Although iMessage has avoided the burden of complying with rules that comes with the official DMA designation, the period of regulatory scrutiny coincided with Apple announcing support for the cross-platform RCS messaging standard on iPhones, which Google has been pushing for. In what seems unlikely to be a coincidence, Apple made the RCS announcement on November 16th, the deadline for appealing the European Commission’s DMA designation.
Apple has made it clear that it’ll support the cross-platform standard alongside iMessage; it’s not replacing the company’s proprietary messaging service. “[RCS] will work alongside iMessage, which will continue to be the best and most secure messaging experience for Apple users,” Apple spokesperson Jacqueline Roy said at the time. The distinction between blue and green bubbles will remain, except now, green bubbles will signify messages sent over feature-rich RCS rather than SMS.
At least, there's that