If you've ever been a witness to the incredibly juvenile arguments that originate from Apple lovers arguing about green bubbles and blue bubbles, you'd think blue bubbles are an indicator that you're part of an ancient royal dynasty. But anything to feel better than the next person, right?
The blue bubble-green bubble dynamic isn't about to die, but it's about to become a little less worth arguing about as Apple's iOS 18 finally brings RCS support. In case you didn't know, Android to iOS texting previously used the extremely dated SMS technology.
RCS Is One Of The More Notable Updates in iOS 18, Though Apple Didn't Seem Eager To Show It Off
If you watched Apple's keynote yesterday, I don't think anyone would blame you if you didn't happen to catch the fact that RCS has finally come to iPhones. It's understandable if you missed the brief mention of that among the announcement that you can now move icons anywhere on your home screen and the fact that iPads now have a calculator app.
This is big news, and much-awaited news as that. It means that the incredibly clunky experience that you've had to put up with when texting your friends on iOS is finally going to die. Think of features that you're used to in dedicated messaging apps like WhatsApp: typing indicators, read receipts, high-quality media, voice messages, direct replies, and so on. All of that is enabled with RCS compatibility on iPhones.
Unsurprisingly, the company doesn't seem very eager to get rid of the green bubbles, so yes, texting from an Android phone will still relegate you to green bubbles. And despite the rumors that we've heard for years, it doesn't look like iMessage will pull a BBM and come to Android anytime soon, especially now that the texting experience has gotten a little bit better.
Apple Said Little; iOS 18 Will Support RCS Universal Profile 2.4, Which Might Cause Some Issues
Now, as consumers, it might seem like RCS is RCS, but it has many different versions and implementations, which support different feature sets. Again, Apple didn't say much about RCS during its event yesterday, but thanks to Google, we know that the Cupertino giant is going to be using RCS Universal Profile 2.4. This isn't the version of RCS that Google uses, which means that certain features like end-to-end encryption won't be making the cut.
In fact, it's hard for us to know exactly which features will be making the cut, but it is bound to be a lot better than the current experience. Based on Apple's image, we can at least guess that higher-quality media, delivered and read receipts, and voice messages will be in action.
We may have to wait until the new iPhones launch before we truly see the extent of Apple's RCS support, but despite it taking them so long, it's one of those things that we're simply glad to finally see here. Hopefully, Apple will further conform with Google's vision for RCS as time goes on.
