Apple wants to add support for SMS successor RCS to iPhones next year

Apple will add support for the RCS messaging standard on iPhones next year. A company spokesperson confirmed this to TechRadar and 9to5Mac. This standard must continue to exist alongside iMessage.

RCS will be added to iPhones via a software update ‘later next year’, the spokesperson said TechRadar and 9to5Mac. “We believe RCS Universal Profile offers better interoperability than SMS or MMS.” The standard should be available ‘in addition to iMessage’ as a separate service. SMS and MMS will also remain available as an alternative.

The addition of this standard should promote collaboration between messaging apps on iPhones and Android devices. For example, it will be possible for Android and Apple users to send videos and photos to each other in high quality without using an additional application. Users of the different operating systems can also share their location with each other and things such as read receipts and typing indicators become visible. Unlike SMS and MMS, RCS also works over WiFi or mobile data.

However, unlike iMessage, RCS does not yet offer end-to-end encryption as standard. Apple says that, unlike Google, it will not add an encryption layer to RCS itself, but will instead work with the GSM Association to make encryption a standard part of RCS.

RCS has been seen as ‘SMS 2.0’ for years and Google has supported the standard in Android for several years, but Apple wanted something different. In September 2022, Apple CEO Tim Cook hinted that there would be no support for RCS in iPhones because users would not want Apple to spend energy on it. Google and Samsung have already started campaigns to convince Apple to support the standard. Earlier this month, Google and some European providers also argued for iMessage to be covered by the Digital Markets Act. As a result, Apple should, among other things, make interoperability possible.