RCS messaging just took another major step towards reconciliation with iMessage on Apple smartphones following the announcement of a major new security feature.
A new post over on the GSMA website adds reason for cautious optimism in the fight for equality between blue and green message bubbles.
The global mobile operator association has announced a new specifications for RCS that incorporates end-to-end encryption (E2EE), adding a vital level of security and confidentiality to RCS messaging.
Apple-approved security
GSMA Technical Director Tom Van Pelt says that this makes RCS “the first large-scale messaging service to support interoperable E2EE between client implementations from different providers”.
The new version of RCS even meets Apple’s security standards. Indeed, as a company statement (via 9to5Mac) indicates, Apple itself played a role in developing the new version:
“End-to-end encryption is a powerful privacy and security technology that iMessage has supported since the beginning, and now we are pleased to have helped lead a cross industry effort to bring end-to-end encryption to the RCS Universal Profile published by the GSMA.”
Apple claims that it will add support for end-to-end encrypted RCS messages to its various platforms in future software updates.
Apple
Why is RCS for iOS taking so long?
RCS support was supposed to have arrived with iOS 18.1, bridging the messaging divide between Android and iOS. However, the rollout has been excruciatingly laboured.
In theory, Apple’s opening out of RCS support offers a continuity of experience (high resolution media messages, typing indicators, emoji reactions etc.) regardless of whether the message thread involves blue or green bubbles.
That hasn’t quite panned out, as network operators have been sluggish to implement RCS supports on iOS.
Hopefully this latest bump towards continuity will be the final push that sends RCS support over the edge, and the iPhone 16 and Google Pixel 9 owners of this world can finally communicate properly. Now all we need is for those operators (or carriers in US lingo) to get their act together.