You can’t say Apple doesn’t know how to surprise its audience. Seemingly out of nowhere, the companyconfirmed it plans to add RCS support to iOSnext year, a complete reversal on its previous policies (which, no joke, includedbuying your mom an iPhonefor a better messaging experience). In the wake of this surprise announcement, which will see better interoperability between Android and iPhone users than ever before, we saw a rush to try and explain exactlywhyApple is making this move at this time. There’s an easy explanation, but that doesn’t mean some of the company’s rivals can’t claim victory anyway.
If you looked across the technology segments of social media since the announcement, you likely saw Apple’s RCS adoption attributed to one of three causes:Nothing’s recent messaging app, Google’s#GetTheMessage campaign, or the European Commission’s ongoing investigation intowhether iMessage needed to be classified as a core serviceunder the Digital Markets Act. While Google — and all Android manufacturers — will benefit from the addition of RCS next year, this move came down to a proactive choice on Apple’s part. Let me explain.
Plenty of contenders, only one culprit
Let’s start by quickly setting Nothing aside, because no matter what their CEO wants to say on Twitter, the company didn’t play a role in this move. Nothing Chats made a big splash around the web this week thanks to its partnership with Sunbird to bring an iMessage client to Android. That app launches on the Play Store today for Nothing Phone 2 users. It is also, effectively, dead on arrival. While we likely have a year’s worth of a wait until RCS arrives in Apple’s Messages app, the promise of real interoperability between iOS and Android without needing to log into a remote Mac Mini with your Apple ID will probably convince most Nothing fans to wait — it certainly won’t persuade anyone to buy into Nothing’s ecosystem.
Ben Schoon at 9to5Googlehas a great piece debunking Nothing’s role in this debacle, no matter how much Carl Pei wants to play up his company’s importance. The truth of the matter is Apple doesn’t see smaller OEMs like Nothing as competition. And until Nothing is a household name in the same way Google and Samsung are, that’s unlikely to change.
So let’s look elsewhere. Although Google’s statement to Android Police and other technology sites about Apple’s announcement kept things a little more subtle, there’s no doubt the Android team sees it as an internal win — surely,Google Director Dieter Bohn is satisfied. After more than a year of running a PR campaign designed to get iPhone users to turn on the company, it’s hard to say the #GetTheMessage movement has much of an effect. I have no doubt that a select audience found themselves won over to Google’s argument, the truth is Apple barely gave RCS any attention prior to this week.
And when Appledidfinally respond to someone asking about messaging interoperability between iOS and Android, Tim Cook was quick to tell his audience that the best experience is using an iPhone. If you wanted to send your parents pictures of their grandchildren, youallneeded iPhones.
That’s been the company’s strategy for over a decade now, and frankly, it’s worked out pretty well for the brand. With iPhones accounting for more than 50 percent of market share in the US — and, as I wrote about earlier this week,nearly nine in ten American teenagers— Apple clearly did not need to change its strategy. Google could make as much noise as it wanted to about RCS, because at the end of the day, the debate between blue and green bubbles was all that mattered.
If you’re keeping track, that leaves just one candidate.
The threat of forced regulation
Apple’s never going to publicly admit why it’s suddenly doing an about-face on RCS, but the clues are there if you look hard enough. Put simply, the company is doing everything it can to avoid the wrath of the European Commission, the EU body currently investigating whether iMessage should fall under its recent rules regarding gatekeepers. Apple was among the earliest companies inducted as theEU’s initial batch of gatekeepersback in September, though as I mentioned above, iMessagemanaged to avoid designation as a core service.
That didn’t stop the EU from looking into whether the service would qualify. That inquiry, asReuterspointed out on November 10th, had a November 16th deadline for challenges to be submitted to the Commission. What day did Apple announce RCS support for iOS, completely out of the blue? I’ll save you a glance over at your calendar — it was November 16th. RCS support is a ploy to keep the EU from giving Apple direct orders on the future of iMessage, and even more importantly, it’s a way to keep the app closed off from direct competitors like WhatsApp. Core services are meant to be interoperable, and opening iMessage to WhatsApp and other competitors would be a blow to Apple’s walled garden approach. RCS is likely the lesser evil for the company.
Now, none of this is to say Google didn’t play a role in the EU’s pressure cooker of a campaign. Alongside the CEOs of some major European carriers, Google submitted a letter to the European Commision just last week, arguing for iMessage to be added as a core service worthy of regulation. Forget fifteen months of viral videos and rotating ads scattered throughout New York City — this was Google’s big move.
Regardless, the truth here is simple: the threat of EU regulation forced Apple’s hand on this one. We don’t quite know which way the European Commission will rule on its investigation into iMessage, but this is clearly a last ditch effort to earn a decision in Apple’s favor.
Google didn’t win, but it should celebrate anyway
I have a hard time believing any of Google’s #GetTheMessage actions managed to persuade Apple. But just because Google’s actions aren’t the root cause of this week’s announcement doesn’t mean the company shouldn’t celebrate.
While I think this week’s news is, at best, a net negative for Nothing — a small company that made a big deal over a partnership with Sunbird that, quite simply, doesn’t mean as much as it did just a few days ago — Google is absolutely coming out on top here. It has a full year, give or take, to promote RCS as a messaging standard so good, Apple is in the process of adopting it for all iPhone users. It can advertise that virtually every Android phone already supports RCS through Google Messages, and come next year, whatever device you already own will workbetterwith the iPhones in your life through no work on your part.
I’ve long said it would either take carrier requirements or governmental intervention for Apple to adopt RCS, and we all knew the US wasn’t going to be the government to force the company’s hand. Much like the iPhone’s switch to USB-C this year, this week’s announcement comes courtesy of some real pressure, not from its peers, not from its users, but from regulation pushing for better standards across the board. Google can’t really take credit for this — nor is it really trying to — but it gets to celebrate nonetheless.
Now if we could just getApple to tone down the contraston those green bubbles, maybe the entire discussion could fade away for good.
