RCS in iMessage: It Just Works!
It’s hard to ignore that there’s a very vocal war in the U.S., which is all about iPhones & its best-known service called iMessage. It was first all because of the greed of telecom providers back in the States, which led to the inferiority of technology, but now it’s all about the colours of the bubbles appearing in the text field. But there’s RCS with iOS 18 in its latest launch. Is it going to stop the war on chat bubbles? Let’s find it out…
The Prologue:
So, let’s set up some context.
In 2011, Apple brought a proprietary communication platform, which was embedded in the stock messaging/SMS app of the iPhone. This was an attempt to create a free service for iPhone users to communicate using the same experience of SMS but without its shortcomings. SMS back then was not just a communication platform, it was a means for the telecom providers to charge extra money from the users. The data plans for the SMS were skyrocketing throughout the states from all providers. As users were now shifting to shorter communication platforms, this was an economic hassle.
This is where Apple launched iMessage with its foundation laid using cellular/WiFi data, which was cheaper or more economical than SMS plans. It had all the features of SMS & on top of it, cool features like hi-res data image & video transfer, encryption, and reactions to messages were also added. They were unheard of for the time & everyone jumped right in. Anyone using an iPhone started using iMessage as their default & it was the default protocol between iPhones, but if anyone had to share messages with someone not using it, it would revert back to using SMS as the protocol.
This is where all the problems started.
The iMessage Problem:
But is this a real problem? Because a sane mind would never think of the features of iMessage to rage a war. Think again.
In the U.S., a study noted that more than 80% of the users use the default apps for their day-to-day tasks, which come with their devices. It means that iMessage (embedded in the Messages app) is the default for Apple devices & is always going to be. But with the evident rise of the iPhone, especially in the States, the features become a wall.
Since iMessage defaults to SMS for communicating outside the Apple ecosystem, there is still a feature parity. People still using an Android can’t react to messages using reactions. They still receive media as per the SMS standards, which makes them horrendous for any proper use, let alone viewing. On top of that, the messages are not encrypted, which leads to serious privacy issues for non-Apple users. And don’t forget the character limit SMS we used to have back in time. Building on this disparity, Apple went outside their internal code of conduct & segregated the Android users as green bubbles in the messaging feed and went to such an extent that the green they chose for it was outside the colour palette they recommend for optimal viewing experience.
A digital war raged when 85% of young adults use an iPhone in the U.S. and tend to neglect the other side, which is not a social thing to do.
Everyone wanted an end to this.
Enter RCS:
Rich Communication Services (RCS) is a newly developed proprietary messaging standard which was first developed by a forum of companies called “Global System for Mobile Communications Association (GSMA)” to create a communication platform to overcome the issues faced by SMS and MMS. While it was first launched for Android, it quickly scaled to grow. The adoption of RCS for every possible default messenger in the Android space with Google’s implementation made the platform an instant hit. It gave a new way to communicate as it now shared the same feature list other platforms used to have, high-quality media transfer, end-to-end encryption, message reactions, inline replies and many more.
But still being such a success, it had the same issue with iMessage as usual. This was because of Apple’s hesitance to implement the same. They still used SMS for Android-iPhone communication and persisted until last fall. Last fall, there was a very vocal group which exclusively demanded the use of RCS in Apple’s Messenger & the government as the force with their anti-competitive lawsuit forced the Cupertino giant to comply with the regulations and add RCS to Messages (Apple’s messenger app). This is where it all makes sense, but Apple still had a trick up their sleeves.
The Epilogue:
The launch of RCS messaging in iOS 18 this summer will resolve the platform issue that the Android crowd has to face. They all can enjoy whatever device they want to & wouldn’t have to face the prior. All can enjoy the same features for better communication.
But is it all roses? I don’t think so.
With the use of RCS, Apple has finally eliminated the platform issues it once used to have with iMessage from a tech point of view, but it might not change the social angle. Most of the crowd who wanted the adoption of RCS were not tech-savvy and wanted its addition for the removal of the green bubble, which inherently caused the social issue among their peer group, but with the early developer beta of iOS 18, it seems that Apple is not going to change it at all. While they might add the included features of RCS, it still would be treated as an alternative and not as an in-house, which they might further invest in later.
The tech space is ever-evolving and is getting out of hand.
