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iOS 26.5 Brings End-to-End Encryption to iPhone-Android RCS Messages

And still no one cares about RCS.

My network still doesn’t even support it.

Everyone still uses WhatsApp.

What a pointless waste of resources this has been.
 
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mrochester said:
And still no one cares about RCS.

My network still doesn’t even support it.

Everyone still uses WhatsApp.

What a pointless waste of resources this has been.
Click to expand...
Over 1 billion RCS messages are sent every day in the US alone.

WhatsApp has over 3 billion active users worldwide, but there are something like 2.5 billion active users of RCS worldwide, with a big chunk of that coming in the last couple of years from iPhone users. Also, while your particular carrier may not support it, support for RCS is something like 70-80% in the US, UK, France, and Germany for example. Furthermore, RCS has the big benefit of SMS fallback. In fact, in some of these countries in 2026, RCS penetration is higher than WhatsApp penetration. Here in Canada, all the main carriers support RCS. The ones that don't are the ultra low budget no frills ones like Fizz. Furthermore, RCS penetration here in Canada is much higher than WhatsApp penetration. The difference is even higher in the US, with RCS having over double the penetration of WhatsApp in that country.

I personally send far, far more messages by RCS than I do by WhatsApp.
 
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mrochester said:
There’s a wider world out there.

And there are over 100 billion WhatsApp messages sent per day.

It’s almost like cross-platform messaging is already a solved problem.
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Yes, it's a wider world out there, but it's regional. For example, in the US, it's 80% RCS and only 30% WhatsApp. In Australia it's 55% Apple Messages and 35% WhatsApp. In France it's 70% RCS and 40% WhatsApp. OTOH, in Mexico it's 75% WhatsApp and 50% RCS, and in India it's 70% WhatsApp and 45% RCS.

mrochester said:
It’s almost like cross-platform messaging is already a solved problem.
Click to expand...
WhatsApp is banned in China.
 
EugW said:
Yes, it's a wider world out there, but it's regional. For example, in the US, it's 80% RCS and only 30% WhatsApp. In Australia it's 55% Apple Messages and 35% WhatsApp. In France it's 70% RCS and 40% WhatsApp. OTOH, in Mexico it's 75% WhatsApp and 50% RCS, and in India it's 70% WhatsApp and 45% RCS.
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I think you need to check your percentages there.
 
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mrochester said:
I think you need to check your percentages there.
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usmaak said:
Anyone know if T-Mobile will support this encryption? I know that they’ve supported RCS for a long time because most of my Android using friends and family are on T-Mobile.
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They will. I am able to send encrypted RCS messages to a T-Mobile user.
 
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mrochester said:
Your data lacks context, but it seems to be suggesting the percentage of the population using each platform rather than the percentage share each platform has for messages sent.
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Yes, it's the percentage of the population using each platform on mobile phones, which is for me the far more useful metric. I don't care if many WhatsApp users send more messages, if I can't reach most people on WhatsApp in my country.

In contrast, both Apple Messages and RCS have the added advantage of SMS fallback, which means that basically everyone with a phone number is covered if you include the SMS part. BTW, interestingly, here in Canada, Apple Messages usage penetration is actually higher than even RCS, which in turn is much higher than WhatsApp.

Screenshot 2026-05-05 at 1.20.52 AM.png

Messenger is even higher, but IIRC it's been declining in recent years as it used to be much higher than it is now.
 
EugW said:
Yes, it's the percentage of the population using each platform on mobile phones, which is for me the far more useful metric. I don't care if many WhatsApp users send more messages, if I can't reach most people on WhatsApp in my country.

In contrast, both Apple Messages and RCS have the added advantage of SMS fallback, which means that basically everyone with a phone number is covered if you include the SMS part. BTW, interestingly, here in Canada, Apple Messages usage penetration is actually higher than even RCS, which in turn is much higher than WhatsApp.

View attachment 2627504

Messenger is even higher, but IIRC it's been declining in recent years as it used to be much higher than it is now.
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It’s not really helpful when talking about volume shares though, because it’s not a volume share. Someone having access to RCS but not actually using it is the whole point.
 
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mrochester said:
It’s not really helpful when talking about volume shares though, because it’s not a volume share. Someone having access to RCS but not actually using it is the whole point.
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The numbers above are those who are actually using RCS. However, as mentioned much more important to me is if I can actually reach people. Only about one-third of Canadians actually have WhatsApp installed on their phones, which makes it a royal PITA to use for messaging.

