It seems incredible, after the position against it that he has maintained for so long, but yes, RCS will be a reality on iPhones sometime late next year. Just yesterday, when talking about Meta’s attempt to keep Facebook Messenger out of the measures required by the European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), he recalled Apple’s latest official response when Tim Cook was asked about it by a journalist, who received an embarrassing response: “Buy your mother an iPhone«. I think he thought it was a funny answer, although many of us don’t.

Much of the pressure Apple received to adopt RCS It came from Google, which already in 2019 began to take decisive steps to adopt it on Android, three years after the launch of this standard on the market, called to replace the set consisting of SMS and MMS. As we said at the time, RCS was (and still is) intended to be an alternative to third-party instant messaging services like WhatsApp, Telegram, iMessage, etc.

These pressures from Google reached one of their highest points more than a year ago, thanks to a campaign carried out by the search engine, which we repeated, which left those in Cupertino somewhat exposed, given that It was difficult to justify the reason why they refuse to accept and incorporate into iOS a standard born from the initiative of the GSMA. The fenced garden again translates into limitations that impoverish the user experience. And yet they didn’t seem willing to budge.

It didn’t seem like it and yet it happened. According to exclusive statements obtained by 9to5Mac, Apple will add CSR support to the iPhone from the Messages app later next year. A more precise date is not given, but it seems quite likely that we are talking about one of the main news iOS 18 and so it is possible that we will have it confirmed during WWDC 2024.

«Late next year we will add support for RCS Universal Profile, a standard currently published by the GSM Association. We believe that RCS Universal Profile will offer better interoperability compared to SMS or MMS. This will work together with iMessage, which will continue to be the best and most secure messaging for Apple users.»

As you will see, I hinted at it RCS will be added to the Messages app, but not to iMessage, which, as you can read in the statement, will remain as an instant messaging service between users of Apple devices. Although, of course, we will also have to wait for the EU’s statement in this regard, since it is possible that at some point even those in Cupertino will be forced to open iMessage to interoperability in the common European space.