My husband sent me an article about how Apple is going to adopt RCS messaging and our group threads won’t be weird anymore since he has a android. After reading the article I have no idea what RCS is or how Apple adding it to their software is going to change anything. Will group threads with a android user be just like group threads with all iPhone users but with green bubbles?
In: Technology
Holy fuck these comments are like 20% helpful.
When you message iphone to iPhone it sends over your data connection (the internet) which is why you can see typing indicators and send very large videos in good quality. It also allows you to be able to text with only a wifi connection if you’re in a place with bad cell reception.
This is also how Android phones text to each other.
Before this tech existed, phones texted over your cell phones normal phone signal that it uses to make calls. This is good because it doesn’t need an internet connection to text, but it’s bad because it’s limited to sending low quality images and VERY low quality videos, just because the tech doesn’t allow much information to be sent.
RCS is the name of the tech that allows for the texting over your phones internet connection, but instead of using this, Apple made its own (imessage) and made it so when you text non apple phones it defaults to the old style of texting with all the limitations I mentioned. Apple didn’t have to do this, they just did because they wanted it to be a pain in the ass to text android phones to bring everyone into their walled garden, and in the US this worked better than they ever could have hoped. Apple could have implemented texting android phones over rcs a long time ago, so that you could send and receive high quality videos to and from android users (among other benefits) but they just didn’t.
It’s a big deal because nobody ever really thought they would do this. Seemed like it came out of nowhere, and it’s going to be much easier for iPhone users to text friends with Android phones a lot easier and less annoying. Obviously there’s whatsapp and signal which also work the same as imessage and rcs, but that’s mostly irrelevant to the question.
Hope that helps.
It’s a big deal
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