After rolling out RCS support with iOS 18 back in September 2024, Apple promised that RCS chats between Android and iPhone would soon be fully encrypted. A little over 1.5 years later, and Apple has officially started making good on the pledge!
RCS chats between Android and iPhone will be fully encrypted soon
Those green bubbles are staying, however
For reference, Apple-to-Apple messages are already encrypted (using PQ3), while Android-to-Android messages are encrypted via the Signal protocol.
Now, Apple’s latest iOS 26.4 Developer Beta 2 finally starts testing end-to-end encryption (E2EE) for Apple-to-Android RCS messaging, leveraging the GSMA’s RCS Universal Profile 3.0, which uses Messaging Layer Security (MLS) to close the security gap between different device clients, as highlighted by the folks over at Android Authority.
In its developer beta release notes, the Cupertino-based tech giant wrote:
In this beta, RCS end-to-end encryption will become available for testing between Apple and Android devices. This feature is not shipping in this release and will be available to customers in future iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and watchOS 26 releases. End-to-end encryption is in beta and is not available for all devices or carriers. Conversations labeled as encrypted are encrypted end-to-end, so messages can’t be read while they’re sent between devices.
It’s worth noting that E2EE will not be available on all Apple devices. Additionally, only certain carriers will support it, at least in the beginning. Further, Apple wrote that the feature is not shipping in this release and will be available to customers via a future release.
If you’re running the latest developer beta, you can start testing E2EE support by heading to Settings > Messages > RCS Messaging, and enabling End-to-End Encryption (Beta). Android users, on the other hand, will need to be enrolled in the Google Messages app beta to successfully handshake with Apple’s new encryption protocol.
How to enable, disable, and use RCS Chat in Google Messages
It’s probably time we moved on from the old SMS standard
