There is no generation change for SMS or MMS. So for Short message service or Multimedia messaging service. That is, for classic mobile text and multimedia messages. It’s not, because while Google long ago decided to follow the initiative of the GSM Association, the largest organization of mobile operators, Apple has no interest in doing so.

So the interoperability between Android and iOS shows no signs of improvement in this regard. A few days ago, we had a clear example of this when Tim Book attended the Code Conference 2022. There, a journalist asked him what Apple was doing to improve the compatibility of communication between iPhone and Android users, to which the CEO of Apple replied: «I don’t hear users asking us to put a lot of energy into it«.

The journalist asked him and assured him that he could not send any videos to his mother because she was using Android. To which the head of the block replied, again with arrogance, but also with a little humor, it was to be expected: «Buy your mother an iPhone«. Like everyone can buy an iPhone for their mother or god forbid themselves. If only Apple smartphones existed, there’s no sign that mobile technology would have been democratized like Android has been.

However, Cook is partly right: Most iPhone users don’t care about RCS. And without RCS there is no teacher.

RCS (Rich communication services or enriched communication services) is de facto the standard that replaced SMS/MMS, an initiative of the GSM Association that Google long ago embraced in Android, but which Apple has completely exited, and given the stance Cook has shown, it doesn’t seem likely to change any time soon. Unless some regulator forces them to do so, which doesn’t seem likely.

Tim Cook, CEO of Apple

However, the problem is different in the United States and the rest of the world. In the North American country, Apple is a well-entrenched institution and your own solution, iMessageis so widespread, especially among the youngest, that when the company considered launching the application on Android, they quickly dismissed the idea as counterproductive: «iMessage on Android would simply serve to remove [un] A hurdle for iPhone families to give their kids Android phones.

Conversely, in the rest of the world, people usually communicate using independent services and applications such as WhatsApp, Telegram and many others depending on the territory. So it doesn’t seem like anyone is bothering to find a replacement for SMS/MMS minimum interoperability must be ensured standards-based, not exclusively proprietary applications and services. The background is actually a thousand and one apps and messaging services that exist, all incompatible with each other.

To give you an idea of ​​what we mean: it’s as if the big email service providers abandoned the current technology and each bet on their own solution, like they did with instant messaging and video conferencing: not everyone uses or needs to use WhatsApp , Telegram, etc.; there needs to be a generational handover that is a standard that everyone can use without locking themselves into something controlled by one company and that one company is RCS.

That’s the way things are. With Google notifying Apple of its refusal to accept RCS, and without anyone forcing it to do so – for now. And while we see the world divided, it doesn’t seem like a priority…

Meantime, Google honors its commitment to RCS and one of the most notable advances in this regard was the implementation of end-to-end encryption in Android Messages. Be careful, yes, because it still supports SMS/MMS, so it will depend on who you’re messaging whether you use one method or the other.