The IT Nerd

Google for a while has been pressuring Apple to support RCS. But Apple has steadfastly resisted this. And the last time I wrote about this topic, I said this:

Apple has nothing to gain by supporting RCS. They are perfectly fine with the status quo as it works for them. And until there’s a real incentive to change course, they won’t. Google needs to sell them something other than “You could fix texting for Android users and to stop teenagers from bullying each other!” Because Apple won’t ever care about Android users. Except the ones that the can switch to an iPhone.

Well, my jaw hit the ground when I read this on 9to5mac:

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.

The reason behind this move isn’t hard to figure out. The EU wants Apple to open up iMessage to others. Apple doesn’t want to do that so adding RCS to the Messages app allows Apple to say “look we support our standard, plus we support RCS and plain old text messaging. Are you happy now EU?” Now whether the EU would be happy with this is an open question. But I can see from Apple’s perspective how this is the “least worst option” for them. Let’s see how the EU reacts to this.

This entry was posted on November 16, 2023 at 1:11 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Apple. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.