- Last year, Apple confirmed it would bring RCS support to the Messages app for iOS.
- However, it didn’t confirm which version of the RCS Universal Profile it would implement.
- A Business Development Manager at Google says that Apple will support Universal Profile 2.4, which supports business messaging.
To combat the awful green bubble stigma, Google has been pushing Apple to #GetTheMessage, i.e., add support for RCS messaging in the iOS Messages app. In a surprise announcement late last year, Apple confirmed it planned to add support for RCS in the Messages app. RCS in Apple Messages will roll out sometime this year, and Apple confirmed it’ll be based on the RCS Universal Profile standard published by the GSM Association. However, Apple didn’t confirm which version of the RCS Universal Profile it would implement, but thanks to Google, we now know.
For a bit of context, RCS stands for Rich Communication Services, and it’s basically the successor to SMS/MMS. RCS is an advanced messaging protocol that improves upon SMS/MMS by extending character limits, supporting higher-quality media sharing, enabling group messaging, and allowing for read receipts to be shown, among other features. The GSM Association publishes a specification called the RCS Universal Profile that outlines how clients and networks implement these features, and it’s currently up to version 2.6 (warning: PDF file).