Later next year, we will be adding support for RCS Universal Profile, the
standard as currently published by the GSM Association. We believe RCS
Universal Profile will offer a better interoperability experience when
compared to SMS or MMS. This will work alongside iMessage, which will
continue to be the best and most secure messaging experience for Apple users.
> Just one year ago, Tim Cook had this to say about RCS: "I don't hear our users asking that we put a lot of energy in on that at this point. […] Buy your mom an iPhone.”
> Long story short, I will believe it when I see it. Apple has a long history of claiming they will support an open standard, then failing to add support. In 2010, Steve Jobs promised that Apple ‘would make FaceTime an open industry standard’. That never happened. More recently, in 2021, Apple promised to open their Find My network to competitors like Tile. Instead, they’ve penalized Tile by additional warnings in front of their app.
Some smoothly disingenuous rhetoric going on there.
WRT FaceTime - turns out video calling had patent encumbrances. Apple was sued for massive amounts as soon as they rolled out FaceTime on their own devices. The VirNetX saga just wrapped up earlier this year. [0]
And Apple has opened up their Find My Network. [1] Other trackers, such as Chipolo, are making use of it. [2] Also, Apple and Google just today published the latest revision of a cross-platform spec to detect unwanted location trackers regardless of which network you’re using. [3]
https://9to5mac.com/2023/11/16/apple-rcs-coming-to-iphone/