Tim Cook Shoots Down Idea of iOS Adopting RCS Messages: 'Buy Your Mom an iPhone'

Apple CEO Tim Cook has shot down the idea of iOS adopting RCS messaging, a format that would make it significantly easier for iPhone and Android users to send high-quality messages, videos, and photos to each other within the Messages app on iOS.

During a panel at Kara Swisher's final Code Conference yesterday, Cook was asked why iOS has not yet adopted support for the RCS standard and how Steve Jobs would feel about it (via The Verge), despite repeated calls from the industry for the company to do so. "I don't hear our users asking that we put a lot of energy in on that at this point," Cook said in response to the question.

The lack of RCS support on iOS makes it more difficult for iOS and Android users to communicate, forcing them to in some cases use third-party messaging platforms such as WhatsApp or Telegram. The reporter who asked the question pushed Cook on his response, saying he and his mother find it difficult to send photos and videos to each other because she uses an Android device while they use an ‌iPhone‌. "Buy your mom an ‌iPhone‌," Cook told the reporter who posed the situation.

Android has supported and led the industry in adopting RCS, while Apple has kept only iMessage and the SMS standard available on the ‌iPhone‌. Google recently started a public campaign in an attempt to convince Apple to adopt RCS, but Cook's recent comments show Apple is not likely to budge anytime soon.

As noted by The Verge, emails from the Epic Games vs. Apple trial revealed that Apple's senior vice president of software engineering Craig Federighi said that bringing iMessage to Android and making it easier for the two platforms to communicate would "simply serve to remove [an] obstacle to ‌iPhone‌ families giving their kids Android phones."