In fact, the only reasons I installed WhatsApp in the first place were for vacations (tour companies in places like Costa Rica and Mexico, etc.) and for a single group chat which includes people internationally on both iOS and Android, where we wanted to send videos. Otherwise ALL of my personal messaging to individuals here in Canada and elsewhere consist of only Apple Messages (iOS), RCS (Android), and SMS (Android).
 
EugW said:
The numbers above are those who are actually using RCS. However, as mentioned much more important to me is if I can actually reach people. Only about one-third of Canadians actually have WhatsApp installed on their phones, which makes it a royal PITA to use for messaging.

In fact, the only reasons I installed WhatsApp in the first place were for vacations (tour companies in places like Costa Rica and Mexico, etc.) and for a single group chat which includes people internationally on both iOS and Android, where we wanted to send videos. Otherwise ALL of my personal messaging to individuals here in Canada and consist of only Apple Messages (iOS), RCS (Android), and SMS (Android).
Click to expand...
The best way to reach someone is SMS. It always was and always will be.

If you want more than SMS, the best way to reach someone is WhatsApp. Has been for many years, will continue to be.

It’s a solved problem.
 
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mrochester said:
The best way to reach someone is SMS. It always was and always will be.
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As I've mentioned a couple of times now, one of the biggest advantages of both Apple Messages and RCS is that both include SMS fallback, meaning basically everyone with a mobile phone and phone number is covered. The problem with SMS though is media support, which is why RCS support added in iOS a couple of years ago was such a big deal. Basically iOS' adoption of RCS back in 2024 gave RCS a huge boost, eating into WhatsApp's prior dominance.

If you want more than SMS, the best way to reach someone is WhatsApp. Has been for many years, will continue to be.

It’s a solved problem.
Click to expand...
Also as mentioned previously, no it's not. WhatsApp is less than one-third penetration in my country, and is banned in China. Both Apple Messages and RCS are supported in China.
 
EugW said:
As I've mentioned a couple of times now, one of the biggest advantages of both Apple Messages and RCS is that both include SMS fallback, meaning basically everyone with a mobile phone and phone number is covered. The problem with SMS though is media support, which is why RCS support added in iOS a couple of years ago was such a big deal. Basically iOS' adoption of RCS back in 2024 gave RCS a huge boost, eating into WhatsApp's prior dominance.


Also as mentioned previously, no it's not. WhatsApp is less than one-third penetration in my country, and is banned in China. Both Apple Messages and RCS are supported in China.
Click to expand...
Globally WhatsApp is by far the most used messaging platform.
 
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mrochester said:
Globally WhatsApp is by far the most used messaging platform.
Click to expand...
And WhatsApp cannot reach 1/6th of the world's population because it's banned in China. I would personally communicate far more with Chinese users than say Indian or Middle Eastern users. China is the big Achilles' Heel for WhatsApp.
 
EugW said:
And WhatsApp cannot reach 1/6th of the world's population because it's banned in China. I would personally communicate far more with Chinese users than say Indian or Middle Eastern users. China is the big Achilles' Heel for WhatsApp.
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Hence we have SMS as a fallback.
 
mrochester said:
Hence we have SMS as a fallback.
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As you yourself already said, SMS does not support advanced features. Both Apple Messages and RCS do, which make them much highly preferred for communication with China.

I’m glad you like WhatsApp but your claim that WhatsApp has already solved the world’s messaging needs is simply false. WhatsApp has significant disadvantages in several countries such as the aforementioned China, as well as my own country of Canada where only a minority of people have WhatsApp.
 
mrochester said:
And still no one cares about RCS.

My network still doesn’t even support it.

Everyone still uses WhatsApp.

What a pointless waste of resources this has been.
Click to expand...

Who cares about Liquid Glass? It didn't stop Apple from spending resources on it, did it?
 
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GM… said:
Mobile phones were apparently good enough until 2007.
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Funny you should mention it but I found mobile phones really frustrating before 2008. (The iPhone launched in Canada with the 3G in 2008.)

None of the companies could actually write good Mac software. Even the Windows PC software sucked.
 
hagar said:
Meanwhile the rest of the world moved on to messaging apps that just work. Like WhatsApp.

I’m not particularly a fan of WhatsApp or Meta. But it just works on any phone and any carrier. And it’s the default messaging app in huge parts of the world.

I just don’t understand why Apple Messages is still relevant.
Click to expand...

Not everyone wants to install a Meta app or another Meta app.

Also, with RCS messaging, the native Messages app gives all the functionality of WhatsApp (typing indicators, delivered indicators, and also the ability to send pics, vids etc). With that said, I see no point in installing an app that does everything that the native Messages app can do.
 
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