The talking iPhone and Pixel are back, as Google congratulates Apple on (finally) joining the RCS messaging party.

The post Google says RCS encryption between Android & iPhone is in the works appeared first on Android Headlines.

Apple's iOS 18 is bringing the RCS protocol to the Messages application, paving the way for iPhone users to enjoy a much more comprehensive messaging service than simply sending and receiving SMS and MMS messages. Unfortunately, not everyone will be able to benefit from the service until all network operators support this technology.

Apple's iPhones finally have RCS, but it's not available to iPhone owners on Google Fi. Now, Google has revealed the reason for this.

On Monday, Apple’s iOS 18 update replaced SMS with RCS messaging for texts sent to users on Android. While the change doesn’t get rid of the green bubbles, it will finally allow cross-platform users to share high-res media, as well as see read receipts and typing indicators. But Apple’s implementation of RCS is missing one key feature: E2EE.

Thankfully both Google and GSMA have confirmed they’re working to fix this glaring security hole. GSMA has said that the “next major milestone is for the RCS Universal Profile to add important user protections such as interoperable end-to-end encryption.”

Apple released iOS 18 earlier this week with support for Rich Communication Services or RCS. This update will increase interoperability between various messaging apps such as Google Messages and Apple's iMessages as users will see various indicators including read receipts and typing indicators.

RCS messaging just rolled out for iPhones with iOS 18, but the GSMA is now looking ahead to allow end-to-end encrypted messages between iPhones and Android devices.

End-to-end encryption for cross-platform RCS chats appears to be in the pipeline. GSMA is working to introduce interoperable encryption for RCS chats to ensure secure messaging between Android and iOS users.