Google Exults: Apple to Finally Adopt RCS, the "SMS 2.0", in 2024

After years of ignoring it, Apple will finally support the Rich Communication Services (RCS) protocol in 2024. Apple announced this in a brief statement: "Over the next year, we will add support for the RCS Universal Profile, the standard currently published by the GSM Association. We believe that the RCS Universal Profile will provide a better interoperability experience than SMS or MMS."

RCS, which has been deployed on Android for nearly five years, is essentially SMS 2.0. This standard allows you to exchange messages and content with the modern features that are missing from SMS and MMS: HD quality, group chat, Wi-Fi operation, typing indicator, etc.

By integrating RCS into iOS, Apple will improve instant messaging with Android smartphones, which is something that Google has been demanding for years.

This is a dramatic turnaround, with Tim Cook still assuring last year that he had "not heard many of his users ask him to put a lot of effort into RCS."

However, RCS does not signal the end of iMessage. In its statement, Apple clarifies that "RCS will operate alongside iMessage, which will continue to be the best and most secure messaging experience for Apple users." RCS should therefore be integrated into the Messages app, just like SMS and MMS are today.

This turnaround could be the result of increasing pressure from competition and regulatory authorities. The European Commission is currently examining whether iMessage should be subject to the DMA and therefore become interoperable with WhatsApp and Messenger. However, the support for RCS is not synonymous with opening iMessage to competition, Apple emphasizes that it will be a parallel system, but this change in Messages in favor of interoperability between platforms could appease the regulator.

Since Apple is adopting RCS, it has said that it will collaborate with other GSMA members to improve the protocol, particularly in terms of privacy. While Google's implementation manages end-to-end encryption, this is not the case for the standard itself. iMessage remains superior on this point and will increase its lead in terms of security with contact key verification available starting with iOS 17.2.

It remains to be clarified that messages sent with RCS will remain green, like those that are sent today in SMS or MMS, because from Apple's point of view, the new protocol is only an evolution of the lower-level operator protocol, in no way a successor to iMessage.