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RCS Messaging in iOS 18: What iPhone Users Need to Know
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"RCS messages will still appear as green bubbles in Apple's Messages app, but they will be accompanied by the label "Text Message – RCS" "na nana na na - doesn't have an iPhone" in the conversation thread to identify them."
I suppose Apple will add it later, in a iOS 18.x(.x) update?
They have accepted RCS as a whole, it would be silly not to implement this
I fear they‘ll drag their feet. Apple chose to implement UP 2.4, which is multiple years old, instead of the most recent 2.6 (at the time of them starting work on RCS).
2.4 is coincidentally the bare minimum one has to support for 5G certification in China. That sounds totally like something Apple would do to keep an edge on RCS with their own chat ecosystem.
Well, Senator Elizabeth Warren was raging on about blue and green bubbles, completely clueless as to what they meant. Fortunately we will still have them so we can know how secure our texts are.
With the latest beta, I now see the RCS toggle in settings, but I've texted a few Android friends and it's still showing up as SMS. Pretty sure that TELUS already supports RCS, so maybe it's not active yet
I only ever use iMessage and SMS. (Other than built-in mechanisms for some sites.)
Never have installed Whatsapp and see zero reason to change.
Might be that many use Whatsapp but it isn't universal, and I don't want people to get the impression it is. And what you do on Mars might be very different from what I do in the UK.
Frankly, I’m skeptical as to whether Apple has the technical skills to make this work. 🤷♂️
Apple relies on carriers to provide RCS connection details via carrier profiles. Loads of new carriers provided endpoints in B3, pretty much all of them just forward traffic to Jibe, so yes it‘s Google.
That being said, adding E2EE to RCS would block Google from reading messages content.
Thread 'RCS supported carriers'
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/rcs-supported-carriers.2429980/
There are a few things you can do to get it to work, here is what I did and it eventually kicked into effect:
- Toggle RCS on/off
- Force close Messages and re-open
- Disable wifi so mobile data is used (this, I think, did the trick for me to actually get my number to register)
- Reboot your phone
Wow you're right, I now can see RCS in iMessage, thanks!!
@TimFL1 provided some steps to see RCS in the app, and it's now working on my end (with selected contacts, I think it depends on their carrier)
In the beta it was enabled by default (at least for me), but can't say if it will be the same for the public release
I really couldn't care less what it does. I have texts with one Android person, and that was my realtor. We're in the house now, so I won't be texting her anymore either. No one I know has or even thinks about getting an Android phone.
It's a big deal apparently in the US.
A big chunk of American people discriminate users that have green bubbles in a conversation (vs the blue ones in the iPhone).
It's funny because a Samsung Fold costing around 2k would have green bubbles, vs an iPhone 6S that it's valued around 200 bucks.
Some article that comments even bullying because of this:
Apple Is Doing Its Part to End Green Bubble Shaming. It’s Our Turn. (Published 2023)
While texting technology will soon get better, the “blue versus green bubble” disparity is far from over.
Carriers can define whether RCS should be enabled by default in their carrier profile.
I have a colleague that uses android who truly loathes RCS. He says it ruins text messaging. He said “if you want to pin emojis to text, use literally any other app.” 😂
It's a big deal apparently in the US.
A big chunk of American people discriminate users that have green bubbles in a conversation (vs the blue ones in the iPhone).
It's funny because a Samsung Fold costing around 2k would have green bubbles, vs an iPhone 6S that it's valued around 200 bucks.
Some article that comments even bullying because of this:
Apple Is Doing Its Part to End Green Bubble Shaming. It’s Our Turn. (Published 2023)
While texting technology will soon get better, the “blue versus green bubble” disparity is far from over.www.nytimes.com
But RCS messages are still green I think?
I’m in Canada and use SMS and iMessage all the time, to communicate with people in Canada, USA, and Asia.
WhatsApp alone would not suffice, since a good chunk of them use WeChat, and it seems most who use WhatsApp don’t have WeChat, and most who use WeChat don’t have WhatsApp. They all have SMS though so that’s what we use for group chats. I will have to see how RCS will fit in here for those group chats.
Some of the individual conversations with Android users and I suspect some of the smaller group chats will likely move to RCS, but likely some of the larger group chats will remain SMS. I’m assuming here that for group chats it’s either RCS or SMS, not combo RCS/SMS, but correct me if I’m wrong.
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Yes, they are. However with RCS you can see when the other person is typing, get delivered confirmations, high quality photos and emoji replies.
The color is merely a hex code in the CSS. They could make it to where you could style it however you wanted, but I’m sure Apple has brand guidelines for that and I doubt would ever allow it.