Apple has announced it’ll be rolling out RCS support for iPhone models next year. RCS, standing for “Rich Communication Services,” is a type of messaging standard that works over mobile data, unlike SMS, and is designed to be implemented across platforms.
This means that many features that are currently exclusive to Apple’s iMessage could soon be available on Android and other devices – namely, blue texts instead of green.
The “green text” stigma isn’t a new debate within the tech community. Just earlier this month, London-based company Nothing launched an app for its own phones, specifically geared towards allowing non-iPhone users to send blue text messages.
“Later next year, we will be adding support for RCS Universal Profile, the standard as currently published by the GSM Association,” an Apple spokesperson told 9to5Mac. “We believe 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,” they said.
Along with blue texts, RCS support could allow non-iPhone users to share their locations with other devices in messages. Apple is currently working on developing RCS support for a 2024 release.
In other tech news, YouTube’s new AI tool generates clones of artists’ voices.
