RCS

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.