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Apple is bringing RCS to the iPhone in iOS 18 | The new standard will replace SMS as the default communication protocol between Android and iOS devices

The long-awaited day is here: Apple has announced that its Messages app will support RCS in iOS 18. The move comes after years of taunting, cajoling, and finally, some regulatory scrutiny from the EU.

Right now, when people on iOS and Android message each other, the service falls back to SMS — photos and videos are sent at a lower quality, messages are shortened, and importantly, conversations are not end-to-end encrypted like they are in iMessage. Messages from Android phones show up as green bubbles in iMessage chats and chaos ensues.

Apple’s announcement was likely an effort to appease EU regulators.

TenderfootGungi ,

RCS is a terrible standard. But China wants it, so Apple is forced to add it.

moon ,

EU is forcing them, not China. It’s a whole lot better than SMS at least.

Resol ,
@Resol@lemmy.world avatar

So when are they making FaceTime open source too? That’s what Steve Jobs said when he first announced it.

Also, FOSS clients for RCS messaging should exist. My only options so far are Google’s messaging app, Samsung’s weird thing, and if I don’t want either, an iPhone. Eh… I’d like more options. Let’s just have all messaging applications support open source protocols, including Signal because why not??

TheGrandNagus ,

And Samsung’s only got approved because it’s Google’s under the skin. A bit like how every browser on iOS is actually Safari.

RCS is purported to be open, but in practice it really isn’t.

Resol ,
@Resol@lemmy.world avatar

That’s just stupid. Kinda like how they never made FaceTime open-source when it was promised to us when it was first announced.

Wait, I already said this in my initial comment. Damn.

mightyfoolish ,

Finally, I’ll be added to the group chat for work. I’ll know where to report to just as early as everyone else.

anon_8675309 ,

I know people want this. I do to. But SMS going away will suck. Even in 2024, there’s still that moment you have every now and then that you can’t get a call out but a sms will make it out just fine. SMS rides along with the carriers ping signal. It’s not part of the data signal.

RubberElectrons ,
@RubberElectrons@lemmy.world avatar

I don’t think sms will go away, that ping is fundamental to GSM & LTE so far as I can tell.

You may need an app that explicitly taps into the sms feature though

Omega_Jimes ,

Right now my phone gives me the option if RCS fails for some reason, to send the message again with SMS. I assume that will be the case here as well.

solarbabies ,
@solarbabies@lemmy.world avatar

Google Messages app already falls back to SMS automatically if RCS fails. SMS is not going anywhere.

dorumon ,
@dorumon@lemmy.world avatar

Man it’s a shame that Google RCS doesn’t run on android phones by default if you have a custom rom or rooted your device or have an unlocked bootloader. Guess this won’t really affect me then and it doesn’t really matter.

moon ,

Yeah really wish there was a single FOSS alternative that supported RCS. Hard to call it an open protocol when pretty much just Google Messages supports it.

dorumon ,
@dorumon@lemmy.world avatar

Yeah same here! But I think google is trying to monopolize RCS at the moment and there are really no good alternatives especially here in the United States that people are willing to use because its just attached to a phone number and you don’t have to think about it.

ian ,
@ian@feddit.uk avatar

I guess, if I’m on Android, this will make no difference to me?

Joelk111 ,

If you’re texting an iPhone user it’ll make a difference

Qwaffle_waffle ,

So no difference?

ian ,
@ian@feddit.uk avatar

You mean SMS? I rarely use SMS these days. And I don’t know many people with an iPhone. That’s a US, UK thing it seems.

foggy ,

I just want my gf to have the same SMS app as me so she can see the silly emoji animations I see 😢

miridius ,

Then why not use the same app?

foggy ,

iOS/Android

No iOS version of the app I use. Hopefully rcs is the floodgate. 🤞

She uses generic ass iMessage anyways. She’ll come around :)

discount_door_garlic ,

Signal is better than any other common alternative, and its on both android and ios

foggy ,

Yeah but the 😮 react isn’t hilarious.

skulblaka ,
@skulblaka@startrek.website avatar

Signal also does jack all unless both parties are using Signal. In this case, might be fine. Need to talk to anyone else in your life? It’s back to iMessage.

