RCS Business Messaging · Video Lessons

What If Apple Doesn’t Support RCS Messaging?

If you are an SMS marketer, you may already know about the difference between SMS and MMS messaging. Now, however, a new kind of messaging is available to Android and Google phone users: RCS messaging.

RCS messaging (Rich Communication Services) is essentially a better text messaging protocol. It allows you to add rich media elements like buttons, chatbots, and high definition images to a message.

While RCS aims to be a universal text messaging protocol, it remains to be seen whether or not Apple will adopt it. If Apple decides not to adopt RCS, marketers will need to customize their campaigns to two different messaging protocols to accommodate both Apple phone users and Android phone users.

 

What If Apple Doesn’t Adopt RCS?

Android accounts for about 85% of the mobile market, while Apple accounts for the other 15%. So, if Apple chooses not to adopt the RCS standard an important minority of mobile phone users won’t be able to receive RCS messages.

At this point, it’s unclear whether or not Apple will choose to adopt the RCS standard. If Apple does choose to adopt the standard, it will make for a more frictionless text message marketing experience for everyone. It would allow marketers to send one standard type of text message to every subscriber, instead of having to create and send two separately structured text.

Here at Tatango, however, we are planning for every possible outcome.

 

Two Different Operating Systems, Two Different Message Protocols

If each of the two dominant mobile phone operating systems (Android and IOS) use their own messaging protocol, marketers will need to send out two different types of messages for every campaign.

This means that before a messaging campaign goes out, whatever software system you are using will need to query your subscribers. This will take place on the back end, so the consumer won’t notice anything.

Once the messaging software knows the protocol being used for each subscriber, it can send the right kind of text message to every subscriber on the brand’s list.

The messages can still contain the same content, but they will have different structures.

 

What If Apple Decides to Support RCS Messaging?

It will be a lot easier for marketers if Apple does decide to support RCS messaging because then there will be a unified text messaging standard across all handsets and wireless carriers.

Right now, though, it remains to be seen what Apple will do.

 

Questions or Concerns?

If you have any questions regarding RCS and Apple’s approach to RCS messaging, don’t hesitate to get in contact with us. Our team will be happy to answer all your text message marketing related questions.

 

Learn More About RCS and Apple Business Chat

The following videos will help you keep abreast of developments in RCS and Apple’s enhanced messaging protocol, Apple business chat.

Jump to Content