Rogers and Google partner to bring rich texting to Canada
It's not iMessage, but it's close enough.
After launching with Sprint last month, Google has announced that plans to bring RCS — Rich Communications Services — to Rogers customers starting today, December 13.
Working with Google, Rogers says that all future Android devices it sells will come preloaded with Messenger, the company's first-party SMS app, as its default texting utility, through which it will communicate with Google's Jibe Cloud to facilitate rich texting.
Like Sprint, Rogers customers will be able to see the following improvements:
- Real group chat
- Read receipts
- Typing indicators
- The ability to share photos, files and location
Google is working with a number of carriers around the world to launch Jibe-based RCS — which has the potential to be a true iMessage competitor on Android — including T-Mobile, Verizon and AT&T in the States and a number of European carriers. It's unclear whether more Canadian operators will launch RCS in the coming months, but users running compatible phones on compatible networks — say, Spring and Rogers — should be able to send rich messages to one another.
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