I love Signal and will probably never get rid of it but the use case for it has shrunk tremendously since they removed the ability to message non-signal users.

woelkchen ,
@woelkchen@lemmy.world avatar

Everybody is using WhatsApp which is available for all platforms. I’m not the biggest fan of that but a user base of literally billions is hard to avoid.

discount_door_garlic ,

The issue is WhatsApp from a few years ago versus WhatsApp today - meta/favebook is probably the worst possible company to have bought it, their record on security, privacy, and features is horrible.

The app today is full of enshitification (meta ai being shoved down my throat by the communication monopoly) and nobody can ever fully trust their security or privacy because its not open source.

Signal sadly doesn’t yet have the ubiquity of whatsapp - but for everyone that has it (now I’m finding even non tech-savvy family are switching over) use signal, and where you have to, use WhatsApp.

sugar_in_your_tea ,

It’s not really a thing in the US, which is kind of weird since it’s such a big deal elsewhere. Then again, I’m happy it’s not a thing here because I’ve avoided Meta/Facebook entirely, and I’d like to keep it that way.

discount_door_garlic ,

imessage is no better in that case - and outside America barely anybody still uses either SMS or RCS, apple is a smaller share of the market meaning the ubiquity of imessage isn’t there.

If you want anything beyond SMS which is a universal standard, you both have to be using the same service - I’m just saying that signal is available for anyone who wants to use it.

I was also upset at the removal of texting from signal, but in hindsight its for the best - if its a secure message service that youre not charged per message to use, the support of a dying platform which is difficult to distinguish when in use is an issue - now its extremely clear whether youre reaching someone through signal or text, cause signal only sends signal messages.

Liz ,

I want to be able to turn off those silly animations.

foggy ,

😡

moon ,

🫄 emoji racist

mightyfoolish ,

Just get Telegram. Everyone except my boss moved to it. Now, Apple lost their leverage with iMessage.

slumberlust ,

Doesn’t Telegram have E2E encryption disabled by default?

mightyfoolish ,

I don’t know. It just made for a usable experience as iMessage made it so users literally hated communicating with Android users.

PsyDoctah9Jah ,
@PsyDoctah9Jah@lemmy.world avatar

RCS is crap, inconsistent, unreliable, lacking, buggy. It doesn’t even handle Dual SIM …

Android needed a native “iMessage” style solution at least 10 years ago.

I can buy a $99 flip phone, basic phone, up to a $1,500 premium device, SMS/MMS will function the same across all 3 devices. RCS however will not. So how is this the answer to advanced messaging on Android? It isn’t…

If Google bought BBM & made it their own when it was still relevant in the consumer space, made it native on all Android 10 devices & later with SMS/MMS fall back, this would be something! Damn I miss BlackBerry…

RCS is not seamless, not native, and it simply is not it. It’s the 1 thing I hate about Android, as creative and customizable as the software is, we need more…I hate what Apple represents in the consumer space and how people often think who use an iPhone which makes me never want one…

The moment Google saw the exclusivity Apple was doing, Android should have followed suite.

RCS sucks…

ezmac ,

Crazy thing is Google Hangouts did this back in 2012! They had it! You could text and message digitally to someone’s hangouts acct. then they killed it because of some legacy code or something.

bamfic ,

also they kept renaming it

BeMoreCareful ,

And now I’m irritated by this all over again.

GreatAlbatross ,
@GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk avatar

I’m still of the opinion that the basic message app should only be SMS.
Then anything else should be its own thing. Mixing the two is a recipe for disaster, where it’s a consumer product.

QuaternionsRock ,

Counterpoint: SMS shouldn’t exist, and RCS is our best shot at replacing it right now

PlusMinus ,

What? SMS is a proven standard that works reliably. Why do we need to replace that? I tried RCS twice, in both cases the other end did not receive my message or at a later time. Even if SMS needed replacement, RCS is not it.

QuaternionsRock ,

SMS is a proven standard that works reliably.

lol

I tried RCS twice, in both cases the other end did not receive my message or at a later time.

