Apple’s surprise decision to bring RCS support to its Messages app for iPhone later this year was not a result of impending EU legislation, but an about-face caused by Chinese political pressure, claimed a report over the weekend. In November 2023, Apple announced that it planned to bring RCS (Rich Communication Services) support to Messages alongside iMessage, a move that seemingly came out of the blue, given Apple’s staunch resistance to pressure from Google and Samsung to adopt the communication protocol. In the weeks that followed, one popular theory for Apple’s reversal was that its hand had been forced by the EU’s Digital Markets Act, which would have required Apple to make changes to iMessage to make it interoperable with other platforms. That theory has since been debunked for two reasons. First, the DMA does not specifically mention RCA as a requirement of interoperability between messaging platforms. And second, the EU earlier this month concluded that iMessage does not hold a dominant enough position to be brought under the DMA’s strict rules for services provided …