The messaging protocol RCS, for Rich Communication Services, has reached a new milestone, albeit symbolic, but oh so important. Google, one of the main promoters of the standard, has revealed that RCS has surpassed the threshold of one billion messages sent each day in the United States (an average over the last 28 days).
End-to-end encryption is coming
RCS has almost everything going for it. It allows you to send high-quality enriched messages (photos, videos, and audio messages), display reading and typing statuses, and allow multiple people to converse in the same stream—on both Android and iOS. The protocol also has the advantage of working equally well on the cellular network as with Wi-Fi.
Apple, which had remained on the sidelines of RCS, had no choice but to get involved under pressure from China. And since iOS 18, it is finally possible to chat via RCS with your friends on Android... even if they keep their famous stigmatizing green bubbles.
There remains one crucial point to resolve: the security of exchanges. Currently, RCS is not end-to-end encrypted. This means that an intermediary like the operator is able to read the messages. However, there is hope: in March, the GSMA (the mobile technology standards body) announced that the RCS specifications included end-to-end encryption. Apple will support this secure RCS with an upcoming software update.
Source: Google
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