Everything New in the iOS 18 Messages App

[svish]

Happy with the changes present in iOS 18. Good to have RCS support.

 

[parfy]

I’d just take my own stickers working, they haven’t since iOS 17 and Apple can’t seem to work out why.

 

[jonnysods]

That’s interesting. I can’t imagine a scenario where I would ever schedule a text.

Sometimes you don't want to send it if its too late at night, but you want it on someone's radar, or its not the right time to reply, heck sometimes I want to delay a reply because I don't want people to get used to the habit of having instant access to me, but I don't want to forget to reply to them. Lots of little reasons I'm grateful for this. I use scheduled send in Google Workspace all the time at work.

 

[Col4bin]

Since downloading iOS 18, what’s with the following Safari pop-up I keep getting repeatedly? (Looks to be a lot of people in the Apple support forum, too.)

Do you want to download “occ”?

 

[MNGR]

I was thrilled when I heard that RCS was coming to iOS 18 until I discovered that of all of the Android users I know only one of them actually uses RCS. My sister-in-law. That’s it. My cousin, who works for Microsoft? Nope. Any of my other cousins with Android devices? Nope. Any other brother or sister in-laws with Android devices? Nope. Any of my buddies with Android devices? No again. Their wives? Nope. Apple was right not to bother up until now. I will say it was fun to be beta testing iOS 18 and having my wife try and figure out why I could send some higher resolution, longer videos to her sister from my iPhone when she couldn’t from hers after hearing for years from her about how crazy I am for beta testing Apple’s stuff on a volunteer basis but outside of that what I thought was going to be a huge addition to iOS has turned out to be a giant nothing burger. Is it that the latest developer beta of iOS 18 / 18.1 still doesn’t fully support RCS here is the US or that so many Android users stick with the default messaging apps that come with their devices that simply don’t support it? Either way, so few of the people I know use RCS with their Android devices that RCS support is basically useless for me at this point.

Probably they are using the Google flavor

 

[NightFox]

As for RCS. Does that mean messages to Android users won't cost each time you send or receive one, or is that carrier specific?

Unlike SMS and MMS, RCS just uses your data connection like sending or receiving an email. So it will just come out of your data allowance.

What I'm not clear about though is how I can tell whether I'm sending an RCS message to an Android owner, or an SMS/MMS to a non-smart phone user. That's useful to know, because even though my SMS are free, as soon as I add an emoji or anything it becomes an MMS which I get charged 50p for.

 

[MNGR]

Agreed.

There's no neat way of exporting messages, or even an easy way of removing various media over a certain age, so you just keep them until your iCloud fills up or you set an expiry.

I don't really know why it bothers me, as I can't remember the last time I scrolled back more than a few days in a messages thread, but I just don't like the idea of having them auto-delete.

I have on occasion looked for messages years ago.
Not often, but a i’m glad that I can

 

[MNGR]

Imagine generalizing and then arguing in bad faith like this. I bet you’re a blast at parties.

On Delta airlines iMessages are permitted as long as you have a Delta account

 

[MNGR]

Just send the message? I've never had a problem sending someone a text no matter what time it is. It's on the person on the receiving end to setup DND / a focus that disables notifications depending on what time it is / if they dont want to be disturbed at that given moment.

Why does it matter to you if you send the message at 11pm or 7am? Its texting, not a phone call.

Spouse doesn’t like receiving messages at 5 am

 

[CarAnalogy]

Don’t make things complicated. If someone wants notified when something is done then just do it.

It's possible I'm overthinking it. It's also possible you're underthinking it. It's situational, which leads me to...

I can but @CarAnalogy scenario is definitely not one of them.

Ha ok let's hear yours then.

 

[MNWildFan]

As for RCS. Does that mean messages to Android users won't cost each time you send or receive one, or is that carrier specific?

That is carrier specific, but for the most part nowadays, I think messages are unlimited

Thanks to how RCS works compared to SMS, you now have the abilty to do all the same things with iMessages like see typing indicators or read receipts, and at last gone will be the days of photos or videos from the Android side being compressed to hell

 

[MNWildFan]

I love all of this, except for the fact that you can't use send later in an SMS/RCS message to an Android user

Petty much, Apple?

 

[DakotaGuy]

This is the first news I've read that says the GSMA is working on bringing E2EE to the RCS universal profile. It would appear that MLS will be the path forward. I don't think we'll see it until iOS 19 at the soonest, but it appears they are working on it.

Google working on RCS encryption between Android and iPhone

With RCS rolling out on the iPhone, Google is working on cross-platform end-to-end encryption (E2EE) between Android and iPhone...

