Like all iPhone customers, I’ve my blue associates and my inexperienced associates. For a lot too lengthy, the inexperienced associates have been remoted to a much less viable texting protocol. Beginning at the moment, the reign of SMS terror is over. With iOS 18, Apple has—reluctantly—come to the facet of RCS communications. It’s been too lengthy. The scars run deep, however we now must enter a time of therapeutic.
Now that Wealthy Communication Providers, AKA RCS, is commonplace on the iOS 18 Messages app between iPhone and Android, you’ll have a a lot cleaner texting expertise. You’ll nonetheless see your Android associates pop up in inexperienced bubbles, whereas Apple customers will nonetheless seem in blue. The distinction now’s that your folks and you will note learn receipts. You’ll be able to allow these receipts for every particular person contact as properly.
There will likely be rising pains. I’ve already encountered points the place my messages are despatched as RCS, however my much less tech-savvy pal can’t work out why their older Android machine solely sends through SMS or why my messages hold flipping forwards and backwards. This has been the case since RCS went reside within the iOS 18 beta, so there are going to be some hiccups that we hope Apple will type out. No less than now you possibly can see if somebody is typing an RCS message within the Messages textual content field.
However the effort is so price it. The drama has been ongoing for thus lengthy that we’ve got to acknowledge the small issues that add as much as a greater texting expertise. The little wiggling ellipses typing notification tells my associates I care sufficient about them to textual content again. There are learn receipts as properly. Then there’s one thing so simple as my brother and I sending some non-blurry pics from our time on the Renaissance Faire forwards and backwards to one another. Then once more, we normally use Fb Messenger for that.
We have now to acknowledge that iOS customers can have a special expertise texting their iPhone associates than these on Android. The model of RCS Apple is utilizing is just not encrypted, not like iMessage. For that, you must strive WhatsApp or Sign—the latter when you worth privateness above all else.
However typically, you simply want your primary texting app to work. I now not have to fret in regards to the group chat with my mother and father, solely sending through SMS or MMS protocols. Simply two years in the past, Apple CEO Tim Cook dinner instructed a reporter, “Purchase your mother an iPhone,” when he complained that his mother and father couldn’t see the movies he despatched them.
The CEO’s response is indicative of the contempt the corporate has proven to customers and regulators. The U.S. DOJ complained that non-iPhone customers expertise “exclusion and blame” as a result of inexperienced bubble drama in its ongoing antitrust lawsuit. Apple was so reluctant to take this step for thus lengthy that it took the European Union’s Digital Markets Act to lastly get the Cupertino tech big to shave a number of inches off its walled backyard.
Apple made the RCS announcement at its final WWDC occasion with a single sentence assertion after speaking up iOS 18 enhancements. As needs to be clear by now, you’ll nonetheless have a greater time texting different iPhone customers on Messages. New capabilities are coming to iMessage, together with emoji Tapback (one thing Android has had for a very long time) and sticker reactions, which work higher when sending to iPhone than Android. Android customers will obtain a “[person] reacted [emoji]” message for Tapback responses. iPhone customers can now schedule messages for later occasions and ship larger-size photos with much less compression. There’s additionally the choice to ship SMS messages over satellite tv for pc when you’re utilizing an iPhone 14 or later.
We will’t linger on the problem anymore. Maybe in the future, Apple will settle for a model of RCS with encryption, however we are able to’t maintain our breath. That is the brand new establishment, and texters will simply must acknowledge the excellence between machine ecosystems.