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Finally, no more pixelated images and videos
It’s the little things
Apple’s Messages app has certainly come a long way. When the first iPhone launched in 2007, it could only send text messages – there weren’t even picture messages. Then it got support for MMS protocol in iPhone OS 3.0 with iPhone 3GS. With iPhone OS 5.0, Apple implemented its own iMessage chat protocol, allowing Apple users to easily communicate with other Apple device users.
However, when it comes to messaging for Android users, Apple has dragged its feet the longest, sticking to SMS and MMS, which are unencrypted and don’t offer sending photos and videos in full quality. This also started the whole blue bubble versus green bubble war.
In 2024, however, Apple finally brought peace by adding Rich Communication Services (RCS) to iOS 18. It’s a feature I’ve been waiting for for years, and it’s made messaging much easier for me and my friends who do not use an iPhone. and family. Here’s why RCS was a game changer for me and my family.
Finally, no more pixelated images and videos
I’ve always been a big photographer with my iPhone, but since becoming a parent a few years ago, using my smartphone camera has disappeared. up. Before my child, I didn’t take a lot of video, but now there are so many more times when a still image isn’t enough.
I frequently chat with my sister, the only Android user in my immediate family, via messages. We often share photos and videos, especially of our pets. But every time we did it, the videos were sent via MMS, meaning they were the size of a postage stamp and incredibly pixelated and blurry, like those from a potato phone in the early aughts 2000. We got to the point where we weren’t even sending each other video clips; instead, we mostly just uploaded to something like Google Photos or iCloud and then shared the link.
With iOS 18, Apple finally implemented RCS support in Messages, making it easier to communicate with Android users. RCS supports high-resolution photos and videos, and this has been my favorite use case for RCS on my iPhone 16 Pro.
Once again, I take a lot photos and videos of my daughter and her shenanigans. To share batches of media, I usually upload them all to an app I’ve used for three years called Family Album, where all my invited family members can see our photos and videos.
But sometimes I want to make sure my sister saw something, whether it’s my daughter or our cat or our dog – or even something cute I come across that she would like. I’ve really appreciated now having RCS support because I know that the images and videos I send to it no longer look like they were taken on a flip phone from the 2000s. Even in group chats, the support from RCS has made a difference because these images used to be low quality, but now everything that is sent looks great.
It’s the little things
While high-resolution images and videos are the main reason I love using RCS, it’s not the only one.
Another thing I like is the fact that not only can you see when an RCS message was delivered, like an SMS, but you can also see if it was read. Of course, this depends on whether the user has read receipts enabled, but in my sister’s case it was handy to see when she actually read my message instead of just asking me if she did. seen or not.
It’s also worth remembering that RCS on iPhone is currently in its infancy. Full resolution photos and videos are the highlight and read receipts are the second most important feature for me. It’s great that we finally have RCS on the iPhone, but there’s still room for improvement. Currently, the RCS enters Android and iPhone don’t have end-to-end encryption (E2EE), which is disappointing.
When RCS is sent from Android to Android, these messages are encrypted to protect them from interference. The same E2EE applies to iMessage, which is Apple’s proprietary messaging protocol. It appears that the organization behind RCS is working on implementing E2EE between Android and iPhone, although there is no estimated timeline yet.
I would also like RCS messages to be a different color than green, which is also used for regular SMS. It would be much easier to differentiate between SMS and RCS, like SMS/RCS and iMessage.
Despite the flaws, having RCS has been beneficial and worth the wait. Some people may just use iMessage exclusively because everyone they talk to may be using an iPhone. But for me, when I have family and friends who use Android and don’t want to switch, having RCS has definitely been a big improvement in my quality of life.
