Updated July 15, 2024 - 4 min read
iPhone compatible with RCS as of IOS 18
Romain Didelot
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Introduction
It wasn't the discussions on Artificial Intelligence (Apple Intelligence) that marked the WWDC24 conference on June 10, but rather the announcement of the arrival of RCS with iOS 18. Apple officially revealed that its Messages application would soon support RCS. Its Vice President of Software Engineering (Craig Federighi) confirmed the long-awaited update and presented the features that will soon be available. This announcement bridges the gap that has existed between iPhone and Android for a number of years, and has the whole mobile sphere euphoric.
What does this mean for mobile marketing? Visit RCS campaigns will they be feasible on all smartphones? smsmode© tells you all about it.
Apple's RCS announcement
This news about IOS support for RCS is explosive. Until now, mobile messaging players have been largely impacted by the absence of this communication channel from the giant Apple. Now that the manufacturer has confirmed its intention to unify messaging across operating systems, the strike force of Rich Communication Services has been broadened.
This decision follows on from the various 2023 announcements:
"In the course of next year (2024, ed. note), we will add support for the RCS universal profile, the standard as currently published by the GSM Association," said Apple spokeswoman Jacqueline Roy.
"We believe the RCS universal profile will offer better interoperability than SMS or MMS. It will work in parallel with iMessage, which will remain the messaging experience... for Apple users."
It comes after lengthy negotiations, and as RCS continues to develop as an increasingly mature platform.
What's in it for users?
According to Statista, the popularity of Apple's iOS continues to grow among young people. Indeed, while more than half the world's smartphone users own Android models, Apple has the wind in its sails among the younger generations. By 2023, around 35% of Millennials owned an iPhone, closely followed by 31% of Generation Z.
Until now, Apple's silence and hesitations about adopting RCS have been a real handicap when it comes to promoting the product to brands. Without the Apple brand, campaigns are reduced to a small fraction of the available mobile base. In the near future, however, several million iPhone users could join the lucky few on Android and take part in the experience.
Many users have already tested RCS on iPhone
In the U.S., you only need to install iOS 18 beta 3 to see this. RCS in all its forms (P2P: person-to-person and A2P: application/brand-to-person) is available. In France, some SFR customers have been able to preview the RCS experience from an iPhone with iOS 18 beta 3, available for a few weeks now.
These latest tests confirm that all Apple smartphone owners will be able to benefit from RCS and its commercial (A2P) version, RBM.
Are you an SFR customer with an iPhone? If you download iOS 18 beta 3, you can already test RCS by going to "Settings > Applications > Messages" and activating the 2 options:
- RCS Messaging
- RCS Business Messages
The adoption of RCS by the iPhone will, among other things, enable support for encryption, high-resolution images and videos, read receipts, keystroke indicators and more. In short, Apple will enable users to share a similar messaging experience between the two systems, with the exception of RCS message bubbles, which will remain green, as SMS currently are on iPhone. In anticipation of autumn 2024, the Apple iOS 18 preview offers a sneak preview! In particular, you can scroll down to see what a conversation initiated between an Android device and an iPhone might look like. Of course, there are still some questions to be answered, such as how to transcribe reactions from one phone model to another. Stay tuned for answers to all our questions soon!
What this means for professional messaging
The Apple announcement is more than promising news for the future of messaging in marketing. This adoption brings with it a major development for the application-to-person (A2P) market: the merger, or at least compatibility, of RBM (RCS Business Messaging: the A2P channel of RCS) with AMB (Apple Messages for Business: the A2P channel of iMessage).
Like SMS and its professional version, the A2P and P2P versions of RCS and iMessage are different technologies. Separately, RBM and AMB don't yet have the reach of SMS or even other over-the-top (OTT) messaging channels like WhatsApp. Together, however, they have the potential to reach virtually all smartphone users.
And we now know that RBM, the professional version of RCS, will be supported by IOS 18 .
This was hinted at at Mobile World Congress by Google's EMEA Business Development Manager, Tim Atkinson, who indicated that Apple would support the RCS Universal Profile 2.4, which supports RBM.
And the potential for adoption of rich messaging in the A2P world is enormous. The GSMA estimates that we'll have 6.3 billion mobile subscribers by 2030, representing billions of business opportunities for brands. Companies could create compelling experiences with a single click, all without consumers switching apps.
