Like all iPhone users, I have my blue friends and my green friends. For far too long, the green friends have been isolated to a less viable texting protocol. Starting today, the reign of SMS terror is over. With iOS 18, Apple has—reluctantly—come to the side of RCS communications. It’s been too long. The scars run deep, but we now have to enter a time of healing.
Now that Rich Communication Services, AKA RCS, is standard on the iOS 18 Messages app between iPhone and Android, you’ll have a much cleaner texting experience. You’ll still see your Android friends pop up in green bubbles, while Apple users will still appear in blue. The difference now is that your friends and you will see read receipts. You can enable these receipts for each individual contact as well.
There will be growing pains. I’ve already encountered issues where my messages are sent as RCS, but my less tech-savvy friend can’t figure out why their older Android device only sends via SMS or why my messages keep flipping back and forth. This has been the case since RCS went live in the iOS 18 beta, so there are going to be some hiccups that we hope Apple will sort out. At least now you can see if someone is typing an RCS message in the Messages text box.
But the effort is so worth it. The drama has been ongoing for so long that we have to recognize the small things that add up to a better texting experience. The little wiggling ellipses typing notification tells my friends I care enough about them to text back. There are read receipts as well. Then there’s something as simple as my brother and I sending some non-blurry pics from our time at the Renaissance Faire back and forth to each other. Then again, we usually use Facebook Messenger for that.
We have to acknowledge that iOS users will have a different experience texting their iPhone friends than those on Android. The version of RCS Apple is using is not encrypted, unlike iMessage. For that, you should try WhatsApp or Signal—the latter if you value privacy above all else.
But sometimes, you just need your basic texting app to work. I no longer have to worry about the group chat with my parents, only sending via SMS or MMS protocols. Just two years ago, Apple CEO Tim Cook told a reporter, “Buy your mom an iPhone,” when he complained that his parents couldn’t see the videos he sent them.
The CEO’s response is indicative of the contempt the company has shown to users and regulators. The U.S. DOJ complained that non-iPhone users experience “exclusion and blame” due to the green bubble drama in its ongoing antitrust lawsuit. Apple was so reluctant to take this step for so long that it took the European Union’s Digital Markets Act to finally get the Cupertino tech giant to shave a few inches off its walled garden.
Apple made the RCS announcement at its last WWDC event with a single sentence statement after talking up iOS 18 improvements. As should be clear by now, you’ll still have a better time texting other iPhone users on Messages. New capabilities are coming to iMessage, including emoji Tapback (something Android has had for a long time) and sticker reactions, which work better when sending to iPhone than Android. Android users will receive a “[person] reacted [emoji]” message for Tapback responses. iPhone users can now schedule messages for later times and send larger-size images with less compression. There’s also the option to send SMS messages over satellite if you’re using an iPhone 14 or later.
We can’t linger on the issue anymore. Perhaps one day, Apple will accept a version of RCS with encryption, but we can’t hold our breath. This is the new status quo, and texters will just have to acknowledge the distinction between device ecosystems.
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