RCS finally comes to iPhone but some functionality is missing

It was expected, but Apple made the iPhone’s future compatibility with RCS official during WWDC 2024 via the iOS 18 update. While RCS is not yet enabled by default in the beta, one user managed to set it up to have support on their device. This communication protocol we have known for a long time in Android.

Thanks to a few screenshots and this user’s feedback, we know what the RCS experience will look like on iPhone. We learn that file transfer and high-resolution images will be available. Indicators for sending, receiving and reading messages will also be included.

An incomplete RCS experience on iPhone

However, some RCS functions seem to be missing on the iPhone. While group discussions are well supported, reading confirmation is unhelpful. THE reactions to messages Files sent from Android device are also not available.

Similarly Dhinak G states: end-to-end encryption It is not enabled for communications between iOS and Android. Apple uses RCS Universal Profile, which, unlike Google Jive, does not support this security layer. For years, the Apple brand has been justifying the lack of RCS on the iPhone for security reasons.

Note that iOS 18 is only in beta (the stable version will be distributed in September) and RCS is not yet officially available. Therefore, Apple still has time to improve the situation. Even if we undoubtedly have to decide to abandon end-to-end encryption, we can hope that the integration of the protocol will be more complete in a few months. Even with RCS, Apple has decided to continue separating iPhone and Android terminal users by the color of their chat bubbles (blue or green).