Apple has a packed iOS 18.1 update coming next week, with Apple Intelligence and a whole lot more. But despite months of beta testing, there’s one new feature we just learned about today: iOS 18.1 upgrades business messaging to include RCS support.
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With iOS 18, Apple has finally introduced support for Rich Communications Services, or RCS, to the iPhone. As we’ve been covering since the first betas, the rollout depends on the carriers working with Apple to enable RCS for their customers. Soon, RCS will be available to iPhone users in China as well.
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With RCS rolling out on the iPhone yesterday, Google is looking ahead on new features including cross-platform end-to-end encryption (E2EE) between Android and iPhone.
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iOS 18 is rolling out today with RCS to improve the Android-iPhone messaging experience, but support is not yet enabled for all carriers, including Google Fi Wireless.
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Apple today is rolling out iOS 18 with support for RCS in a huge boost to the iPhone-Android messaging experience.
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iOS 18 will launch in the coming weeks with major improvements like Apple Intelligence, new customization tools, and more. But one of the biggest changes is coming with Messages: RCS support. RCS will make messaging between iPhones and Androids work better than ever. Here’s what that means for you.
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The GSMA Association (GSMA) is responsible for maintaining Rich Communication Services (RCS) and the latest update to the standard adds “Extended Messaging” that should improve Android and iPhone interoperability.
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As we reported last month, the second beta of iOS 18 released to developers has finally enabled RCS messaging support on the iPhone – but only for some US mobile carriers. Now with iOS 18 beta 3, which was released on Monday, Apple is enabling RCS for more carriers around the world.
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As we reported yesterday, Apple has been getting ready to roll out RCS support on the iPhone with iOS 18. However, doing so also requires mobile carriers to work on an update on their part – something that some US carriers have already done. Now it seems that these carriers have flipped the switch and are now enabling RCS for users running the latest iOS 18 beta.
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As announced by Apple at WWDC 2024, iOS 18 officially brings support for RCS – or Rich Communication Services – to the iPhone. However, as we previously reported, the feature doesn’t seem to be available to beta users. Unfortunately, iOS 18 beta users might have to wait a bit longer before they can enable RCS on their iPhone.
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The Android website has added a new landing page for Google Messages that talks about the first-party messaging experience, while also noting that RCS on the iPhone is coming in fall 2024.
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In November, Apple surprised us all when it announced that RCS support would come to the iPhone sometime this year. If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably spent way too much time since then thinking about why Apple reversed course.
Writing at Daring Fireball, John Gruber has an explanation: China.
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Earlier today, Apple announced its plans to bring RCS support to the iPhone in 2024. Since I published my story on the news this morning, there’s one thing everyone wants to know: is the blue bubbles vs green bubbles debate coming to an end?
I’m happy to say I now have an official answer: nope. RCS will use green bubbles just like SMS.
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It’s official: Apple will add support for the RCS messaging standard in iOS. This won’t happen until the end of next year, and we don’t have many details about how Apple will implement RCS. In the meantime, we can reflect on the impact this will have on Android and iPhone users – and honestly, I don’t think it will be as huge as people might think.
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Following the news that Apple is adding RCS support to the iPhone, Google is out with a statement this afternoon.
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Samsung is apparently joining Google’s ongoing “Get The Message” ad campaign calling on Apple to adopt RCS. In a new ad posted to YouTube this week, Samsung claims that “green bubbles and blue bubbles want to be together.”
RCS is the open messaging standard created by Google to replace SMS and offers a handful of iMessage-style features. Apple, however, isn’t keen on adopting the open standard.
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Google is holding the 2023 edition of its annual I/O conference today, and the company announced many new things for Android and Pixel products. During the keynote, the company again teased Apple for not providing support for the RCS messaging protocol on the iPhone.
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A few weeks ago, at MWC 2023, I had an opportunity to sit down with Hiroshi Lockheimer, senior vice president of Platforms and Ecosystems at Google, to talk about RCS messaging. While there was not a lot into the future of what Google is planning with Google Messages and RCS as a protocol, I did get a good look into how RCS came to be and how Google sees it.
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Before Google’s “Get The Message” campaign in August, Android’s Messages app was updated with iMessage reactions at the start of this year. In a very weird turn of events, Apple appears to be taking credit for Google adding iMessage reactions on Android.
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For the past year, Google has been increasingly calling out Apple for not adopting RCS (Rich Communication Services) on the iPhone. Meant to replace SMS/MMS, it has a number of technical advancements that would improve the messaging experience between Android and iOS users. Google is now launching a “Get The Message” pressure campaign in hopes that Apple will change its mind on RCS.
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In recent months, Google has been publicly pressuring Apple to adopt RCS on the iPhone, and its latest volley involves an “unofficial lyric explainer video” for “Texts Go Green” from Drake’s new album.
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iMessage is pretty great, there’s no denying that, but adding RCS support to the app would make a better user experience for everyone – iPhone users and Android users alike. While Apple seems unlikely to ever add support willingly, if Apple has the courage to put user experience just a bit ahead of monetary decisions, RCS would be the first step.
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Over the past year, Google has publicly pressured Apple to support Rich Communication Services. The latest salvo this weekend was the harshest yet, but RCS on the iPhone is not the panacea to Google’s historical messaging woes, nor will support lead to a transformatively better experience for Android users when interacting with their iPhone counterparts.
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After critical comments on Saturday, Android chief Hiroshi Lockheimer is back with some “thoughts and clarifications” on RCS and iMessage.
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