If you’re running the iOS 18 developer beta, you may have noticed that your Android friends aren’t the same green bubble they were before. Carriers are steadily rolling out RCS Support On the back end, many iPhone users are already reporting that Apple’s acknowledgement of the existence of the messaging protocol has resolved a decade-long dispute. Great times, huh!
of iOS 18 Developer Beta 2 Includes quietly announced new RCS features World Development Congress 2024Those brave enough to try the developer beta on the devices they use every day can now send rich messages to Android users. Audio and video sent between devices will no longer be compressed. Group chats will no longer get chopped up and broken as friends and family try to find common ground, like who’s bringing dessert to a get-together. And as an Android user, you’ll now know when an iPhone user has left your message as read.
9to5Mac According to reports, RCS is currently only available on some carriers in the U.S. Only major carriers such as AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon have implemented RCS, and it is believed that the aim is to support developers developing apps for iOS 18.
If you’re running the iOS 18 Developer Beta for reasons other than app development, you may see the option to toggle it on in the Settings panel under “Developer Beta.” Settings > Apps > MessagesIf it’s not there, your current provider might not have it turned on yet, so please be patient and/or revert to a stable version of iOS.
What will be interesting is whether users will go back to the default messaging app for cross-platform communication. For example, I prefer to use WhatsApp to share high-resolution messages with my friends who use iPhones. But I think it’s also likely that I’ll want to go back to the Apple Messages app I already use to chat with everyone else, to chat with my only best friend who uses Android. We’ll see how that goes when iOS 18 rolls out to iPhones this fall.
