In a surprising move, Apple has announced today that it will adopt the RCS (Rich Communication Services) messaging standard. The feature will launch via a software update “later next year” and bring a wide range of iMessage-style features to messaging between iPhone and Android users.
Apple’s decision comes amid pressure from regulators and competitors like Google and Samsung. It also comes as RCS has continued to develop and become a more mature platform than it once was.
Still features like that would be kinda neat for all the devices that RCS don’t support, like Windows, Mac, Linux, BSD, ChromeOS, HarmonyOS, Android Open Source Project, Ubuntu Touch, PostmarketOS…
It’s my understanding that they need a bunch of Apple hardware to serve as an intermediary, hence the extra monthly cost for… blue bubbles. Doesn’t seem like something that can be engineered without it.