RCS has been round for 15 years, but it surely seems like quarter-hour

Able to really feel outdated? Wealthy Communication Providers, higher often known as RCS, simply celebrated its fifteenth birthday. Yeah, that communication customary that Google has been pestering Apple about for what seems like an eternity is older than iMessage itself. It’s older than Android Authority as an organization and technically got here into existence concurrently telephones just like the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 and Samsung Omnia. So, as an alternative of blowing out birthday candles, let’s sit down and take into consideration why on Earth it’s taken so lengthy for RCS to achieve traction.

Alright, I couldn’t resist making the pun, however Tim Cook dinner has nothing to do with the sluggish adoption of RCS. As an alternative, our love of selection is usually accountable. RCS was proposed as a brand new customary to the GSMA in 2007 earlier than the affiliation formally championed its growth in 2008. At that time, it confronted a crowd of a whole lot of carriers and system producers that needed to be satisfied to shift away to RCS from SMS and MMS — which weren’t all that outdated on the time.

The GSMA continued to face the problem of too many palms within the cookie jar till 2016 when it was bailed out by — get this — Google. I do know, that ought to be the least stunning piece of this text; in fact Google was the primary to go all-in on RCS in a giant manner. Google then satisfied the primary US carriers (Verizon, AT&T, and T-Cell) to push for RCS for some time earlier than that effort finally fell aside too. Maybe that’s for the most effective, although, because the CCMI — Cross Provider Messaging Initiative — most likely would have constructed its personal messaging app to compete with iMessage, WhatsApp, and Telegram and left us in an analogous place to the place we presently are.

Soar ahead a bit of additional, and we attain the current. As an alternative of pushing RCS by carriers, Google has built-in the usual as a part of its in-house Messages app, and Apple has lastly introduced help coming to iMessage in 2024 (even when it should stay a separate however not-quite-equal expertise).

Now that RCS is having its quarter-hour of fame after 15 years, let’s look into the long run. Within the brief time period, issues look vibrant. Sending photos and movies from Android to iOS will probably be a lot simpler in 2024, and reacting to messages cross-platform will not present up as a separate notification. Blue and inexperienced bubbles will persist, however the partitions round Apple’s secret backyard will probably be just a bit bit decrease.

If we glance additional out, nonetheless, the forecast is much less clear. It took RCS 15 years to achieve traction, and when the service celebrates its thirtieth birthday in 2038, it’ll most likely be from the nice tech retirement dwelling within the sky. In spite of everything, RCS was launched simply 5 years after MMS, which implies there could possibly be three potential replacements already ready within the wings. We could possibly be on to any variety of super-secure acronyms to guard our textual content messages whereas we evaluate the specs of the Pixel 23 and iPhone 30, with Google persevering with to push ahead whereas Apple drags its heels even deeper.

That’s… possibly not probably the most cheerful solution to rejoice a quinceañera, however I’m all the time joyful to be confirmed mistaken. I’d like to see each platforms unite underneath a standard customary, even when blue and inexperienced bubbles stay. Let’s simply hope that it doesn’t take one other 15 years for us to get there.