R.C.S. It stands for “Rich Communication Service” and although it may not sound very familiar to you, apps like Google Messages allow you to communicate with other users using this protocol without having to go through SMS, which is the technology it aims to succeed in.

This technology is in the hands of Google and has now become the standard for creating a communication alternative by collaborating with different operators. We already know when RCS will come to Apple’s operating system, and there’s little reason to think its adoption will be huge.

R.C.S.. You may not know that SMS stands for “Short Messaging Service” and that the abbreviation RCS is a reference to a standard that replaced it. This protocol allows instant messaging functions in terms of both text and multimedia files.

It’s something quite similar to the classic iOS iMessage but implemented in the Google Messages app. It is an encrypted and fast communication, but its adoption in Spain is far from WhatsApp or Telegram.

Apple announced its compatibility with the standard. In November 2023, Apple announced that it would adopt the RCS standard on its devices. There was talk of an update “by the end of 2024” that would allow the entire ecosystem to connect to the Google protocol, a significant move in the US given the relentless adoption of iMessage in the region.

This doesn’t mean a full launch of the stellar messaging app, but it’s an important step forward for iOS and Android users to be able to communicate using the RCS protocol.

We already (almost) know when it’s coming. According to what we read on 9to5Google, Google missed the information about RCS coming to iOS. Inside landing page It has been stated that RCS, which has already been hidden about Google Messages, will come to iPhone in the fall of 2024. No specific date was specified, but we already know that iMessage won’t be compatible with the protocol until at least October.

Considering these dates, iOS 18 is expected to be the first version of Apple’s operating system compatible with the RCS protocol. However, it is not excluded that some intermediate versions of iOS 17 may introduce a new protocol.

They will have difficulty surpassing WhatsApp and Telegram. Apple will support RCS messages in iMessage; This change does not seem to be enough to end the hegemony of WhatsApp and Telegram in Spain. According to Statista data, more than 95% of Spaniards are currently WhatsApp users.

We’re talking 40% on Telegram, but iMessage doesn’t even appear at the bottom of the chart. Apple assures us that it hasn’t even reached the number of users (45 million monthly active users) that the DMA forces it to open the service to third parties.

Despite this, the news coming to the fore in the context of 2024 forces Apple to increasingly open up to third parties. App stores, sideloading, and greater user-level openness of iOS due to new European regulations were just the beginning.

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