Source: The Register: Biting the hand that feeds
Apple and Google's adoption of end-to-end encryption for SMS/RCS messages between iPhones and Android phones closes a technical and competitive gap that has defined mobile messaging for over a decade. The shift breaks the walled-garden advantage Apple built around iMessage and forces the industry toward a baseline privacy standard, though WhatsApp, Signal, and other apps remain the only truly interoperable encrypted options. This moves the encryption question from "whether" to "how granular," pushing carriers and device makers to compete on features rather than lock-in.