This is not indicative of how well RCS will work as its widespread adoption continues to mature. I do understand your frustration; I just would expect the growing pains to last much longer. Remember how shitty USB C was for the first few years?

kevincox ,
@kevincox@lemmy.ml avatar

Counterpoint: RCS shouldn’t exist either. We should use something that isn’t tied to our mobile service providers.

anon_8675309 ,

SMS has one feature nothing else does. It’s not data per se. if you can ping a tower you can get a message out. You can’t do that with anything else.

Makes a difference when you’re out in BFE.

starman ,
@starman@programming.dev avatar

RCS is proprietary, right?

TheGrandNagus ,

No but also yes.

The spec itself is open, but implementations that are in the wild aren’t. Google’s implementation is proprietary, for example.

On Android, Google has went out of their way to make other RCS implementations virtually impossible to implement. Samsung, for example, had to enter an agreement with Google to use their implementation, otherwise they’d have no RCS.

As of now, the easiest way to implement RCS outside of using Google’s proprietary implementation is to create your own OS and RCS implementation for it.

ocassionallyaduck ,

This is kind of true but misses the fact that RCS was intended to be a carrier standard, and carriers weren’t going to fucking do it.

So after almost a decade of carriers docking around, Google fires a shot across the bow and just implements their own version, using their jive backend as a “bypass” of sorts. But like any closed platform, it only works with the same clients.

They can’t open up their server without some basic agreements so they try to get Samsung inboard. That is a mess of red tape. So they roll out RCS to all messenger clients on newer Android builds and stupidly call it chats or something. When they separately run a product called Google chat.

Anyways, that’s how we got here. Each company needs to have a RCS relay server now because carriers couldn’t be assed to do their fucking jobs, and now the Apple RCS server will pass your messages to the Google RCS server using a standard… So dumb.

Its still superior to SMS and is now at least baked into every new android device and on by default, but since it is not using actual radio waves SMS is still going to be possible in areas where data isn’t. So SMS will continue to limp along and exist, because fuck carriers.

bloodfart ,

I’m gonna wait to see how this is implemented but it sounds bad on the face of it.

foremanguy92_ ,

I don’t know if it’s a good thing… To use RCS you have to use a compatible OS + device and use the google messages app (maybe also the Samsung one now) and why does the brand implemented this is because google “offered” the servers to run this protocol. I think even today the best way is to get onto secure messaging apps (like Signal, Session, SimpleX…)

theherk ,

I loved how blasé he mentioned it and moved right along. It is a pretty big announcement and I’m glad they are finally doing it. It will benefit many even if only indirectly.

BearOfaTime , (edited )

It’s a terrible move, especially to make it default.

It’s just as bad a protocol as SMS in its own way:

It’s still tied to a phone number/sim, so you can’t just login to the service via a browser or an app.

It has lots of failures, worst of all, SILENT FAILURES, where you don’t even know your messages aren’t being sent - just look at the communities around here discussing it.

There’s no common protocol here really, lots of parts work only by decree of each host (e.g. iOS won’t have E2EE with anyone not on iOS, because that requires every cell provider to agree to the config they’re going to use.

This is the 21st century, and this is the best they can do - a protocol that fails with no notice? Without standardized encryption? That’s tied to hardware?

I had a better experience in 2009 running Pidgin on my phone and my laptop using XMPP. That didn’t require a phone number - I could login and see my messages in both places simultaneously… 15 years ago.

No, RCS is a way to make the plebes think they’ve got a new and better system while still delivering garbage.

Love you downvoters that don’t know enough to argue, just drive by and downvote.

ONE person had the guts to say why he disagreed with me.

Nevermind that BorgDrone explained what’s wrong with RCS better than I care to. You drive-by downvoters can’t even be bothered to learn about RCS.

RCS is garbage. Plain and simple. I will never allow it on my devices, just like with Whatsapp, Facecrap, Twitter, Instagram, etc.

fatalError ,

Who even uses sms/mms these days? The only cases I see myself using sms is the poorly implemented 2fa over sms, which is bad since sim hijack is a real threat.

