The biggest updates coming to Apple’s iMessage and its Messages app in iOS 18 aren’t its AI emoji, Genmoji, or even the ability to send texts via satellite.
Because of Apple’s longtime refusal to add support for RCS, texting with Android users meant no typing indicators or read receipts, broken group chats, and blurry photos and videos.
Instead, the text box indicates in a light gray font that your texts with someone support both “Text message + RCS,” while the texts themselves are still green.
However, issues that make the Messages app a broken experience for Apple’s customers will be addressed, it seems, as Apple says it will support the standard later this year.
That’s likely why there was no mention of encrypted messaging in Apple’s announcement of RCS.
Meta on Thursday said it is rolling out its Meta Verified program for WhatsApp Business users in Brazil, India, Indonesia and Colombia, and eventually to more countries.
The plan also lets businesses use their WhatsApp Business account from multiple devices.
Until now, WhatsApp Business users had to use their personal phone numbers to service customer calls.
With more than 200 million monthly users on WhatsApp Business, Meta is trying to build a full suite of solutions that businesses can tap for communicating with their customers.
The company said existing commerce and payment services only cater to the top 200 million users.
Google said today it is partnering with RapidSOS, a platform for emergency first responders, to enable users to contact 911 through RCS (Rich Messaging Service).
Initially, this feature will be available only to Google Messages users.
According to AccesSOS, a non-profit working on emergency contact, only 54% of 911 call centers in the U.S. provide text-to-911 services.
As this feature is based on RCS, which enables rich messaging and media support, users can send pictures and videos to emergency services for better context.
Plus, Android’s emergency location services can provide information such as accurate location and device language to emergency responders to better help people in need and opt-in medical information.
Apple has removed the Meta-owned end-to-end encrypted messaging app WhatsApp from its App Store in China following a government order citing national security concerns, the news agency Reuters reported Friday.
Meta’s newer, Twitter-esque text-based social networking app, Threads, has also been pulled from the App Store for the same reason, it said.
But the AppleCensorship site, which tracks App Store removals, records both Signal and Telegram as having been “disappeared” from Apple’s mainland China App Store.
Last year another Twitter alternative, Jack Dorsey-backed Damus, was also pulled from Apple’s China App Store shortly after it had been approved.
Although quite a number evidently managed to do so, as Threads quickly landed in the top 5 on Apple’s China App Store last summer.
WordPress.com owner Automattic is acquiring Beeper, the company behind the iMessage-on-Android solution that was referenced by the Department of Justice in its antitrust lawsuit against Apple.
One of the reasons why there are no other people building this type of app is it costs a surprisingly large amount of money to build a damn good chat app,” Migicovsky noted.
As for Beeper’s products, the company has now briefed the DOJ on what happened when Apple blocked its newer app, Beeper Mini, which aimed to bring iMessage to Android.
Beeper on Android launches to allThe company is instead releasing an updated version of its core app, Beeper, on Android.
In this rewritten version of Beeper, the company is starting to roll out fully end-to-end encrypted messages across Signal.
Hiring portal Indeed has redesigned the profile page for users, allowing individuals to use an AI-powered writer to fill up work experience and also added support for multiple resumes.
The company has also launched a set of smart sourcing suites for recruiters with features like AI-powered candidate summaries and custom messages.
The new AI-powered work experience writer helps people form better descriptions of different projects.
The job seeking portal already had a toggle to make a user’s profile visible to recruiters.
Indeed is also adding AI-powered smart messaging and automated interview scheduling.
Google hints that Apple is set to support RCS by this fallGoogle briefly showed a section on the new Google Messages page claiming that Apple is set to roll out Rich Communication Services (RCS) support for iPhones this fall.
This indicates that the iPhone maker is likely to extend RCS support in with the upcoming iOS 18 update.
“Apple has announced it will be adopting RCS in the fall of 2024.
Last November, Apple confirmed that it was working on adding support for RCS.
Google’s partial reveal about the RCS compatibility timeline for iPhones comes as the U.S. Department of Justice is starting a legal battle against Apple over the Cupertino-based company’s monopolistic practices.
But one category in particular caught our attention as the DOJ spends quite a bit of time talking about “green bubbles” and “blue bubbles.”When an iPhone user sends a message to another iPhone user, by default that message is sent using Apple’s iMessage protocol.
If an iPhone user texts an Android user — and vice versa — iOS falls back to the older, less secure but universal SMS protocol.
“Apple makes third-party messaging apps on the iPhone worse generally and relative to Apple Messages, Apple’s own messaging app,” the DOJ wrote in its lawsuit.
At this point, you might think: wasn’t the RCS protocol supposed to level up SMS messaging and alleviate these pain points?
It feels a bit odd that the DOJ is front-loading its antitrust lawsuit against Apple with the much talked about “green bubbles” vs. “blue bubbles” debate as there are far more serious and substantive issues.
Meta today is offering more details about how it plans to make its messaging apps, WhatsApp and Messenger, interoperable with third-party messaging services, as required by the new EU law, the Digital Markets Act (DMA).
In addition, Meta now says it will ask third parties to use the Signal protocol, though it may make exceptions to this in the future.
Meta’s messaging clients will download the encrypted media from the third-party messaging servers using a Meta proxy device, it notes.
But that solution will require third parties to agree to additional protections to keep Meta’s users safe from spam and scams.
In addition, Meta says that third-party providers will need to sign an agreement with Meta or WhatsApp before it will enable interoperability.
Instagram announced today that it’s rolling out the ability for users to edit their direct messages for up to 15 minutes after sending them.
The ability to edit your DMs lets you fix a typo or change things around if your message doesn’t quite sound right.
To edit a message, you need to press and hold it, and then then choose “edit” from the dropdown menu.
The feature works similar to Apple’s edit feature for iMessage, which launched nearly two years ago.
Instagram also recently started allowing all users to turn read receipts off, for all of their chats or specific ones.
