Like any other iPhone user, I have blue friends and green friends. For a long time, my green friends were isolated to a less practical texting protocol. Starting today, The days of SMS terror are over.. and iOS18 UpdateApple, reluctantly, RCS CommunicationToo much time has passed, the wounds run deep, but we must now begin the healing process.
Rich Communication Services (RCS) is now standard in the Messages app between iPhone and Android in iOS 18, making texting a lot smoother. Your Android friends will still appear with green bubbles, while your Apple friends will appear with blue. The difference is that your friends and you will see read receipts. These notifications can also be enabled on a per-contact basis.
There will be growing pains. I’ve already run into issues with my messages being sent as RCS, and my less tech-savvy friend can’t figure out why his old Android device only sends via SMS, and why my messages keep switching back and forth. This has been going on since RCS was released in iOS 18 beta, so there will be some issues that we’ll have to deal with while we hope Apple irons them out. At the very least, someone will be able to figure it out.[メッセージ]Now you can tell if you’re typing an RCS message into the text box.
But the effort is well worth it. This drama has been going on for so long that it’s important to recognize the little things that improve the texting experience. The little wobbly ellipsis typing notification tells my friends I care about them enough to text them back. There are read receipt notifications, too. And it’s also something as simple as my brother and I sending each other unblurred photos from our time at the Renaissance Faire, though I usually use Facebook Messenger for that.
If you’re an iOS user and want to send a text message to an iPhone friend, you should be aware that you’ll have a different experience than Android users. The version of RCS that Apple uses isn’t encrypted, unlike iMessage, so try WhatsApp or Signal, the latter if privacy is your number one priority.
But sometimes a basic texting app just works – just send via SMS or MMS protocol and you no longer have to worry about group chats with your parents. Just two years ago, Apple CEO Tim Cook He told a reporter: When I complained that my parents couldn’t watch the videos I sent them, he told me to buy my mom an iPhone.
The CEO’s response shows the disrespect the company has shown to its users. Regulators complained that the green bubble drama in the ongoing antitrust case had led to “exclusion and stigmatization” of non-iPhone users. Apple has long been reluctant to take the step. The Cupertino tech giant has finally Shave a few inches off your walled garden.
Apple’s previous WWDC Events After talking about the improvements in iOS 18, he said in one sentence: As you can see, sending messages to other iPhone users is still fun. iMessage introduces emoji tapbacks (a feature that was already available on Android) and sticker reactions. Sending to iPhone takes priority over Android. Android users can click[person] Reacted [emoji]Tapback Response now has a Send Message option. iPhone users can now schedule messages to be sent later and send larger sized images with less compression. If you have an iPhone 14 or later, you also have the option to send SMS messages via satellite.
We can’t dwell on this issue any longer. Maybe one day Apple will embrace a version of RCS with encryption, but don’t get your hopes up. This is the new status quo, and text users will just have to accept the differences in the device ecosystem.
