Perennially ambitious Apple (AAPL 0.62%) is plotting how to keep itself powerful and growing in 2024. The ever-secretive company is tight-lipped about its plans for next year, and the usual speculations -- believable and otherwise -- are floating in the air. According to them, 2024 will see the company introduce slick new iPads, faster iMacs, and, of course, a new iPhone in September like it always does that month.
It's unusual when Apple actually spills the beans on its own. But in mid-November, this occurred with one of its native apps that has been a mainstay of iDevices for years. Read on to find out what it is and what's going to change with this heavily used piece of software.
Apple makes nice with Android
We're talking about Apple's iMessage app. The company will supplement the home-grown system that currently powers it with one called Rich Communication Services (RCS). RCS has been widely adopted, with one prominent adoptee being Android, the operating system primarily developed by Apple arch-rival Alphabet's (GOOG 0.66%) (GOOGL 0.49%) Google.
RCS was developed under the auspices of the GSM Association, an influential trade group consisting of mobile telecom businesses around the world. Deriving from foundational-messaging technology like SMS and MMS, it's a protocol that supports features such as read receipts, encryption, and video communication.
Let's pause for a moment and appreciate how rare Apple's move is. The company famously likes to stand proudly, and often stubbornly alone, behind its technology. iMessaging is only one example of many; witness management's decision earlier this decade to develop and deploy its own line of processors.
The trouble with being pridefully solo is that proprietary solutions don't always play nice with other standards. Texting between Android and Apple devices has been notoriously problematic for years; with Apple harnessing RCS, such difficulties should largely disappear, providing an experience close to that enjoyed by Apple users smoothly iMessaging away to each other.
Avoiding a big regulatory headache across the sea
Apple is surely not doing this out of a friendly desire to make Android users' lives easier. It didn't offer any reasoning behind its decision, but it can't be a coincidence that a powerful regulator is effectively calling its previous stance into question.
The European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union that also has certain regulatory duties, will enforce key elements of the sprawling Digital Markets Act (DMA) just after the beginning of 2024. Among other mandates, the DMA requires that tech giants like Apple and Alphabet make their "core platform services" interoperable by next March 6. The current disconnect and clunkiness between Android and Apple messaging would seem to be in violation of that.
In September, the Commission announced it was looking into whether select Big Tech offerings were truly core platform services. No prizes for guessing which messaging service was targeted. Pouring fuel on this fire was, yes, Alphabet; along with RCS-using peers, the company has apparently been lobbying the Commission to push Apple to adopt the protocol.
If recent tech-sector history is any indication, a potential Apple vs. European Commission fight would be long, protracted, expensive, and more likely to end in favor of the entity with the law on its side. Apple is smartly avoiding a tussle it probably won't win to any meaningful degree. And in doing so, it's looking like a good guy that just wants every device to get along.
No, this won't suddenly make the average Android user an Apple convert. We won't likely see a surge (or even much of a bump) in Apple's business as swarms of Android escapees ditch their phones and rush to Apple Stores for hot new iProducts. People need much stronger reasons to change devices and/or systems.
But any decision that reduces or eliminates a potentially monster legal headache is a smart move. Better still, this one indicates Apple might be more flexible and opportunistic than it's been in the past.
