Tag: rcs

Apple Brings RCS, Satellite Capabilities to the Messages App for iPhone With iOS 18

Apple unveiled iOS 18, the next generation of its operating system for iPhone, at the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2024 on Monday. Among many new features such as Home Screen customisation, Apple Intelligence, and Control Center improvements, the Cupertino-based tech giant also introduced two new features to the Messages app — support for RCS (Rich Communication Services) and new satellite capabilities. While the former was previously announced, satellite capabilities arrive as a way to let iPhone users stay connected with friends and families even in the absence of cellular connectivity.

Apple integrates RCS with Messages app

For years, Google and Samsung have urged Apple to implement the RCS standard in its messaging platform. RCS, which is backed by the GSM Association, is a messaging system considered to be the successor to SMS. Due to end-to-end encryption, it is more secure than SMS, offers support for high-resolution photos and videos, and shows chat indicators.

After not adopting the technology for a long time, the iPhone maker finally announced that it would integrate RCS into iPhone in November 2023. It has now made the announcement concrete by confirming iOS 18 will carry some RCS features.

Apple showcases RCS integration in iPhone
Photo Credit: Apple

 

However, Apple has not revealed what these features might be. In its press release, there is a single mention of the feature which states, “RCS (Rich Communication Services) messages bring richer media and delivery and read receipts for those who don’t use iMessage.” While this confirms read receipts and likely supports high-resolution media sharing, the rest of the features remain unconfirmed.

Messages App gets satellite capabilities with iOS 18

Another interesting feature being shipped with iOS 18 is satellite capabilities in the Messages app. It will allow users who do not have cellular reception to send and receive texts, emojis, and Tapbacks over iMessage and SMS. This feature will enable users who travel off-grid to still stay connected with their friends and family. This feature will be available on the iPhone 14 and later once iOS 18 update arrives.

Apart from these, the Messages app is also getting a new schedule messages feature that will let users send a text at any particular time. New animated message effects and formatting options have also been added with iOS 18.

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Google’s Latest Android Feature Drop Brings RCS Message Editing, Instant Hotspot Feature

Google announced seven new Android features for applications such as Meet, Home, Messages and Wear OS on Thursday. One of the highlights of the latest Android feature drop is the ability to edit RCS messages up to 15 minutes after sending them. Unlike announcements made at Google I/O 2024 where several features were limited to Pixel smartphones, these features are expected to be available to Android devices across devices and regions, although some features may be limited based on the region a user lives in.

RCS Message Editing

In a blog post, Google announced that it is bringing a feature that lets users edit RCS messages up to 15 minutes after sending them. This feature is said to be available via Google Messages – the company’s text messaging app.

To edit a message, tap and hold on a sent RCS message and a new edit icon will be displayed on the top banner. Users can tap on the icon to modify their message, as long as it was sent within the last 15 minutes, according to the company.

Instant Hotspot and Device Switching

Google says that it will soon bring an ‘instant hotspot’ feature that will enable users to connect a tablet or a Chromebook to an Android smartphone’s hotspot without needing to type in the password. It is also bringing an update to Cross-Device Services that will let users switch between devices such as smartphones, web browsers or tablets for video calls.

Google claims that Android smartphones can now also be used as digital car keys with lock/unlock, vehicle start functionalities. The feature has been rolled out with support for select MINI models and will be expanded to Mercedes-Benz and Polestar vehicles soon.

Furthermore, the company says users can now control their smart devices using the Google Home Favorites widget on Android smartphones and the Google Home Favorites tile and complication on WearOS-powered smartwatches.

Google Wallet users using WearOS-powered smartwatches in the US and Germany can now make payments with PayPal, according to the company. Lastly, it says new Emoji Kitchen sticker combinations will be rolling out soon, which can be shared as stickers by entering two emoji via Gboard.

