In a surprising move, Apple has announced today that it will adopt the RCS (Rich Communication Services) messaging standard. The feature will launch via a software update “later next year” and bring a wide range of iMessage-style features to messaging between iPhone and Android users.

Apple’s decision comes amid pressure from regulators and competitors like Google and Samsung. It also comes as RCS has continued to develop and become a more mature platform than it once was.

  • kirklennon
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    128 months ago

    They’re going to implement the open standard … which isn’t what most Android users are actually using. Does Google’s Messages app gracefully transition to the RCS standard if that’s what the other person is using?

    • N-E-N
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      138 months ago

      No idea but, I suspect that Apple will have some negotiating power here, hopefully weakening Google’s control and making it mostly open

      • Chris Ely
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        -38 months ago

        RCS is already an open standard, that’s why Apple is and always has been able to implement it themselves without relying on Google for anything.

        @NENathaniel @kirklennon

        • N-E-N
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          78 months ago

          My understanding is that it can be fully open but Google’s current implementation is not. That’s why the Google/Samsung messaging apps are the only texting apps that support it

          • Chris Ely
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            18 months ago

            Google and Samsung were the only apps to implement RCS (and the infrastructure to support the app) so far.

            Nothing Google has done prevents any other organizations that want to invest the time and money from also implementing the standard.

            https://www.gsma.com/futurenetworks/rcs/universal-profile/

            Apple, on the other hand, doesn’t allow iMessage apps or servers that they didn’t create themselves. Or even an SMS/RCS app on their devices.

            @NENathaniel

            • N-E-N
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              18 months ago

              Hopefully someone more educated on the topic than me can jump in here haha, maybe I’ve been misinformed idk

          • @[email protected]
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            8 months ago

            They’re on Mastodon, interaction between Lemmy and Mastodon can be weird sometimes it automatically put those there they probably didn’t manually try to @ people.