After years of petitions and public criticism, Apple has finally brought RCS to iPhones, and while the feature is still in beta, it’s expected to roll out in the coming months alongside the public release of iOS 18. The new RCS update has been released to improve messaging between iPhones and Android devices such as Galaxy phones.
RCS update brings even better messaging between Galaxy smartphones and iPhones
The Global Signaling Association (GSMA), which manages RCS, release (Via 9To5Google) is a new update to the standard (Universal Profile 2.7) that includes enhanced messaging features aimed at improving RCS interoperability between Android phones and iPhones.
RCS Universal Profile 2.7 was released in June 2024. It added features like replying to individual messages, reacting to messages and custom reactions, and the ability to edit/delete/revoke sent messages.
Currently, emoji reactions to messages are converted to SMS to display the emoji. However, with the new RCS update, apps will no longer need to convert the emoji and the emoji will appear over the associated message. The update also supports custom reactions that can use existing or generated images (such as stickers).
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Currently, the Messages app on iPhones running iOS 18 doesn’t support inline replies, so replies from Android phones appear as separate messages and don’t reference the original message. With the new RCS update, Apple should implement inline replies for RCS messages.
This RCS update will allow users to edit, retract or delete messages, and will also introduce a spam reporting system for person-to-person messaging, in the hopes of reducing the likelihood of spam through crowdsourcing.
With this update, RCS should provide a satisfying user experience when sending and receiving messages between Galaxy (or other Android) smartphones and iPhones.