal.
In September 2022, Tim Prepare dinner stated that adopting RCS was not a precedence for Apple. “I don’t hear our users asking that we put a lot of energy into that at this point,” he stated. So what’s modified? It is not fully clear, however regulatory points have doubtless performed an element.
Apple is dealing with scrutiny over App Retailer, iMessage, and different proprietary applied sciences in a number of nations all over the world, so by adopting a common messaging normal, Apple is exhibiting a willingness to help system interoperability.
Within the European Union, legislators are creating legal guidelines that might require Apple to make adjustments to iMessage to make it obtainable on different platforms in order that iMessage customers aren’t locked in to Apple gadgets. With RCS, iMessage has fewer advantages which might be unavailable cross-platform, and nearer function parity is on the market on iPhone and Android gadgets.