Google issued a statement this afternoon in response to the news that Apple is adding RCS support to the iPhone
Google says it is “happy to see Apple take their first step today by coming on board to embrace RCS.” The company has been an outspoken critic of the iPhone’s lack of RCS, claiming that it degrades the messaging experience for Android users. In fact, the most recent “Get The Message” campaign, launched in September, compared the iPhone to a pager for failing to support the modern standard.
Meanwhile, Google plans to ” look forward to working with them to implement this on iOS in a way that works well for everyone.” Apple has yet to provide specific implementation details, but has highlighted features such as read receipts, high-resolution images and videos, and improved group conversations, as well as a location-sharing capability.
Apple stated that it wished to collaborate with GSM Association members in order to add strong encryption to the RCS specification. It took a statement this morning to highlight iMessages as the “best and most secure messaging experience for Apple users.” However, next year’s iOS update will include “the standard [RCS Universal Profile] as currently published by the GSM Association.”
Google currently has its own end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) implementation with the Android Messages app, which works with 1:1 and group conversations. It took just under two years to implement the latter.
The full statement from Google is provided below:
“Everyone deserves to communicate with each other in ways that are modern and secure, no matter what phone they have. That’s why we have worked closely with the mobile industry to accelerate the adoption of RCS, and we’re happy to see Apple take their first step today by coming on board to embrace RCS. We welcome Apple’s participation in our ongoing work with GSMA to evolve RCS and make messaging more equitable and secure, and look forward to working with them to implement this on iOS in a way that works well for everyone.”