For some time now, Google has been making an attempt to persuade Apple to undertake the RCS commonplace. To this date, Apple has firmly chosen to remain inside its iMessage walled backyard. Not too long ago, the Senior Vice President of Platforms and Ecosystems at Google spoke about RCS, its development, and iMessage.
In a dialog with 9to5Google, Hiroshi Lockheimer delved into the subject of RCS. In the course of the speak, Lockheimer reminisced concerning the historical past, explaining how the GSMA approached Google to convey assist to RCS. This assist was essential as carriers — like Verizon and AT&T — all had their very own plans on tips on how to implement the usual. He additionally touched on how Google realized it may speed up RCS adoption by letting customers “get this expertise by downloading an app quite than ready for one thing they couldn’t management to occur.”
As for the present state of RCS, Lockheimer stated that the variety of individuals utilizing Google’s RCS service has grown quite a bit since final yr. In keeping with 9to5Google, that quantity was 500 million as of Google I/O 2022. Lockheimer additionally acknowledged that Google isn’t making an attempt to switch different messaging apps, it simply needs one thing higher than the outdated SMS system to be the default.
Our analysis reveals that the everyday particular person makes use of 3 to 4 messaging apps, whether or not that’s WhatsApp or Snap. That’s nice. We’re not making an attempt to construct RCS into the one app to rule all of them.
The dialogue appeared to finish with Lockheimer expressing how he feels about iPhone customers who’re caught within the center:
Because you talked about Apple, I’ll simply point out, they discuss how privateness is a human proper and the way vital that’s to them. I really feel like, “look right here’s a know-how that’s obtainable now…” Now I simply really feel dangerous for the iPhone customers who’re going to expertise the degraded options, it could be nice if they might convey that to them. And higher safety for them as nicely. You recognize Android customers are fantastic, they’re texting one another with complete safety and all that stuff, and now it’s sort of weird as a result of now once they work together with iPhone’s we’re going to must take care of a degraded safety expertise.
On the finish of the day, Apple may at all times change its thoughts about RCS. But it surely doesn’t appear to be that can occur anytime quickly, at the same time as strain grows from tech lovers and different members of the business.
