Europe might force Apple to adopt RCS by 2024

It seems like its always the European Union that forces big changes companies like Apple. First was forcing all electronics to use USB-C, and so we’re going to see a USB-C iPhone next year. Now, the EU could be forcing Apple to use RCS in iMessage.

Now, we have the Digital Markets Act that was approved by the EU parliament earlier this year. And it has some pretty big effects for Apple. For one, Apple will need to open up the iPhone to support third-party app stores. That’s something Apple really doesn’t want to do. And it makes sense. They built the iOS platform, they don’t want another app store coming in and taking the 30% commission that Apple charges for purchases. And potentially breaking the platform. It definitely looks like it’s happening and could happen as soon as iOS 17, next year.

But that’s not even the biggest part of the DMA. Apple also needs to open up iMessage and make it interoperable. Of course, one way to do this would be, adopting RCS. Something that Google has been trying to force Apple to do for all of 2022.

Apple isn’t currently “considering integrating RCS” however

Apple says that “it has not yet made a decision on how it may open iMessage and its Messages app to third-party services.” Apple’s Engineers believe that “such a change could hurt end-to-end encryption and other privacy features offered by iMessage.” The company goes on to say that they are not currently considering RCS.

The funny thing about that is, any iPhone user that messages an Android user via SMS, is not encrypted. It’s literally only encrypted from iPhone to iPhone. While Google says that RCS is encrypted (it is), that’s not part of the initial spec. So just adopting RCS wouldn’t be enough to keep end-to-end encryption included.

Could the EU force Apple into adopting RCS? Maybe, maybe not. What will likely happen is, Apple will create its own form of RCS doing it the “Apple way”, and calling it something else, or just adding it as a feature into iMessage. We’ve seen this with other things like Ceramic Shield and ProMotion.