Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
TL;DR
- A new official Google Messages webpage affirms that iPhone RCS support is coming in the fall.
- Originally, Apple only committed to 2024, so this is a more specific timeframe.
- Given the timing, it’s likely we’d see this land in tandem with the iPhone 16 series.
Late last year, Apple stunned the entire tech world by announcing it would support rich communication services (RCS) within iMessage at some point in 2024. The company has been mum on any further details since that announcement, but we finally have a small but useful update from a different source: Google.
On a new webpage dedicated to Google Messages (first spotted by 9to5Google), the company divulges that RCS messaging support for iPhones is coming “in the fall of 2024.” This is a bit more specific than just “next year,” which is all Apple said at the time of its initial announcement.
You can see everything Google has to say about iPhone RCS support in the screenshot below:
C. Scott Brown / Android Authority
Given that fall is the most important time of the year for Apple, thanks to the launch of iPhones in September, it’s not out of the realm of possibility to expect RCS support in iMessage to debut with or around the launch of the iPhone 16 series. However, it is possible that testing for RCS support could begin earlier than that, possibly with the launch of early betas of iOS 18, which we expect to land in June at WWDC 2024.
Regardless, if you were hoping your iPhone-using friends and family would have RCS in the first half of this year, this update from Google squashes that hope. However, you can rest assured that by this time in 2025, the videos you text to your iPhone peeps will have more than 20 pixels in them.
