Apple Facing Legal Scrutiny Over iMessage as RCS Adoption Urged Sooner

Apple's Messages app and iMessage texting service are among the targets of the US Department of Justice filed Thursday. The DOJ and 16 state attorneys general claim that Apple is using its dominance in the US mobile industry to stifle competition. Despite the fresh scrutiny on iMessage, Apple is gearing up to bring RCS – a modern messaging protocol with updated features – to the iPhone this year. Doing so represents a major step towards bridging the divide between Android and iOS when it comes to the cross-platform messaging experience since it would support features like typing indicators, higher quality media sharing and message encryption.

Apple usually waits until it launches the next version of iOS in the fall to introduce new cross-compatible features. For instance, Apple added the ability to FaceTime with iOS 15, enabling Windows and Android users to join. That suggests we may not hear about Apple’s progress in bringing RCS to the iPhone until June, followed by a potential rollout in the fall.

Before Thursday’s lawsuit, the EU was already pressuring Apple to open up certain aspects of its iOS operating system. To comply with the EU’s requirements, Apple must allow alternative digital payment methods on the iPhone. It also has to provide a prompt that informs users they can set a different default web browser besides Apple’s Safari. While these changes are EU-only, the regulations did lead to Apple adopting the USB-C port for all iPhone 15 models sold internationally. Apple evaded these regulations on iMessage in the EU, possibly because third-party chat apps like WhatsApp have higher adoption internationally.

Apple should speed up its RCS adoption to circumvent external attempts to provide an ‘iMessage for Android.’ While both Beeper Mini and Blue Bubbles made headlines for trying to bring iMessage access to Android, both relied on loopholes in Apple’s service. In some cases, you needed to entrust your Apple ID and password to a third party, which could potentially raise privacy concerns. Other services like Blue Bubbles used an always-on Mac paired up with software to route iMessage texts to an Android device, but even these self-hosted options have their security risks.

In addition to speeding up its RCS efforts, Apple could borrow Beeper’s strategy to make the Messages app a hub for other texting apps. The new Beeper app, currently in beta, will be a center for non-Apple texting services. Texts from WhatsApp, Signal and even Slack would converge in one place and retain their encryption. Apple already does this to an extent. Apple’s Phone app displays calls from multiple services, allowing users to interact seamlessly.

As much as users may desire RCS on the iPhone now, Apple will likely stick to its traditional product timelines. We might see details and an early beta version of RCS at WWDC in June, with a public launch expected to come this fall as part of Apple’s iOS 16 update and the rumored iPhone 15S.