This is how green bubbles are being upgraded in iOS 18

Green bubbles, rejoice: Your iPhone-using friends will finally have a lot easier time sending you messages. As part of iOS 18, which was released to everyone on Monday, Apple added support for RCS, the Rich Communication Services Protocol, for messaging. That means chats between iPhone and Android users will finally have a lot of much-needed features that should have arrived a long time ago.

A big reason I've stayed on iOS (and haven't even thought about switching to Android) is that iMessage conversations work particularly well for my family group chats, and I don't want to cut those chats short. This new RCS support is a great step toward making iPhone-to-Android text much better (though there are still enough shortcomings so I plan to stick with iOS).

With RCS on iOS, you'll get big improvements like high-resolution media, typing indicators, and read receipts when you're texting with people on other phones that support RCS. In its iOS 18 press release, Apple also highlights support for “more reliable group messaging than SMS and MMS.”

RCS Chat still doesn't have many of the features that Apple built in for iMessage conversations, like scheduling messages to send later or adding animated text effects to what you write. But with RCS support, a lot of the basic features are now available.

When you're texting someone other than an iPhone, take a look at the text-entry box. In gray letters, you'll see the words “Text Message,” then a dot, and then “RCS” or “SMS.” If you see RCS, you're in an RCS chat! You may see indicators like “RCS” or “SMS” in the middle of the conversation.

However, there may be at least one problem: it seems that not all carriers still support RCS on the iPhone. While, according to 9to5googleAT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon all support this feature in the US, I'm on Mint Mobile, and instead of saying “RCS”, my iPhone-to-Android conversations still say “SMS”. At least I have nice-looking tapbacks, which Are Available over SMS. But overall, there's been no change to SMS conversations, so if you're forced to chat with your Android friends over SMS, you'll have to deal with the limitations that have been in place for years.

If for some reason you want to turn off RCS, you can do so Settings > Apps > Messages > RCS Messaging,

Apple is only supporting the original RCS standard, called the RCS Universal Profile, which is not encrypted. This means that if you are messaging a friend who uses Google Messages, those messages will not be encrypted like they would be if you were messaging with another iPhone user over iMessage.

While this is disappointing, it's not too surprising. Apple will probably still want everyone to buy an iPhone. But hopefully Apple will make RCS text encrypted in a future iOS release.