Apple has started rolling out the stable version of iOS 18 to eligible iPhone models. In addition to many new features, iOS 18 also supports RCS, which improves messaging between Android and iOS.

RCS is an upgraded version of SMS/MMS that offers more features, including read receipts, typing indicators, drop emojis, sending high-resolution photos and movies, and using Wi-Fi or cellular data to send messages.

Google started rolling out RCS to Android devices in 2019 through Google Messages. On the other hand, Apple is adding support for RCS to iPhones now, five years after Google.

Why did Apple take so long to roll out RCS to iOS? There is no specific information on this issue at the moment. It is possible that the company does not want iPhone users to enjoy a high-quality messaging experience with Android users to keep them in its ecosystem.

Anyway, now when you open Google Messages on your Galaxy phone and send a message to an iPhone user, you will see “RCS Message” in the text input field and the other end will see “Text Message • RCS” in the message input field. With RCS, you can enjoy all the features listed above when texting between Android and iOS.

After updating to iOS 18, iPhone users do not need to do anything to enable RCS on their phones. The feature is enabled by default.

You can toggle this feature on and off on iOS 18 by navigating to the Settings app → Messages. Note that messages between Android and iOS are not end-to-end encrypted. Additionally, not all regions and carriers support RCS on iOS.