Inexperienced bubbles, rejoice: your iPhone-using buddies are lastly going to have a a lot better time texting you. As a part of iOS 18, which was launched for everybody on Monday, Apple added help for RCS, the Wealthy Communication Companies protocol for messaging. Which means chats between iPhone and Android customers will lastly have a bunch of sorely wanted options that ought to have been in place a very long time in the past.
A giant cause I’ve stayed on iOS (and haven’t even thought of switching to Android) is as a result of iMessage conversations work particularly nicely for my household group chats, and I don’t wish to nerf these chats. This new RCS help is a good step towards making iPhone-to-Android texts work loads higher (although there are nonetheless sufficient drawbacks that I’m planning to stay with iOS).
RCS on iOS improves chats with buddies on Android
With RCS on iOS, you’ll get main enhancements like high-resolution media, typing indicators, and skim receipts whenever you’re texting with folks on different telephones that additionally help RCS. In its iOS 18 press launch, Apple additionally highlights help for “extra dependable group messaging in comparison with SMS and MMS.”
RCS chats are nonetheless lacking many options Apple bakes in for iMessage conversations, like with the ability to schedule messages to ship later or add animated textual content results to what you write. However with RCS help, a variety of the fundamentals at the moment are obtainable.
How are you aware in case you’re in an RCS chat?
Whenever you’re texting any individual not on an iPhone, check out the text-entry field. In grey letters, you’ll see the phrases “Textual content Message,” then a dot, after which “RCS” or “SMS.” In case you see RCS, you’re having an RCS chat! You would possibly see comparable “RCS” or “SMS” indicators in the course of a dialog thread.
There could also be, nevertheless, at the least one catch: plainly not all carriers help RCS on iPhone but. Whereas, in response to 9to5Google, AT&T, T-Cellular, and Verizon all help the characteristic within the US, I’m on Mint Cellular, and as a substitute of claiming “RCS,” my iPhone-to-Android conversations nonetheless say “SMS.” At the least I’ve handsome Tapbacks, which are obtainable on SMS. However on the entire, SMS conversations haven’t modified, so in case you’re pressured to talk along with your Android buddies over SMS, you’ll must take care of the constraints which were in place for years.
If, for some cause, you wish to flip RCS off, you are able to do that from Settings > Apps > Messages > RCS Messaging.
RCS on iOS isn’t as safe because it could possibly be
Apple is just supporting the essential RCS customary, known as RCS Common Profile, which doesn’t have cross-platform end-to-end encryption. Which means in case you’re texting your buddy who use Google Messages, these messages gained’t be encrypted like they’re in case you’re texting with one other iPhone person over iMessage.
Whereas disappointing, it’s not too stunning. Apple would most likely nonetheless favor that everybody purchase an iPhone. And the GSMA introduced as we speak that it desires so as to add interoperable end-to-end encryption to the RCS Common Profile, so iPhone customers texting their Android buddies might need end-to-end encryption within the not-to-distant future.
Correction, September seventeenth: An earlier model of this text misstated the supply of encryption on RCS on iOS 18. The RCS Common Profile carried out by Apple does use encryption, but it surely doesn’t help end-to-end encryption between iOS and Android.
