The long-awaited day is here: Apple has announced that its Messages app will support RCS in iOS 18. The move comes after years of taunting, cajoling, and finally, some regulatory scrutiny from the EU.

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.

Apple’s announcement was likely an effort to appease EU regulators.

  • cum
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    16 months ago

    Yeah really wish there was a single FOSS alternative that supported RCS. Hard to call it an open protocol when pretty much just Google Messages supports it.

    • @dorumon
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      16 months ago

      Yeah same here! But I think google is trying to monopolize RCS at the moment and there are really no good alternatives especially here in the United States that people are willing to use because its just attached to a phone number and you don’t have to think about it.