I’ve heard that Apple is rolling out RCS chat in the fall but there’s very little information about how the technology works and what it will be capable of. I know Android has had it for years but it seems like it may have far more potential – specifically for communicating with businesses – now that Apple is getting involved. What are the implications for travel, healthcare, retail, etc?
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It’s a messaging protocol. “Texting” happens in one of four protocols:
SMS, the original and most limited format for short, text only messages.
MMS, the second oldest format which allows for longer text and multimedia content but with a very limited maximum size and lacking support for real time meta data features like the “so and so is typing…”.
RCS, an open source rich messaging format that supports more chat like features and much higher caps on data size
iMessage, apple’s proprietary rich messaging format that only iPhones can use.
RCS and iMessage do similar things, but because apple refused to support RCS or allow anyone else to implement iMessage all conversations that involved a mix of iOS and other devices had to downgrade to the older MMS which disabled some chat-like features, resulted in media getting downgraded to potato quality, and generally led to a worse experience.
The reason to do that is basically to make it a pain to text and especially do group chats cross platform and get people to pressure their friends/family to switch away from android.
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