The biggest update coming to Apple's iMessage and Messages apps in iOS 18 isn't AI emoji, Genmoji, or even the ability to send texts via satellite. Finally, finally It makes texting with Android users much less painful by allowing you to schedule messages to be sent later and supporting RCS, the next-generation messaging standard that replaces SMS. These updates are available in the public beta of iOS 18, which opened this week.
While WWDC 2024 was packed with announcements about AI and other user interface improvements, these messaging features will have a significant impact on how people communicate every day.
For years, consumer demand for message scheduling has led developers to create complex and cumbersome solutions, such as apps that notify you to send a text via push notifications or solutions that only work on jailbroken iPhones. The new iOS adds the ability to schedule messages to be sent later as a built-in feature.
The feature was only briefly mentioned at WWDC. In Apple’s press release, it was announced in the same sentence as the Tapbacks upgrade that’s been expanded to support all emoji and stickers in iOS 18. Clearly, Apple doesn’t think “Send Later” is something you’ll spend a lot of time on. But for anyone who runs a business on their iPhone or who only remembers important things to text when they’re lying in bed at 3 a.m., the new scheduling feature will be a welcome addition. In addition to making life easier—for example, when you want to text someone across time zones without interrupting them—Apple’s screenshots suggest you could also use it to make sure you don’t miss sending someone a birthday greeting.
But more importantly, it's a messaging app that supports RCS, the messaging standard that replaces SMS, and it should solve a lot of Android users' frustrations with green bubble-shaped text messages.
For a long time, Google has been campaigning for Apple to adopt standards that would improve the communication experience between Android and iOS users. The Wall Street Journal has published a report on the fight over the green bubble and the necessity of the blue bubble for American teenagers. EU regulators ultimately decided that iMessage was not popular enough to be open and interoperable with other messaging services, but additional scrutiny likely influenced Apple’s decision. So did concerns from U.S. lawmakers about Apple shutting down Beeper, a third-party app that provided iMessage to Android users.
Because Apple has long refused to add RCS support, when you text with Android users, there are no typing indicators or read receipts, no broken group chats, no blurry photos and videos. And your messages aren’t end-to-end encrypted like they are with iMessage.
Unfortunately for Android users, according to the screenshots on the website, messages sent via RCS will not escape the green bubble curse on Apple devices. This is what the feature actually looks like in action. Instead, the text box is in a light gray font, indicating that the text you are texting with supports both “Text Message + RCS,” but the text itself is still green.
However, the issues that have made Messages a frustrating experience for Apple customers appear to be resolved, with Apple saying it will support the standard later this year. Of course, the news was only briefly mentioned in Apple’s press release, which noted that RCS allows for “richer media and more reliable group messaging than SMS and MMS.”
Previous reports have suggested that Apple will work with the GSMA to add end-to-end encryption support to the Universal Profile for RCS, but that it will not support E2EE out of the box. This is likely why there was no mention of encrypted messaging in Apple’s RCS announcement.
This article was originally published on June 11 and has been updated to reflect the release of the iOS 18 public beta.
