iPhone is Getting RCS Texting 

Year after year, people still argue whether Android or iPhone is better. While there will never be an answer to it, there is an answer to a more important question. Is Apple getting RCS? What even is RCS? 

RCS stands for Rich Communication Services. RCS is like a successor to SMS, or Short Messaging/Message Service, which is one of the most used messaging protocols. It’s easy implementation and reliability helped it be used in virtually every phone with a SIM card. What’s the difference between RCS and SMS? There’s more differences than the letters used. For example, SMS uses your cellular network to send messages, albeit short ones. Like really short ones. 160 characters short. The introduction itself was 205 characters. Really short. RCS can send up to 8,000 character messages via WiFi or LTE/5G.  RCS also uses end-to-end encryption, which prevents third-parties from accessing your texts. While RCS sounds better, it isn’t as easy to implement into phones, as you need a newer phone, a carrier that supports it, or even a newer messaging app.

Now why did I mention Apple and Android in the beginning? For many years now, Apple and Android have been able to send and receive texts. You can even send texts to Android users with an iPhone, and vice versa! However, it isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. There’s actually lots of green. 

Dominik Decarciofolo and Ryan Schavone, both seniors at Liverpool High School, were asked what problems they have when texting Androids. “They are green, and can’t play iMessage games”, Schavone said. Meanwhile, when sending videos “ it would be really bad quality”, Decarciofolo said. 

The main criticism of texting Androids with an iPhone is that they have green bubbles. Unfortunately for both users, there are more problems than just a green bubble. One issue I personally faced when I used Android was when sending or receiving videos to iPhones. They would be extremely low quality, to the point where it’s almost impossible to see what's going on. There’s also no sort of read receipts, texting indicators, and the inability to leave group chats on Android or iPhone if there’s just one Android user. You still have the 160 character limit.