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Google Launches Campaign to Pressure Apple to ‘Fix Texting’, Adopt RCS Messaging

Google has launched an online campaign asking Apple to “fix texting” by adopting the Rich Communication Services (RCS) protocol for messaging. Currently, Apple uses the outdated SMS and MMS technology for communication with users outside the company’s ecosystem. According to Google, this has led to users sharing low resolution videos. Google, the firm that develops the Android operating system, also highlighted that the outdated SMS and MMS technology has also led to broken group chats and missing read receipts. Without RCS, Apple users cannot send messages to Android phones over mobile data or Wi-Fi.

The US tech giant, Google, has launched an online campaign via the Android website, asking Apple to forego the outdated SMS and MMS technology and adopt the RCS technology instead, for messaging. Google claims that this wouldn’t hamper the experience for users communicating within the Apple ecosystem, but will improve messaging between Android phones and iPhone models.

Google said that the current technology used by Apple doesn’t allow users to communicate with Wi-Fi. This can cause issues when a user doesn’t have good cell reception, according to Google. Apple also doesn’t show if the person you are texting with is typing, doesn’t display read receipts, displays broken group chats when texting with Android users, the company adds. Currently, the messages are also not encrypted, and the images and videos shared via messages are also highly compressed. It is to be noted that these issues pertain to cross-platform communication, not Apple’s iMessage, where all the above-mentioned features are available.

In the meanwhile, Google has highlighted third-party instant messaging platforms like WhatsApp and Signal. These messaging platforms work on both Android and iOS, allowing iPhone and Android smartphone owners to text each other without using SMS. Google has also shared some screenshots of users who are complaining about Apple’s lack of initiative to adopt RCS. Texting is still widely used in countries like the US, where users on Android can have a degraded experience when texting iPhone owners, who have access to iMessage.

Google has also discussed the colour of message bubbles on Apple’s Messages app. Google claims that iPhone models make reading texts with Android smartphones difficult as Apple uses white text on a bright green background. Apple is yet to respond to Google’s online campaign asking it to adopt RCS, or revealed any plans to integrate the RCS protocol into its Messages app iOS and iPadOS.

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Google Pauses RCS Ads Coming on Messages App in India to Address User Complaints

Google has paused the feature offered to businesses using Rich Communication Services (RCS) to deliver ads in India through its Messages app — as a result of an uproar among users for getting spam. Although RCS is meant as an upgrade over the existing short messaging service (SMS) by offering rich media and interactivity, a list of businesses in the country were found to be abusing the new messaging experience by starting to give a large number of ads to users.

In a statement to Gadgets 360, a Google spokesperson said that the company decided to disable the feature allowing businesses to show ads through RCS on Google Messages as a result of violating its policies.

“We are aware that some businesses are abusing our anti-spam policies to send promotional messages to users in India,” the spokesperson said, adding, “We are disabling this feature in India while we work with the industry to improve the experience for users.”

Google has stopped ads from being circulated through RCS messaging since the past week as a result of the update. However, there is no clarity on how long the ongoing restriction will be in place for businesses as it seems to be a temporary measure responding to user complaints and to make systems more robust to limit instances of ad abuses in the future.

The issue with growing ads on Google Messages in India came into limelight earlier this month.

Affected users had taken to Twitter and other social media platforms to report issues with the increasing number of ads on Google Messages over the past few months. As brought into notice by Ishan Agarwal, the promotional content was annoying users especially due to the fact that it was coming on the app that comes pre-installed and is default on most Android phones nowadays.

Some users even completely disabled the RCS experience on Google Messages to get rid of pesky ads.

A large part of the promotional content included personal loan ads that were pushed by banks and financial institutions including Kotak Mahindra Bank and Bajaj Finserv. Some of the ads were, however, shown by small loan apps.

The ads appearing on the Google Messages app were coming from ‘Verified Business’ accounts. The content could, therefore, be considered as a regular communication by some users.

It is important to note that while businesses are no longer able to show ads on Google Messages, business customers can still use RCS to communicate with their customers on the app.



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