It’s happening!!!
What is rcs?
Google got jealous of iMessage and remade iMessage, but Android with the promise of making it more open.
They haven’t followed through on ‘more open’ until just now.
Rcs officially works on 2 apps. iMessage still has just 1.
But hopefully Rcs will actually become open in the future. Allowing anyone to make an Rcs app, like they can with SMS
It’s a protocol that implements modern text messaging features for sms, similar to imessage on ios. Since nobody has used sms since the nineties it’s probably useless for most of us but it’s interesting to see what tech giants fight about.
For carriers it is a way to extend the (in my opinion outdated) idea of carrier-based chat system.
For Google it is a way to switch messaging on Android to their proprietary app, at least for some time, as other of their projects falied.
For users it is a way for people using Android certified by Google to normally message people using iPhone and it’s preinstalled chat app.