Other than that whatsapp is the norm around here, whether we like it or not. Some also use facebook messanger, but no1 uses mms, it never picked up with the astronomical prices that carriers kept around for no good reason. I wish more people used telegram or signal, but 99% of my contacts don’t, so whatsapp it is.

Meltrax ,

Like 90% of Americans who have android phones use SMS. WhatsApp is more common in places outside the US. Not inside.

dan ,
@dan@upvote.au avatar

It’s still common in the USA for some reason. I think because SMS has been free for a long time and people don’t like change. Other apps gained popularity elsewhere in the world because SMSes were expensive.

BearOfaTime , (edited )

I try not to.

I’ll happily use one or more of any of dozens of proper modern, network-based messaging systems. A few off the top of my head, none of which must be tied to hardware/sim/phone number (Signal is working on moving away from phone numbers, and it’s still not tied to a phone number the same way RCS is):

Matrix

Signal

Conversations

Simplex

Wire

Or pick an XMPP server and client, there’s plenty out there. I was using XMPP on my phone in 2009, chatting, sending uncompressed videos to people on desktops/laptops.

Hell, even Telegram is a thousand times better than this RCS garbage.

Don’t get me started on the privacy nightmare of WhatsApp… Holy shit, may as well not even care about privacy or encryption.

(I have most of these messaging apps on my phones and my laptop, because they work).

fatalError ,

Unfortunately, no matter how good the alternatives are, you are stuck with whatever is on the other end. I can’t force anyone to change their main app for comms. Even if I do manage to get them to install anything else, they will realise they only use it with me and probably drop it next time they change their phone.

While I do agree whatsapp is a privacy nightmare , I also see why it won’t go away anytime soon. You only need someone’s phone number to contact them, you get easy media transfers although compressed to shit, it’s still serviceable and it’s carier independant, and most importantly free even internationaly. People even started using it for audio calls due to higher quality audio over the plain voice calls. All these reasons create the perfect mix for the average privacy-ignorant person to overlook any competitors.

tooLikeTheNope ,

Matrix

Signal

Conversations

Simplex

Wire

Deltachat too, FOSS, E2EE, it relies on users’ already existing email accounts to vehicle the messages (delta.chat)

pirrrrrrrr ,

I SMS my boss when I’m off sick.

out ,

I use it to communicate with my family

It’s more convenient than chat apps.

fatalError ,

What is more conveniant about sms compared to other apps? You still have to open the app, choose the contact from the list and start typing. It’s the exact same options. If I do it on the sms app, signal app, telegram or messanger app it’s still the same 2 taps then start typing. The only difference is what’s on the other side. If they only use sms then it’s obvious you have no other choice of communicating with them, but you can’t say it’s more conveniant.

cor315 ,

It’s convenient because I don’t have to tell my family to use a different app. It’s hard enough to get them to install whatsapp, let alone actually use it. And I don’t even like using whatsapp.

Natanael ,

But SMS still needs an upgrade, because it’s not going to be killed of if there isn’t a slot-in replacement, and so something has to take its role of being a messaging system where your carrier directly verifies your control of your phone number.

That’s why RCS exists.

KLISHDFSDF ,

It’s a terrible move, especially to make it default.

Subjective, but lets see what you bring to the table.

It’s just as bad a protocol as SMS in its own way: It’s still tied to a phone number/sim, so you can’t just login to the service via a browser or an app.

That’s how text (SMS/RCS) messaging works. Did you expect something different? Did you expect the SMS replacement to not require a phone number?

It has lots of failures, worst of all, SILENT FAILURES, where you don’t even know your messages aren’t being sent - just look at the communities around here discussing it.

I’ve been using it without issue for quite a while now, but that’s just one data point. If you have stats to back up your claim, I would love to see that.

There’s no common protocol here really, …

“The GSMA’s Universal Profile is a single, industry-agreed set of features and technical enablers developed to simplify the product development and global operator deployment of RCS” Source: www.gsma.com/…/universal-profile/

lots of parts work only by decree of each host (e.g. iOS won’t have E2EE with anyone not on iOS, because that requires every cell provider to agree to the config they’re going to use.

