It’s about damn time. | Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge
The long-awaited day is here: Apple has announced that its Messages app will support RCS in iOS 18. The new standard will replace SMS as the default communication protocol between Android and iOS devices. The move comes after years of taunting, cajoling, and finally, some regulatory scrutiny from the EU.
Unfortunately, we don’t know anything other than the fact that it’s coming in iOS 18.
Right now, when people on iOS and Android message each other, the service falls back to SMS — photos and videos are sent at a lower quality, messages are shortened, and importantly, conversations are not end-to-end encrypted like they are in iMessage. Messages from Android phones show up as green bubbles in iMessage chats and chaos ensues.
RCS, or Rich…
