Android may get its iMessage competitor, but it’s not going to be sexy or blue.
One of the main reasons the iPhone, and iOS, continues to be so compelling is iMessage, the thick blue bubble of exclusivity in the messaging space. Android users are left out, and will likely continue to be for the foreseeable future — despite the occasional rumor to the contrary.
But as Android users wait for that morsel of Apple, Google is taking things into its own proverbial hands by partnering with Sprint on what could end up being a viable competitor to iMessage on Android. Powered by Jibe, a company Google acquired in 2015, Google’s RCS — Rich Communication Services — uses what’s known as the Universal Profile, a set of features and protocols set by the GSMA aimed at standardizing the way carriers, manufacturers and developers implement native messaging. Essentially, Google is building WhatsApp and iMessage into its own native Messenger app.
Every U.S. carrier has agreed to transition their proprietary implementations of RCS to the Universal Standard by sometime in 2017.
The features are great: real-time typing indicators and read receipts; higher-resolution photos and video (goodbye MMS), seamless and bug-free group messages, and more. They’re so great that they should relieve some of the pressure from Android users who want a seamless iMessage-like experience in the native Android SMS app. Some of the pressure.
There’s only one problem: RCS in its current form is limited to Sprint, and only on through one SMS app, Google’s own Messenger. Not only that, but despite the openness of Universal Profile and its, well, universal availability, its cloud-based backend is still controlled by Google. One could argue that as long as Big G decides not to make any big changes to an open standard (remember when Google forked WebKit for its own purposes?) and continues to work with manufacturers and carriers, things will be fine, but standards have a way of morphing over time according to business priorities.
Still, every U.S. carrier, including AT&T, which isn’t actually on GSMA’s list of supports, has agreed to transition their proprietary implementations of RCS to the Universal Standard by sometime in 2017. This should coincide with Release 2 of RCS’s evolution, with the rollout of Messaging as a Platform, APIs, plug-in integration, improved authentication and app security. That means other app developers could build in RCS support.
But those compromises in authentication and app security — the lack of end-to-end encryption, for instance — have kept some providers and manufacturers at bay, and a comparison to iMessage less apt than it may one day be. RCS, for all of its inertia, is still a very nascent standard, while iMessage has been percolating for over half a decade, and has recently been updated to support apps, stickers and more. Then there’s the $10 billion question: will Apple, even with iMessage, one day support RCS for its own text messages? Will the green bubbles be scoffed at
Google's iMessage competitor isn't Allo, it's SMS
