Apple announces that RCS support is coming to iPhone next year
This is great but surprising news. Hopefully the implementation is actually good
They're going to implement the open standard ... which isn't what most Android users are actually using. Does Google's Messages app gracefully transition to the RCS standard if that's what the other person is using?
No idea but, I suspect that Apple will have some negotiating power here, hopefully weakening Google’s control and making it mostly open
RCS is already an open standard, that's why Apple is, and always has been, able to implement it themselves without relying on Google for anything.
My understanding is that it can be fully open but Google’s current implementation is not. That’s why the Google/Samsung messaging apps are the only texting apps that support it
Google and Samsung were the only apps to implement RCS (and the infrastructure to support the app) so far.
Nothing Google has done prevents any other organizations that want to invest the time and money from also implementing the standard.
https://www.gsma.com/futurenetworks/rcs/universal-profile/
Apple, on the other hand, doesn't allow iMessage apps or servers that they didn't create themselves. Or even an SMS/RCS app on their devices.
Hopefully someone more educated on the topic than me can jump in here haha, maybe I’ve been misinformed idk