The RCS protocol, which stands for Rich Communication Services, brings some of the capabilities of Messages to users who don’t use an iPhone. It has also been adopted by other messaging apps, like WhatsApp.

Of the iOS 18RCS is supported, which means that some features you previously only saw when reading or sending messages to other iPhone users now also work when chatting with Android owners.

This includes better security for messages sent from certain Android messaging apps and support for read receiptsas well as sending and receiving high-resolution photos, audio and videos across all platforms. Typing indicators, which appear before sending the message on iPhones, are now visible on both platforms.

Tapbacks and reactions are also supported on all platforms. Group chats on all platforms will also work better thanks to improved compatibility.

Since RCS support only arrived with iOS 18 and later updates, you can verify that it is indeed available. lit – as it should be by default. Open it Settings app, and from there scroll down, tap Applicationsfind Messagesand if you see a RCS mail menu, it should already be enabled.

To check if your carrier automatically supports RCS, you need to open SettingsSO Generaland then About. If you scroll down to the SIM/Network section, you will see an option called Carrier.

By pressing it, the legend becomes IMS Status. If RCS is supported by your carrier, you should see Voice, SMS and RCS. Otherwise you will see Voice and SMS.

If your carrier doesn’t support RCS, this extra layer of functionality and security will only appear if you and the person you’re messaging use messaging apps that support RCS, such as iMessage, WhatsApp, or Google Messages, and use supporting devices. he.

Apple maintains a list of carriers in regions of the world that support RCS. All major US carriers of course support RCS, but some regional or smaller carriers, such as Boost Mobile, do not, at least for now.

Users of the Messages app will still know if they receive a message from someone on an iPhone: the message will be in a blue bubble rather than green. Growing adoption of RCS and future encryption standards on Android it won’t change that.

If you receive a green message sent via RCS, the message will have a caption saying “RCS Text Message”, and if it was sent via SMS, it will have the same message saying “SMS” instead.

Ways to know how your text message was sent: RCS, iMessage or SMS.

All this compatibility is mainly due to pressure from the European Union to make cross-platform messaging systems work with each other. Some other apps that offer messaging, such as Facebook Messenger, have also now adopted RCS features.

That said, it’s still not 100% standardized across multiple platforms, and there are two areas in particular that Messages users should be aware of. Text effects available between iMessage users, such as strong ink, boom, slam, invisible, etc. do not appear when sent to an Android user.

Instead, the Android recipient receives a text indicating that the message was sent with a named effect, but cannot view the effect. Likewise, inline replies to a specific message in Messages are not supported when messaging an Android user, at least for now.

However, the big stumbling block of RCS is that it still can’t stand encryption as a cross-platform standard. If an Android user uses Google Messages as well as Google’s own RCS or WhatsApp servers, the messages are encrypted.

Outside of these apps, only Apple-to-Apple messages are fully encrypted. This is something to keep in mind if the Android users in your group chat don’t use WhatsApp or Google Messages on their end.

Apple and Google announced that they would work with the GSM Association to include standard encryption and better feature compatibility in a future version of RCS. This will make security and compatibility features supported by default, without having to depend on individual operators or application developers.