Say what?! After years of saying it wouldn’t happen, Apple will finally add RCS messaging standard support to the iPhone through a software release early next year, the company told TechRadar.
The Rich Communication Services (RCS) protocol (also called RCS Chat) is designed as a modern take on texting that rolls features from Facebook Messenger, iMessage, and WhatsApp into one platform. The protocol allows the exchange of group chats, video, audio, and high-resolution images, plus read receipts and real-time viewing.
“Later next year, we will be adding support for RCS Universal Profile, the standard as currently published by the GSM Association. We believe the RCS Universal Profile will offer a better interoperability experience when compared to SMS or MMS. This will work alongside iMessage, which will continue to be the best and most secure messaging experience for Apple users,” an Apple spokesperson told TechCrunch.
Some folks have wanted this for a long time
A Juniper Research study in September 26 found that the total value of the mobile business messaging market will increase from US$48 billion in 2022 to $78 billion by 2027.
Juniper Research found that this 63% growth will be driven by enterprise adoption of RCS with businesses harnessing the end-to-end encryption and verified sender identities RCS provides to reduce messaging fraud.
Juniper Research found that the global number of RCS business messages received will increase from 161 billion in 2022 to 639 billion by 2027, as enterprises in industries handling sensitive data, such as banking and healthcare, migrate traffic away from SMS to more secure channels.
The research group said that, while user verification over RCS acts as a first step in messaging fraud prevention, malicious players will increasingly identify ways to bypass this requirement. In response, the report urged firewall vendors to prioritize the accurate detection of spam content via multimedia messaging, including images and external links.
Apple Support Key to Realizing RCS Market Potential
Juniper Research said that the U.S. will represent a key growth market for RCS with all tier 1 operators, including AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon, supporting rich media messaging solutions. The research group found that the total number of RCS business messages received in the US will surpass 170 billion by 2027 If Apple introduced support for the messaging protocol over iOS within the next three years.
“Apple must support RCS to facilitate smooth and secure communications between mobile operating systems,” research author Scarlett Woodford, said last year. “The RCS protocol is likely to be deployed over the existing iMessage interface on iOS devices, in order to capitalize on user familiarity and maximize adoption.”
Article provided with permission from AppleWorld.Today