Apple Resists Adoption of Next Generation RCS SMS Standard



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While Android and mobile carriers plan to adopt the next-generation RCS standard for texting, Apple appears to be one of the only remaining dodgers.

Verizon announced Tuesday that it will adopt the Rich Communications Service (RCS) standard from 2021, joining AT&T and T-Mobile. It marks the last step towards replacing SMS with RCS on Android.

As The edge points out, Apple has yet to announce any plans or interest in adopting RCS support for iPhone.

Thanks to iMessage, Apple users have long had the features that RCS offers to Android owners. Probably because of this, Apple has been absent from conversations about adopting RCS.

What this essentially means is that Android and iPhone users will be able to take advantage of the rich texting features and end-to-end encryption, but not when they are exchanging messages. If an Android user sends a message to an Apple user, or vice versa, the text will default back to SMS, which is not end-to-end encrypted and does not have enhanced SMS features.

However, with the adoption of the RCS standard by Android from Google and the three major carriers in the United States, Apple may be more interested in supporting the next-generation SMS standard on its iPhone.

It probably won’t replace iMessage, but adopting RCS could make communications between Android and iPhone users more feature-rich and secure.

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