This is how distributed/federated systems work and this is one of their cons. They won’t always be 100% compatible as each component is independent but the goal is to eventually reach feature parity. See Matrix chat clients that didn’t all have encryption (or other features) on day 1 or XMPP which has lots of clients, none of which support all features.

This is the 21st century, and this is the best they can do - a protocol that fails with no notice? Without standardized encryption? That’s tied to hardware?

Please post evidence of this. Again, I’ve had zero issues and every Android user is using RCS by default now - have heard zero complaints.

I had a better experience in 2009 running Pidgin on my phone and my laptop using XMPP. That didn’t require a phone number - I could login and see my messages in both places simultaneously… 15 years ago.

Correct! XMPP is not an SMS replacement and thus it doesn’t need a phone number. In fact, you can’t “text” an XMPP user, so I’m not sure what you’re complaining about here?

No, RCS is a way to make the plebes think they’ve got a new and better system while still delivering garbage.

RCS vastly improves over SMS with the following features:

  • High Quality Multimedia Messaging: Unlike SMS/MMS, which is limited to text and potato sized image/videos, RCS allows sending and receiving photos, videos, and other files at significantly higher quality.
  • Rich Content Sharing: RCS supports sharing richer content formats like GIFs, location sharing, and contact cards.
  • Improved Group Chatting: RCS provides a more feature-rich group chat experience with features like group chat names, adding/removing participants, and seeing who has read messages (with read receipts).
  • Typing Indicators: Similar to many messaging apps, RCS lets you see when someone is typing a message.
  • Improved Message Reliability: RCS messages are sent over data networks, so unlike SMS, they shouldn’t get lost due to network congestion.
  • End-to-End Encryption: RCS can offer end-to-end encryption for chats, providing an extra layer of security for your messages (availability varies by carrier).

But keep spreading FUD and hating on something that actually moves the needle forward.

Love you downvoters that don’t know enough to argue, just drive by and downvote.

I think they’re downvoting you because you’re wrong - plainly wrong - and in this day and age its much easier to bury (downvote) blatantly wrong information than to reply to it. So I’m replying for everyone else but I will not be downvoting you. FUD should be fought back with evidence, but MAAN is it tiring.

ONE person had the guts to say why he disagreed with me.

It’s not about guts, its about wasting time, effort, not giving a shit. I slightly give a shit and want people who are less educated on the subject to see the other side of it.

Nevermind that BorgDrone explained what’s wrong with RCS better than I care to. You drive-by downvoters can’t even be bothered to learn about RCS.

Nothing to comment on here.

RCS is garbage. Plain and simple. I will never allow it on my devices, …

At the end of the day RCS is objectively better than what exists today in the world of carrier messenger services (SMS/MMS). Is it better than iMessage? I don’t think anyone would agree, especially not if you only message other iPhone users. Is it a better out-of-the-box experience for interoperability? Absolutely! And you’re being disingenuous if you disagree, but I’m happy to hear you out.

just like with Whatsapp, Facecrap, Twitter, Instagram, etc.

We can agree to these being garbage ✊

All that said, am I actively going to ask people to use RCS? Never! The same way I wouldn’t ask someone to use iMessage if I had an iPhone. They’re both products developed ultimately to push users into their respective ecosystem to the benefit of Google/Apple/Carriers.

I’ll stick to Signal and Matrix until something better comes along.

JackbyDev ,

It’s still tied to a phone number/sim, so you can’t just login to the service via a browser or an app.

Damn, if only phones had phone numbers and SIM cards… That must really suck for future iPhone users. Apple really dropped the ball.

Feathercrown ,

I’m downvoting you because you whined about downvotes. Letting you know instead of driving by.

catsarebadpeople ,

Why do we all need to respond when that one user who did respond put you in your place and made it clear that you’re just an angry moron yelling at the sky? Downvotes are exactly what’s called for here. Piss off idiot. You’re getting the exact amount of respect you deserve.

