Apple’s Messages app will get RCS SMS support Later this year, as part of iOS 18, it promises to add more modern features to conversations between iPhones and Android phones. Although this feature is no better than passing reference While in the company Global Developers Conference 2024 During the keynote, it promises to be a huge improvement, allowing for better photo sharing and group chats whether your contacts are on iPhones or Androids.
Hidden in Apple’s iOS 18 preview page (scroll all the way down to the Messages section, or just check out the photo I cropped above) is a screenshot of what the RCS conversation looks like when an iPhone is texting with an Android.
Although it looks a lot like an SMS or MMS conversation, with two green bubbles and a green audio waveform, it displays three notable RCS features. The most important thing is the “delivered” status message, which is a huge improvement since SMS and MMS messages cannot provide such confirmation.
What follows is a (hopefully) high-quality photo, which doesn’t look very good in this screenshot, so we have to believe it is indeed “vibrant” from the green bubble text underneath it. MMS text messages on the iPhone currently support audio messages on Android phones, but hopefully the audio in this conversation will be clearer than what I’ve experienced so far.
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In the text box at the bottom of the image, there’s now a label to the right of “Text Messages” that says “RCS,” which is currently used solely for SMS and MMS chats.
RCS is a more modern messaging standard that is expected to replace the outdated SMS and MMS formats by supporting features such as typing indicators, group chats and high-quality media sharing. The standard is backed by industry group GSMA and has been used by Google’s Android messaging app for years.
However, despite news from google app support Several characteristics By leveraging RCS to compete with Apple’s iMessage, including RCS support in iOS 18 doesn’t necessarily mean Apple’s Messages app will support the same functionality one-for-one. For example, Apple said last year that it would work with the GSMA to improve the encryption standards included in RCS, rather than other companies’ standards, such as those used by Google Messages. Apple has also announced that its iMessage service will continue to be supported alongside RCS, so we’ll likely continue to see iMessage functionality separate from RCS.
There are still many questions that need to be answered regarding Apple’s support for RCS. For example, how well does it support group chat? Will it translate messages sent from an Android phone to an iPhone? For now, those details are being kept under wraps, likely until Apple prepares to launch its next-generation iPhone later this year.
