Apple has finally responded to calls to support RCS in its iPhone operating system, and this will be with the launch of the latest iOS 18. What is this feature and why will it not be as useful as expected for users from our Arab countries?
Apple has officially announced support for the RCS protocol developed by Google for instant messaging on Android phones, to reach the iPhone with iOS 18, to facilitate comprehensive messaging between Android phones and iPhones, a step that comes after years of demands for the company to enable it on its phones.
What is the advantage/protocol of RCS?
RCS stands for Rich Communication Services, a protocol developed by Google in 2019 to work on Android phones, to work within the Google Messages application, with the aim of integrating advanced messaging enhanced with images, videos or emojis, and integrating them into the default messages for cellular communication between phones, the old SMS.
As is known, cellular communication companies for mobile phones have offered the ability to send short messages since their inception, but in a primitive way, as only text messages of 160 characters can be sent, known as SMS.
Despite the progress in communication and support for adding media to SMS messages, which later became known as MMS, they are still many years away from modern messaging methods, in terms of quality and duration of sending and receiving compared to newer messaging methods, such as WhatsApp, for example.
RCS is a feature that bridges the gap between the old SMS/MMS messaging method and the newer methods, via the Google Messages app, enabling users to send the same type of messages (SMS or MMS) with support for higher quality images and videos and faster sending and receiving speeds, in addition to the ability to send high quality emojis and features that facilitate understanding during messaging, such as interacting with previously received messages or responding to a specific message, just like in WhatsApp and other messaging apps that rely on the Internet only.
Strong rejection from Apple
Despite the great benefit of the RCS feature, and Google’s confirmation of its readiness to provide the protocol to Apple to include it in its iMessage messaging application, Apple has remained reluctant to add support for it in its application since 2019.
To clarify here, Apple preceded Google in developing its own messaging protocol, capable of converting SMS or MMS messages into advanced messages with the same messaging features based on the Internet, including high quality images and videos, emojis, and ways to interact with rich messages.
Apple developed this protocol and it was included with the launch of the iMessage application at its beginning in 2011, about 8 years before Google.
Apple’s idea was for this feature, and the application in general, to be exclusive to its systems, whether for iPhones, iPads, or Mac computers. Despite Google’s long attempts since 2019 to convince Apple to support the RCS protocol on its systems and the iMessage application, to facilitate messaging between Android phones and iPhones, they ended in failure, and Apple completely rejected the proposal, until the announcement of iOS 18 last month.
Messaging via SMS/MMS between Android and iPhone continued in the primitive way, where only texts are sent, and they are divided into several messages if a single message exceeds the traditional 160 characters for messages from cellular carriers.
With the increasing reliance on messaging via the iMessage application among iPhone users (especially in the United States), it was a real problem when trying to message with a user of any of the phones with the Android system, so the decision to adopt the RCS protocol in iOS 18 is a really big change.
Why won’t Arab users benefit from RCS on iPhone?
RCS support will be more welcomed by iPhone users in the United States than in other countries, and to understand why, let’s first clarify that telecom companies in the United States offer users the ability to send an unlimited number of SMS messages for free via their phones.
The vast majority of phone users in the United States rely on messaging via applications such as iMessage on iPhone or Google Messages on Android, to take advantage of this interesting free feature provided by telecom companies in their country, unlike the current situation in Arab countries.
There is no Arab country in which telecom companies offer the ability to send SMS messages for free, so you find that the greatest interest for us in messaging is through applications such as WhatsApp, Telegram, and others.
Given this information, the upcoming big change in iOS 18 with support for the RCS communication protocol in iMessage will not be as beneficial for users from the United States, and interest in using WhatsApp, Messenger, and Telegram will remain.