JackGreenEarth ,

RCS is the wrong standard to use though, as there isn’t a single FOSS Android RCS client. They should support something like Matrix.

brognak ,

Yea, like that would ever in literally any possible incarnation of any possible existence where Apple is a thing happen. Totally.

JackGreenEarth ,

That wasn’t what I was saying though. I was talking about what should happen, not what is likely to happen, and criticising the EU for pushing for the wrong thing.

Dark_Arc ,
@Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg avatar

I mean, in the Steve Jobs Apple it might have.

Steve originally pushed for web apps to dominate on the emerging open web standards.

Apple used to care about the customer more than they do now (IMO).

herrwoland ,
@herrwoland@lemmy.world avatar

If you do anything as merely speak the name of anything FOSS in Apple headquarters, they throw you in a deep dark well in the middle of the campus and remove your name from the world of the living.

dan ,
@dan@upvote.au avatar

Apple have a surprising amount of open-source software. The OS that MacOS and iOS are built on top of (Darwin) is open-source, as is its kernel (XNU). The engine used by Safari (Webkit, forked from KDE’s KHTML) is open-source too.

It’s not really traditional open-source, though. It does use an OSS license, but they don’t really accept public contributions, nor do they track bugs publicly or have a public roadmap.

herrwoland ,
@herrwoland@lemmy.world avatar

That is interesting actually, but compared to other companies I’d not say that’s significant. Specially because I suspect they switched to WebKit because they had no other choice 🤷‍♂️

QuaternionsRock ,

Apple forked WebKit from KDE back in 2001. For all intents and purposes, they didn’t switch to it; they developed it.

WldFyre ,

Is that functionally different from Android being Linux and chromium being open source?

dan ,
@dan@upvote.au avatar

You can’t easily run Darwin OS these days, unfortunately. Apple used to release an ISO you could install on a PC or Mac, but they stopped doing that a long time ago. These days, Apple release the bare minimum amount of code as required by its license, and it’s just a pile of code without the build scripts required to actually build it.

markpaskal ,

Let’s not forget CUPS which is how everything that isn’t windows prints.

JackbyDev ,

Matrix

😂 As an SMS/MMS/RCS replacement?? You’re joking. Surely.

sugar_in_your_tea ,

Signal would be more reasonable.

Evilcoleslaw ,

And yet Google still hasn’t rolled out RCS for Google Voice, and last I checked there was an issue with it and Google Fi as well. (It works but it precludes some advertised feature of Fi or something.)

CosmicTurtle0 ,

Honestly, it’d be a good retort from Apple if they ran a commercial that said, “We’ll support RCS once all your products do” and then show a screenshot of Google Voice.

ripcord ,
@ripcord@lemmy.world avatar

But they’re planning to support it

feannag ,

I’ve had no issues with Fi and RCS. Then again, maybe Fi on pixel is different.

Evilcoleslaw ,

I think it was something to do with the Fi-specific syncing of messages to the web version.

GamingChairModel ,

Fi has two different, incompatible options for how to sync your messages to a computer or other device that isn’t your primary phone with your SIM (or e-SIM): the so-called “option 1” is RCS compatible, but treats your phone as the canonical device that has the primary copy of all messages, voicemails, etc. “Option 2” is device agnostic, where all messages and voicemails live on the cloud, and your phone (and all other devices) merely syncs with that primary copy in the cloud.

If your phone breaks or dies or is lost/stolen, Option 2 keeps chugging along with all your logged in devices, but the dead phone is the single point of failure for Option 1.

Ideally there would be a device agnostic way to access RCS through your account, but every implementation seems to require a specific SIM.

TonyOstrich ,

Currently Google has bricked RCS for people with rooted phones in such a way that it fails silently for like the 4th time this year, and it’s looking like the modders may not be able to keep getting around it.

Caiman86 ,

Yeah, if Voice doesn’t have RCS support by the time iOS 18 launches, I’ll be moving off it for messaging. Have a number of text groups with iPhones that will benefit from everyone on RCS, most important knowing that my group messages were actually received. MMS still randomly drops messages or they get massively delayed or received out of order.

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