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You know that old saying, “when pigs fly?” You might want to check some nearby farms, because it seems like we’re living in that sort of topsy-turvy world. After a month chock full of news surrounding iMessage’s lack of interoperability with Android devices — includingpressure from the EUand a new chat application from Nothing — Apple is finally succumbing to the pressure. Starting next year, your Android device is about to play a whole lot nicer with your friends' iPhones, as Apple is adding RCS support to iOS.
Apple issued astatement to 9to5Mactoday, confirming its plans to bring RCS support to iOS in 2024:
Later next year, we will be adding support for RCS Universal Profile, the standard as currently published by the GSM Association. We believe RCS Universal Profile will offer a better interoperability experience when compared to SMS or MMS. This will work alongside iMessage, which will continue to be the best and most secure messaging experience for Apple users.
If you’ve used RCS, you’ll be familiar with the feature set. Read receipts, typing indicators, and higher quality media is all on the table, along with location sharing and the ability to work over data connections. Although it’s clear RCS will be its own thing outside of iMessage-specific conversations, it’s unclear how that will be communicated to users. For example, will RCS continue to be limited to green, higher contrast bubbles, adopt the blue bubbles iMessage users are so familiar with, or will they get their own unique look (make them purple, Apple, you know you want to). The company also told 9to5Mac that SMS and MMS will continue to function as a fallback.
UPDATE: 2025-08-04 21:54 EST BY WILL SATTELBERG
RCS bubbles will be green
In anadditional statement to 9to5Mac, Apple confirmed that RCS bubbles will remain green, with blue bubbles meant to identify iMessage exclusively. That doesn’t explain why the company won’t add a third color, of course. The people demand purple, Apple. The people demand purple.
Although RCS is all but guaranteed to be built into the Messages app, iMessage will remain a separate utility only utilized by Apple devices. The company is, unsurprisingly, continuing to celebrate its own security and privacy measures, though it does say it’ll work with the GSMA to improve RCS as a standard in those areas.
As much as smaller companies like Nothing or Beeper would assuredly love to take credit for Apple’s move — not to mention Google’s own PR campaign centered around the adoption of RCS — this announcement almost assuredly comes down to political pressure from the EU. DespiteApple’s case that iMessage remains a smaller, less essential servicein Europe (something that is undoubtedly true compared to North America, even if Apple is absolutely downplaying its own importance), it seems like the possibility of being forced to interact with other messaging platforms like WhatsApp was far worse than the alternative.
It remains to be seen whether RCS support is enough to turn around some dire numbers surrounding Android adoption in the US. Yes, iMessage lock-in — and, more specifically, the lack of enhanced messaging featuresbetweenAndroid and iOS — remains the single biggest reason younger users are choosing iPhones nine times out of ten. But RCS support might not be enough to convince even a minority of iOS users to drop out of Apple’s admittedly excellent ecosystem, no matter how alluring thedream of a foldablemight be.
It shouldn’t come as any surprise that Google is likely to claim a win here. Fromawkward ads for the “iPager"tofull-screen banners in the Play Storecelebrating how great RCS is, Google has been trying to persuade its mobile rival for well over a year now through public pressure. And while Apple’s original solution ofbuying your mom an iPhoneworked out for well over a decade, it seems obvious that the threat of regulation is what finally forced the company’s hand.
When reached for comment, a Google spokesperson offered this statement in response to Apple’s announcement.
“Everyone deserves to communicate with each other in ways that are modern and secure, no matter what phone they have. That’s why we have worked closely with the mobile industry to accelerate the adoption of RCS, and we’re happy to see Apple take their first step today by coming on board to embrace RCS. We welcome Apple’s participation in our ongoing work with GSMA to evolve RCS and make messaging more equitable and secure, and look forward to working with them to implement this on iOS in a way that works well for everyone.”
Just how well these two platforms play together, though, will remain a mystery until next year’s planned OS upgrade rolls out to all iPhone users.
UPDATE: 2025-06-08 16:32 EST BY WILL SATTELBERG
Google’s statement
