Android SVP offers open invitation to help Apple put RCS SMS on iPhone

In a tweet earlier todayGoogle senior vice president Hiroshi Lockheimer has asked Apple to support RCS, the next-generation texting standard that is supposed to supplant texting. He issued an “open invitation to people who can make it right” and said “we are here to help”. Translation: “folks” are Apple and “we’re here to help” is Google’s offer to help Apple implement the new standard.

RCS is finally starting to gain traction around the world. Its biggest champion was Google, which ultimately decided to use it as the default texting solution for Android phones after trying all the other solutions. RCS is far from perfect, but it is significantly superior to SMS (which is, of course, a low bar). After concluding agreements with American operators to commit to respecting the standard next year, Google is turning to a new target of evangelism: Apple.

Apple has yet to respond with comments to any request for The edge over several years as to whether he intends to support RCS on the iPhone, and declined to comment for this story. It seems unlikely that RCS will be coming to iOS anytime soon.

Lockheimer’s tweet followed a chain of cheeky tweets that began with a story about how pro golfer Bryson DeChambeau was breaking iMessage group chats with his green bubbles, which led to the official android account fearing drawing a parallel between the green bubbles and the famous green jacket of the Masters. Lockheimer jokes that there is a “Really Clear Solution” (RCS) so that group chats don’t break down.

RCS has had a long, convoluted (and unfinished) task to become the default messaging experience on Android. From March 2021, Google began making deals with U.S. carriers to get them to commit to using Google’s Android Messages app by default on all Android phones sold on their networks. It started with a successful deal with T-Mobile, later followed by smaller deals with AT&T and Verizon. Once all of these offerings are implemented, Android users who text each other will switch to RCS, which supports typing flags, better group chats, and larger multimedia messages.

It’s important to note that RCS on Android Messages also supports end-to-end encryption for one-on-one chats. This means that Android users texting each other will have a higher level of privacy and security than when texting iPhone users – and vice versa. A recent hack by the SMS Syniverse company is just the latest example of how important encryption is in messaging, especially for the default.

RCS has its own issues, however. As with iMessage, it is possible for messages to get lost in limbo when switching phones. It is also a standard defended by Google but theoretically accepted by operators around the world. The association with Google has tainted RCS in the eyes of many, and of course, requiring carriers to agree on anything is a recipe for trouble. There are also technical limitations, as Ron Amadeo explains here.

Nonetheless, it seems inevitable that RCS will eventually replace SMS – but only if Apple decides to support it. As more carriers embrace it and more users realize that texting is inherently less secure, Apple might start to feel enough pressure to adopt RCS. So far, however, he has shown no sign of this.