Sealing a comeback: enabling Apple and Android RCS

Apple’s announcement in September 2024 that it will incorporate support for Rich Communication Services (RCS) in the iPhone and wider device portfolio was a significant move for the messaging ecosystem. Up until then, RCS had primarily been a Google-led initiative (following Google’s acquisition of Jibe Mobile in 2015) for the Android device base. This is, of course, larger in scale than the iPhone universe. However, in practice, the number of people actually using RCS was much lower than the Android base because only other Android users could be messaged and, even then, the service required people to activate it. Apple’s entry opens a new messaging gateway between different OS worlds, making RCS a more scaled alternative to WhatsApp. This report looks at the device provisioning through an entitlement server required for telcos to enable RCS for Apple and Android that will come into effect in 2025, in particular for securely enabling the message flow between the two OS platforms.