Apple iMessage is about to change out of all recognition, if a new report is correct. And the changes will affect not just how easy the app is to use on an iPhone, but for friends who have Android phones, too. And it looks like it could protect Apple from issues in a recent Department of Justice anti-trust suit against the company.
Apple iMessage is about to be transformed.
Updated on June 6. This post was first published on Tuesday, June 4, 2024.
It’s thought that on Monday, June 10, Apple will announce the availability of RCS messaging for the iPhone. Things could still change right up until the keynote begins at 10 a.m. Pacific, as there’s a lot of stuff to cram into the announcements, it’s thought, or it could even be saved for a separate unveiling, but next Monday looks most likely.
We’ve known for some time that RCS support was coming, but the timing, if correct, is big news, as Apple has previously only committed to late 2024.
Rich Communication Services messaging is an advanced form of texting that is currently used on Android phones and means that messages sent between iPhones and Android handsets will gain extra features which were previously unable to bridge from one platform to the other.
The change will mean that, as Abrar Al-Heeti comments at CNet, it will ‘make texting Android users fell less archaic.” When they used an Android phone, the writer’s friends would “would deplore the havoc I’d wreak on any text or group chat by “turning everything green.” There’s apparently nothing worse to an iMessage user than an Android user who crashes their precious blue bubble party.”
The report goes on to list some of the changes—I’ve listed others below—that are on the horizon: “Some features will remain exclusive to iMessage or Google’s Messages app. For instance, while you can edit or unsend texts in iMessage, you probably won’t be able to do so for messages sent via RCS. And Google Messages-exclusive features like drafting texts using the Gemini AI model likely won’t transfer across devices either. It’s also not clear yet whether messages sent across Android phones and iPhones will be end-to-end encrypted.”
RCS is much more sophisticated and capable than SMS, which is limited to 160 characters, is not great with media and has no encryption, for instance.
If you’re sending a message from one iPhone to another, this is of little interest because Apple’s iMessage has so many superior features—such as the typing indicator which lets you know your message is being read by the other party, or funky extras like balloons or confetti filling the screen.
The problem is, these features don’t play nicely with Android phones, and it’s one of the reasons that many people, especially outside the United States, have migrated to the platform-agnostic WhatsApp.
It’s also the reason that when an iPhone user receives a message from an Android phone, the message shows up in green livery rather than blue. Though it doesn’t excuse the way people look down on green bubbles. I mean, there are more important things in life, you know.
But the move to adopt RCS has been greeted by many, including Inderpal Singh Mumick, CEO of RCS business messaging hub Dotgo, who has described it as “a huge win for Apple customers and a game-changer for the messaging ecosystem.”
So, what will it mean? As soon as it arrives, features found on each platform separately will be available across both. So, Android users will be able to share their location with iPhone users within text message threads, there will be typing indicators common to all users and receipts to show your messages have been read. There’ll be higher-quality media sharing and greater encryption.
But, as Forbes contributor Zak Doffman notes, “RCS is not end-to-end encrypted. RCS is more secure than SMS, but nowhere near as secure as iMessage, Google Messages, Signal, WhatsApp or even Facebook Messenger. This can be fixed by an update to the core RCS platform itself, which is what Apple indicated they would push for when they announced RCS last year.”
But even if it is not as secure, iMessage with RCS support has so many other advantages, I suspect many iPhone users will desert WhatsApp and other services for the one that is core to Apple’s devices.
Oh, and one more thing about green bubbles: Apple has said that even when it has adopted RCS, “Blue bubbles will still be used to represent iMessages, while green bubbles will represent RCS messages,” as 9to5Mac reported.