One of Apple’s biggest holdouts has been its refusal to play nicely with Android phones via iMessage, forcing iPhone-Android conversations to happen in SMS/MMS. SMS/MMS have virtually been put out to pasture on modern smartphones due to their poor media support, shorter character limits, lack of read receipts and typing indicators, and, most importantly, a complete dearth of encryption.
End-to-end RCS encryption means no one can read your texts, compared to SMS/MMS which get sent over telephony networks completely exposed for any bad actor to read. Apple has argued for years that its blue bubbles keep iPhones “secure,” to which Samsung and Google have replied by throwing shade at iPhone’s green bubbles. Regardless of where you stand, SMS/MMS is an objectively worse, less secure experience for all.
Apple probably won’t ever nix the blue and green bubbles, but it’s confirmed that it will support cross-platform RCS by the end of 2024. We may see this long-awaited feature with the release of iOS 18, or shortly after. All the things iPhone-Android convos have been missing — including better group chats and location sharing — should work regardless of bubble color. Of course, Apple’s stubborn. iMessage-to-iMessage, in their eyes, continues to be the most secure, privacy-friendly way to communicate. Still, we’ll gladly take an unsightly green over Tim Cook’s expensive solution to simply “buy your Mom an iPhone.”
