The long-awaited day is here: Apple has announced that its Messages app will support RCS in iOS 18. The move comes after years of taunting, cajoling, and finally, some regulatory scrutiny from the EU.
Right now, when people on iOS and Android message each other, the service falls back to SMS — photos and videos are sent at a lower quality, messages are shortened, and importantly, conversations are not end-to-end encrypted like they are in iMessage. Messages from Android phones show up as green bubbles in iMessage chats and chaos ensues.
Apple’s announcement was likely an effort to appease EU regulators.
I know people want this. I do to. But SMS going away will suck. Even in 2024, there’s still that moment you have every now and then that you can’t get a call out but a sms will make it out just fine. SMS rides along with the carriers ping signal. It’s not part of the data signal.
Right now my phone gives me the option if RCS fails for some reason, to send the message again with SMS. I assume that will be the case here as well.
I don’t think sms will go away, that ping is fundamental to GSM & LTE so far as I can tell.
You may need an app that explicitly taps into the sms feature though
Google Messages app already falls back to SMS automatically if RCS fails. SMS is not going anywhere.