RCS messagingfinally arrived on the iPhone withiOS 18in September. It essentially made messaging Android users on your iPhone a lot more like iMessage.
While there are many benefits to RCS (rich communication services) messaging, like read receipts, Samsung is reminding users of one major drawback regarding RCS chats with iPhone users: a lack of encryption (viaAndroid Police). Buried in the fine print of aSamsung press releasehighlighting the benefits of RCS, lies one interesting note which reads:
“All members of a chat must have RCS enabled. Requires Google Messages for Android users and iOS 18 or later for iPhone users. Encryption is only available for Android-to-Android communication.”
What’s the difference between RCS and SMS texting, and which should you use?
RCS and SMS are the two major texting standards available in the US – here’s how they differ and why you should always opt for RCS.
Apple cares more about iMessage than RCS
Apple could’ve added end-to-end encryption with its RCS implementation
Thepress releasefrom Samsung highlights several of the benefits users see with RCS, whether it’s enhanced group chats, text reactions, or high-quality media streaming. Google spent years pressuring Apple to adopt RCS. It even launched anad campaignwith the slogan#GetTheMessage.
Finally, this year Apple implemented RCS with iOS 18, giving iPhone users more options when communicating with friends and family on Android devices. However, its implementation used the RCS Universal Profile, created by theGSMA, which unfortunately doesn’t include end-to-end encryption. The reason Android-to-Android messaging has end-to-end encryption is thanks to Google Messages, which is built into the app. TheGMSA does sayit’s working to bring interoperable end-to-end encryption to its RCS Universal Profile, so iPhone users could have it in the future.
However, Apple could have added end-to-end encryption to its RCS implementation if it really wanted to. For a company that prides itself on privacy and security in its marketing, it’s a bit of an odd choice to finally adopt RCS but leave encryption in the dustbin. It’s nice that iPhone users can enjoy RCS chats with Android users now, but it seems Apple is still laser focused on users sticking to iMessage.
Apple’s rollout of RCS in iOS 18 has not been a success
The introduction of RCS in Apple’s latest update has not unified messaging between Android and iOS in the way many were expecting.