9to5google.com

 

[Gator5000e]

Apple has messed up messages on the phone and watch. Before 18 (or watch 11) if I deleted a message on the watch, it left it on the phone. Now if you delete a message on the watch, it will delete the entire conversation from the phone. I hate this. Now I have to keep tons of messages on my watch so I can keep them on my phone. If Apple wanted to change the behavior of being able to delete them off the watch but keep them on the phone, they should have warned us - none of the Apple blogs and sites like this one mentioned this change - or they should give us the option to delete on the watch but keep them on the phone. Meh.

 

[FineWoven]

Does the recipient know that it was a scheduled text? There might be situations where it would be good for them to know it wasn't a live text, like if they're expecting a live conversation but you're asleep or off grid etc. But I suppose you always have the option of telling them in the text that it is a scheduled message.

The recipient is unaware that the message was scheduled to be sent at a predetermined time, so yes if you were wanting to let them know that it was you'd have to explicitly say so in the message.

 

[Frantisekj]

while all of us in the rest of the world keep using WhatsApp

I hope they do not

 

[Powerbooky]

This is presumably because Apple is handling the Send Later on their servers, meaning your device doesn't need to be online or even turned on at the time of sending. They can't do that for SMS, because that's tied to your SIM.

SMS seems logical, although back in the day of 2G phones there were carriers where you could add special codes in the message to set the delivery at a certain time in the same day.

I'm guessing that RCS could also do a delayed delivery without the iPhone being online. I mean, most carriers do not support RCS yet so every RCS message now is relayed through Google servers. These could do the delayed delivery as well.

 

[Macaholic868]

Came here to basically say the same thing. No Android user I know uses RCS. What’s the point?

I’m glad I’m not the only one. With the way it’s touted you’d think everybody with an Android was using RCS and my experience couldn’t be any further from that.

I know that none of them, including the sister-in-law who has RCS, have Google Pixel phones. They have all kinds of different Android based smart phones that are reasonably new from the various large carriers. They aren’t the kind of people to go 4+ years on the same phone. I’ve got older family members where that would be the case but the 20, 30, 40 and 50 somethings? Nope. They upgrade at least every few years.

So I don’t know what’s up but I certainly don’t want to show them how to use some other messaging app than what they are used to which I’m assuming is whatever the default app is on the phone from their provider with the exception of my cousin who works at Microsoft. He knows more than enough to download whatever messaging app he wants. I’m just surprised by how few have RCS as an option when we’re texting each other directly based on all the press RCS compatibility gets here and elsewhere.

 

[DenverEd]

So far my favorite new Messages feature has been Send Later. I’ve already used it several times this summer because it’s one of the only new features that doesn’t require your recipients to also be running iOS 18. Being a hardcore night owl, I often find myself thinking of something to tell a friend or family member but it’s well past midnight and I don’t want to disturb them when they’re most likely asleep, so having that ability now is really quite handy.

When you send later in iMessage, do you get a red “message send failure” alert? I do, but it does send later despite this warning.

 

[smoker68x]

With "nobody" I meant passengers...

That’s makes ZERO sense. WiFi delivered to a plane via satellite is the same as any other satellite signal. They don’t have a special “plane safe” signal. 🤦🏼‍♂️

 

[FineWoven]

When you send later in iMessage, do you get a red “message send failure” alert? I do, but it does send later despite this warning.

Oh that's weird... I have not had that problem yet myself.

 

[SVDE]

And when will there come a normal working ‘out of office’ for messenger??? When I’m on holiday, my patients can’t see that I’m not at work, unless if I write back that I’m absent… 🤦🏼 And if I pause my provider, they think I didn’t read their sms because I didn’t answer them back.
The ‘workaround’ with making a rule that makes use from I’m driving, isn’t usable too.
Come on, guys, is the message app on iPhone just for making fun, or for playing?? What about people who use it for their work too?

 

[irose_57]

And when will there come a normal working ‘out of office’ for messenger??? When I’m on holiday, my patients can’t see that I’m not at work, unless if I write back that I’m absent… 🤦🏼 And if I pause my provider, they think I didn’t read their sms because I didn’t answer them back.
The ‘workaround’ with making a rule that makes use from I’m driving, isn’t usable too.
Come on, guys, is the message app on iPhone just for making fun, or for playing?? What about people who use it for their work too?

A workaround but could help you until there is a proper out of office.

 

[SVDE]

A workaround but could help you until there is a proper out of office.

Wow!! Thank you very much! I’m going to try it as soon as I can. 😊🙏🏼