In a surprising move, Apple has announced today that it will adopt the RCS (Rich Communication Services) messaging standard. The feature will launch via a software update “later next year” and bring a wide range of iMessage-style features to messaging between iPhone and Android users.
Apple’s decision comes amid pressure from regulators and competitors like Google and Samsung. It also comes as RCS has continued to develop and become a more mature platform than it once was.
If it a) successfully fools people into thinking their products are good, b) further fools them into thinking they’re worth the batshit insane pricetag, and c) isn’t illegal enough to be unprofitable, then they’ll keep doing it.
So yeah, I’d wager they keep the blue/green boxes. Bet they’ll also change non-rcs+non-imessage to another color to further divide things up as well.