Apple’s Messages app will be getting RCS texting support later this 12 months as a part of iOS 18, promising so as to add extra fashionable options to conversations between an iPhone and an Android telephone. Although the function did not get far more than a passing reference in the course of the firm’s WWDC 2024 keynote, it guarantees to be an enormous enchancment that might enable for higher picture sharing and group chats whether or not your contacts use an iPhone or an Android.
Buried in Apple’s iOS 18 preview page (scroll all the best way all the way down to the Messages part or simply try the above picture I clipped out) is a screenshot that shows what an RCS dialog may seem like when an iPhone texts with an Android.
Whereas it seems quite a bit like an SMS or MMS dialog, that includes two inexperienced bubbles and a inexperienced audio waveform, there are three noticeable RCS options on show. The largest is the “Delivered” standing message, which is a large step ahead since SMS and MMS can not present such confirmations.
Subsequent is the (hopefully) high-quality picture, which does not look nice on this screenshot so we will must consider from the inexperienced bubble textual content beneath it that it’s certainly “vibrant.” Present MMS texting on the iPhone helps audio messages with Android telephones, however hopefully the audio on this dialog is clearer than what at the moment goes by means of.
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And within the textual content field on the backside of the picture, there’s labeling that now says “RCS” to the precise of “Textual content Message,” the latter of which is at the moment utilized by itself for SMS and MMS chats.
RCS is a extra fashionable texting commonplace that is been tipped to switch the getting old SMS and MMS codecs, resulting from its potential to help options like typing indicators, group chats and high-quality media sharing. The usual has been championed by the business group GSMA and has been utilized by Google’s Messages app for Android for a number of years.
Nonetheless, despite the fact that Google’s Messages app supports several features that rival Apple’s iMessage by profiting from RCS, together with RCS help in iOS 18 doesn’t essentially imply that Apple’s Messages app will help the identical options one-for-one. As an example, Apple said last year it would work with the GSMA to enhance the encryption commonplace included inside RCS moderately than undertake one other firm’s such because the one Google Messages makes use of. Apple additionally introduced that its iMessage service will proceed to be supported alongside RCS, so it is doubtless that we’ll proceed to see iMessage options that may keep separate from RCS.
There are nonetheless a number of questions left to reply about Apple’s help of RCS. As an example, how properly will it help group chats? Will it translate message reactions which can be despatched by Android telephones to the iPhone? For now, these particulars will stay below wraps, presumably till Apple is able to unveil its subsequent iPhone later this 12 months.