RCS messaging features
Find out about the different types of content messages and buttons integrated into the discussion thread, which are offered by the RBM: the RCS at the service of companies.
Reminder: What is the RCS?
RCS (Rich Communication Services) is a messaging protocol that aims to replace SMS and MMS with a richer, more interactive experience. RCS enables users to send and receive text messages, images, videos, files, emojis, stickers, voice messages, video calls, group messages and much more. RCS works over the mobile network or wifi, and offers users features such as acknowledgements, input indicators, or end-to-end encryption.
Reminder: What is RBM?
RBM (RCS Business Messaging) is RCS at the service of brands and companies. It enables companies to communicate with their customers in a more personalized, engaging and effective way.
With RBM, you can create more creative, more interactive and more measurable campaigns. Your RBM campaigns allow you to integrate interactive elements into RCS messages, such as buttons, carousels, polls, forms and more. In this way, you can facilitate action, stimulate reaction, and foster loyalty.
The other major advantage of RBM is the possibility of adding a chatbot to your sessions. With it, you equip yourself with a powerful "conversational commerce" tool. A more innovative and useful service for your customers, enabling you to offer a new marketing experience with colossal conversion potential.
RBM is a new solution for mobile marketers, and an opportunity for them to personalize their messages according to the profile, behavior and preferences of their recipients. They can adapt the content, tone and timing of their messages to increase open rates, click-through rates and conversion rates.
Personalizing SMS messages (name, city, etc.) can considerably increase impact. Don't hesitate to include links to your website, social networks or video content to enrich your message.
Reasons for Apple's choice
Apple has long resisted the adoption of RCS, preferring to focus on its proprietary iMessage service, which offers a similar messaging experience. However, faced with pressure from competitors, customers and regulators, Apple finally changed its strategy.
There are several reasons for this turnaround. Firstly, RCS has become an increasingly widespread and popular standard in the mobile world, thanks in particular to the support of Google, Samsung and other major players. According to the GSMA, RCS will have more than 600 million monthly active users worldwide by 2022, and should reach one billion by 2024. By not supporting RCS, Apple risked cutting itself off from an important part of the market, and frustrating its customers who wanted to communicate more easily with their Android contacts.
Secondly, RCS represents an opportunity for Apple to comply with the requirements of the European Union, which in 2022 adopted the Digital Markets Act, a law designed to regulate the practices of digital giants and foster competition and innovation. Among the obligations imposed by this law is that of guaranteeing the interoperability of messaging services between different platforms. By adding RCS support to the iPhone, Apple could avoid potential sanctions from the EU.
Finally, Apple's decision to make the iPhone compatible with RCS will bring many benefits to iPhone users, who will now be able to enjoy their rich messaging experience with Android users, and easily switch between the two services without losing their conversations.
How to prepare your universal RBM strategy?
Companies need to adapt their marketing strategy to the RCS, taking into account the protocol's specific features and opportunities.
So define your objectives, target, message, budget, timetable, etc. And above all, test and optimize your campaigns using the data and feedback provided by RCS.
For an RCS campaign, the first thing to do is to segment your contact lists according to their compatibility with the protocol. In anticipation of full compatibility, you'll need to know which users have a compatible smartphone and operator. This will enable you to send RCS messages to them, and SMS messages to other users.
RCS enables you to offer a more personalized, richer and more interactive messaging experience. You'll have two powerful levers to activate:
Conversion :
By making it possible to offer more attractive, more relevant and more tailored offers to customers, RCS enables companies to increase conversion. Make it easy to take action, by integrating buttons, links, QR codes and more.
Measurement:
Thanks to the precise, detailed data on deliverability, opens, clicks and conversions provided by the RCS protocol, you can better measure the effectiveness of your campaigns with RCS. Optimize your strategies, budgets and ROI with this valuable data.
Universality:
The decision to roll out Apple's RCS will soon give all your campaigns access to a large telephone base. Experience the power of enriched, dynamic mobile communications, with no limits!
Conclusion
RCS is a technology that has the potential to transform mobile marketing, offering a richer, more universal and more secure messaging experience. It's also a constantly evolving technology, which could integrate new features in the future, such as augmented reality or mobile payment, which would be yet another step towards a new world for mobile marketing.
Our webinar: "RCS, the ideal lever for customer relations
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