Hello Apple Developer Support,
I’m reaching out because my partner and I are developing a business application called ONIT, and we want to make sure we are using the correct Apple supported technology before moving forward with development. ONIT is designed for small businesses that receive customer communications through their existing business phone number. Our goal is to allow a business owner to connect their existing number to ONIT and have incoming customer SMS organized inside our application so they can see who needs a response, how long they have been waiting, and what the customer needs. The business would explicitly authorize ONIT to access these communications. We are not trying to access personal messages, and we are not looking to replace the Messages app. We need to understand what Apple supported API or entitlement would allow ONIT to receive incoming SMS associated with an existing business phone number. I have reviewed Apple’s TelephonyMessagingKit documentation and understand that it supports carrier based SMS, MMS, and RCS. However, our use case is specifically focused on receiving and organizing incoming messages rather than replacing the default messaging experience. Our main question is whether ONIT can receive incoming SMS from an existing business phone number, with the business owner’s authorization, without ONIT becoming the default carrier messaging app. If that is not possible through TelephonyMessagingKit, we would like to understand whether there is another Apple supported API, entitlement, or architecture that would allow a business to authorize ONIT to receive and organize incoming customer SMS. We would also appreciate clarification on whether this type of functionality requires carrier involvement and, if so, whether Apple recommends a particular architecture for connecting an existing business phone number to a third party business application while allowing the business to retain that same number. We are specifically trying to determine the technically and officially supported architecture before building our messaging infrastructure around it. If this question needs to be reviewed by another Apple team, we would greatly appreciate being directed to the appropriate team or documentation.
Thank you for your time and assistance.
Best regards, Kathryn Humphry Nawaf Almutairi Co-Founders,ONIT