Apple today confirmed plans to implement support for Rich Communication Services, or RCS, in iOS 18 this fall. Apple software chief Craig Federighi confirmed support for ‌RCS‌ while introducing new features for the iPhone at the WWDC main event.

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We’ve known about Apple’s plans to adopt ‌RCS‌ since last November, but Apple has only given a vague adoption timeline of “later in 2024,” so it wasn’t clear exactly when the feature might be deployed. ‌RCS‌ replaces SMS/MMS as the default communications protocol on ‌iPhone‌.

‌RCS‌ has already been adopted by Google, US smartphone carriers and other companies, so Apple is a little late to the party. This doesn’t change much for iMessage, but it does overhaul the way iPhones interact with Android devices. ‌RCS‌ improves texting with Android users, adding support for features that were previously limited to iMessage. Some additions:

  • Support for higher resolution photos and videos.
  • Support for larger file sizes and file sharing.
  • Audio messages.
  • Cross-platform emoji reactions.
  • Real-time strike indicators.
  • Read receipts.
  • Ability to send messages via cellular or Wi-Fi (SMS is cellular only). There is no charge to send a ‌RCS‌ message over Wi-Fi.
  • Improved group chats.

It’s unclear whether Apple will introduce ‌RCS‌ support during the ‌iOS 18‌ beta testing period or keep the feature until the update’s public launch in the fall, but we do know that it is actually related to ‌iOS 18‌ at this point.

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