The green bubble nightmare is over, Apple Messages now supports RCS

If you’re playing the iOS 18 developer beta, you may have noticed that your friends on Android are no longer the same green bubbles they used to be. Carriers have been rolling out steadily Support RCS On the backend, many people using the iPhone have already reported resolving decade-old controversies over Apple’s approval of the messaging protocol. It’s a beautiful time to be alive!

the The second beta of iOS 18 for developers It features the new RCS capability that was quietly announced in Worldwide Developers Conference 2024. Those who bravely braved the developer beta on the daily driver can now send rich messages to their Android brethren. Audio and video sent between devices will no longer be compressed. Group chats will no longer be ruined or broken as friends and family try to find common ground, like who will bring candy to the gathering. And you’ll see when an iPhone user, dear Android user, has left you in reading mode.

9to5Mac Reports indicate that only some US airlines currently operate the RCS. Major companies, including AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon, are the only carriers rolling it out, likely in an effort to help developers targeting iOS 18 apps.

If, for some reason—besides developing an app—you’re running the iOS 18 developer beta, you may see an option to turn it on in the Settings panel under Settings > Applications > MessagesIf it’s not there, it means your current service provider hasn’t turned it on yet. Keep waiting! And maybe roll back to a stable version of iOS!

What will be interesting to see is whether users will switch back to the default messaging app for cross-platform communication. For example, I preferred my experience with WhatsApp for sharing HD messages with people using iPhones. But I also think they probably want to go back to Apple Messages to chat with me, their best friend who uses Android, where they already chat with everyone else. We’ll see how it turns out when iOS 18 hits iPhones this fall.