Contemporary tweets from one in every of Google’s best Android executives must make it transparent how badly Google desires Apple to give a boost to “RCS” messaging on iPhones, however they will go away many Android customers questioning “what’s RCS?”
RCS, which Google additionally labels “chat options,” represents an late improve to telephone messaging. This wireless-industry-endorsed usual provides a lot of the interactivity that Apple’s iMessage shipped in 2016—see when someone’s typing, know after they learn your message, and reply with tapback emojis—whilst encrypting messages in transit and, some end-to-end.
However 0 overlap exists between RCS and iMessage. Hiroshi Lockheimer, Google’s senior vp for cellular platforms, vented about this in Jan. 8 tweets sharing a Wall Side road Magazine Wall Side road Magazine tale at the peer-pressure issue of getting one’s Android-sent messages seem in inexperienced bubbles amidst the blue bubbles of iMessage banter.
“The use of peer strain and bullying so to promote merchandise is disingenuous for a corporation that has humanity and fairness as a core a part of its advertising,” Lockheimer wrote. “The factors exist as of late to mend this.”
In a follow-up thread on Monday, Lockheimer clarified that he wasn’t inquiring for iMessage for Android: “We are asking Apple to give a boost to the {industry} usual for contemporary messaging (RCS) in iMessage, simply as they give a boost to the older SMS / MMS requirements.”
However he ignored how little give a boost to RCS sees in observe on Android telephones. First, it most often calls for Google’s personal Android messaging app—as in, now not what Samsung makes the default on its telephones, which dominate the Android marketplace.
Closing yr, Google did convince the 3 main carriers to devote to creating its Messages app their default: T-Cell did remaining March, AT&T adopted in June, Verizon in July. However the ones pledges don’t impact present telephones and, in some instances, stay in implementation.
Consequently, till as of late I had loved RCS messaging precisely as soon as. Courtesy of trying out with my colleague Sascha Segan, I now have 3 RCS… er, “chat options” conversations on my unlocked Pixel 5a on T-Cell.
Nowadays’s two chats required troubleshooting. On a Kyocera on Verizon working Google’s Messages app, Segan needed to permit chat options in that app’s settings sooner than every people may see our despatched messages in RCS’s dark-blue bubbles, then reboot it to turn on end-to-end encryption. On an unlocked Galaxy S21 on T-Cell, he needed to transfer from Samsung’s messaging app to Google’s, then reboot to get complete RCS give a boost to, “e2e” encryption integrated.
In the meantime, RCS stays off-limits within the different quantity I take advantage of on my Android telephone—a Google Voice quantity. Contemporary, belated upgrades to Google’s calling and messaging carrier have not begun so as to add give a boost to for Google’s most popular messaging usual.
Google’s Lockheimer makes an even level in calling out Apple for now not supporting RCS as a fallback in iMessage. Apple would possibly tout privateness as a human proper, however via leaving Android-iPhone messaging mired in SMS and MMS, it deprives privateness from an infinite expanse of human interplay.
However Google has numerous paintings to do in its personal space too.
