Newsletter
It appears that Apple did, in fact, get the message.
After years of Google and even Samsung, trying to get Apple to adopt RCS, it’s finally here. RCS will be available on iPhone as part of its iOS 18 release that should come in mid-September. Of course, those already on the beta have access to RCS already. So now, Google has put out a new ad that is about 30 seconds long, and it details RCS coming to iPhone.
Within the ad, Android touts that there will no more blur between Android and iPhones. Meaning that high-resolution pictures and videos will be sent between the platforms. There are no more broken group chats, and read receipts, as well as typing indicators, are coming as well. According to Android, “Better photos, videos, group chats messaging for everyone with RCS”.
Why is RCS such a big deal?
RCS is a universal upgrade to text messaging or SMS. Now that the EU has forced Apple to adopt it, everyone can have access to RCS. Why is that such a big deal? Well, here in the US, many still rely on texting through SMS to contact people. Compared to messaging apps like WhatsApp, Telegram, or Signal, messaging between an iPhone and an Android device has been quite a pain not only the green bubbles (which only appear on iPhone anyways), but the super low-resolution photos that are shared and group chats being broken when the Android user leaves.
In SMS, photos appear in low-resolution because the bandwidth for sharing photos is much lower than it is on RCS. Of course, RCS also has the added ability of being able to use the cloud to share photos and videos. The rest of the world, this isn’t as much of an issue, as many don’t use texting. This is thanks to the carriers giving everyone in the US unlimited SMS, while the rest of the world charged for a certain number of SMS for their plans.