RCS on Android vs iOS: Is messaging lastly equal?

If you happen to weren’t searching for it, you may not have observed that Apple formally introduced a function that might repair messaging between iPhones and Android telephones at WWDC 2024, nevertheless it was there, buried in a presentation slide. As a part of iOS 18, Apple is including help for RCS, or Wealthy Communication Companies, to the Messages app, lastly bringing some sense of parity to group chats and messages between family and friends on Apple’s platform and Google’s.

Apple technically confirmed it could again RCS in 2023, after years of Google and anybody who knew higher begging the corporate to not depend on decades-old, insecure SMS and MMS messaging protocols, however a point out on the WWDC stage makes it much more actual. iPhone house owners have loved the advantages of free iMessage service for years however have been caught with utilizing SMS and MMS when messaging anybody who would not have an iPhone. RCS ought to bake a few of iMessage’s greatest options, like the power to ship high-resolution movies or typing indicators in my default, with no need to join an additional service.

That does not imply that iOS customers will get precisely the identical expertise as Android customers. The trail to widespread RCS help has not been linear, and the way in which it is carried out on Google’s messaging app is not essentially the identical as Apple will implement on iPhones. This is what we all know to date concerning the distinction between RCS on Android and iOS.

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What’s RCS?

Like MMS however higher

Google/ Pocket-lint 

Earlier than RCS, telephones primarily used SMS to ship textual content messages, and MMS to ship multimedia messages with images and movies. The issue with each protocols is that they are straightforward to intercept as a result of they’re sometimes saved in your service’s servers, making them much less safe than different chat choices, they usually’re inherently restricted within the size of texts they’re capable of transmit or media recordsdata they’re capable of ship. That is why images despatched over MMS are typically so compressed. iMessage supporting high-resolution multimedia messaging from the get-go makes the truth that iPhones default to SMS and MMS when speaking to anybody else extra confounding. It actively makes messages worse.

The RCS Common Profile (the a part of the protocol enabled on units) fixes all of this by being designed to help all the trendy messaging options individuals count on. That features:

• Typing indicators
• Learn receipts
• GIFs
• Excessive-resolution movies
• Excessive-resolution images
• File transfers
• Audio messaging
• Group chats

Sending RCS messages to a different telephone that helps RCS feels much like iMessage, however is on the market on Android telephones, the preferred smartphone working system on the planet. The principle lacking ingredient within the present model of the RCS Common Profile is end-to-end encryption (E2EE), which might make messages despatched solely viewable by the sender and the recipient, on their chosen units, and nobody else. Fortunately, Common Profile may be prolonged, as Reddit users have confirmed, which is how Google has added extra options on prime of RCS. The shortage of E2EE is certainly one of Apple’s justifications for not supporting RCS up till this level, and one of many issues it claimed it wished so as to add to the protocol when it agreed to help it.

How does RCS work on Android telephones?

Google Messages dominates within the West

Google Messages is the way in which that individuals who personal Android telephones can ship RCS messages on a majority of telephones in the USA. Some carriers provide their very own chat apps — iPhone house owners have technically been capable of ship RCS messages via the +Message app in Japan — and have tried to run their very own servers to host and distribute messages, however most now use Google’s Jibe service (a cell infrastructure firm Google acquired in 2015) and Google’s app to help RCS on their networks. With main carriers like Samsung now delivery telephones with Google Messages pre-installed, it seems like Google’s app might turn into the default in the identical manner that Messages app is on the iPhone.

Google’s messaging app helps all the fundamental options of the RCS Common Profile on prime of a number of different options that it is added on prime, like emoji reactions, which intently mimic Apple’s “Tapbacks” in iOS, and extra importantly, E2EE. The Common Profile’s skill to be prolonged, and disable or allow options relying on what an app and supplier help imply Google was capable of add in the Signal Protocol to encrypt messages. Google’s try to encourage extra smartphone makers and carriers utilizing its app by default is especially about getting everybody utilizing the E2EE model of RCS it is providing.

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RCS may be enabled by default or the primary time you open your telephone’s messaging app you could possibly be requested to allow it, however both manner, when you do, you will ship RCS messages, and be capable to take pleasure in the advantages of all these further options. Google Messages and different RCS messaging apps nonetheless default to SMS and MMS if whoever you are messaging would not help RCS, however the purpose is to get all messages to be RCS messages, and ideally encrypted RCS messages in case you’re utilizing Google’s app.

How will RCS work on iPhones?

Apple needs encryption by default

Apple would not essentially disagree with Google’s stance on E2EE. When the corporate first revealed it was going to help RCS, ensuring end-to-end encryption made it into Common Profile was the corporate’s purpose, according to TechRadar. Now that iOS 18 has been introduced and is mostly anticipated to be launched later this yr, the true query is how Apple will truly implement RCS on the iPhone.

RCS help wasn’t introduced as a part of the just lately launched iOS 18 developer beta, however some artful customers have discovered a option to allow it, seemingly confirming at the very least just a few of the RCS options that iPhones will help later this yr. Typically, Apple seems to be attempting to keep up the looks of its outdated SMS and MMS messages, together with using inexperienced bubbles. Assist for RCS options like typing indicators, group chats, and file transfers has been confirmed by customers working iOS 18.

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Finish-to-end encryption is seemingly not a part of RCS on iOS 18, nonetheless, and it isn’t clear if that will likely be enabled when the software program replace is on the market later this yr. Because of Google, we do at the very least know Apple will have to use RCS Universal Profile 2.4 to nonetheless provide its messaging providers in China. Perhaps iOS 18 ships with an older model of RCS, and will get up to date to a brand new model with E2EE down the street, or perhaps Apple’s dedication to E2EE is all speak, nevertheless it’ll take till iOS 18 releases to get a greater sense of what Apple has deliberate.

FAQ

Q: Who finally decides what goes into new variations of RCS?

The RCS protocol is maintained and up to date by the GSMA or International System for Cell Communications Affiliation. It primarily represents the pursuits of cell community operators like T-Cell or AT&T, however consists of smartphone producers like Google and Apple as properly. The GSMA determines which options have to be included in new variations of RCS (and different widespread protocols and requirements, like 5G). If Apple and Google need end-to-end encryption to be a part of the protocol by default, they should persuade a majority of different members to incorporate it within the subsequent model of RCS Common Profile or discover some form of various answer.