Apple improves RCS messaging between iPhones and Android phones with iOS 27

A couple of years ago, Apple and Google worked together to improve texting between iPhones and Android phones through the adoption of RCS. However, the experience still wasn’t as seamless as it could have been, as several RCS features were missing when texting across the two platforms. Apple is now addressing some of those shortcomings with iOS 27.

Apple recently released iOS 27 Beta 2 for supported iPhones, and it brings additional RCS improvements. On Android phones, the Google Messages app will now display inline replies with the original message shown above the reply. Moreover, when an iPhone user reacts to an image sent by an Android user using an emoji, the reaction will be displayed properly. Previously, emoji reactions were often shown as text descriptions on Android devices.

In June 2024, iPhones gained the ability to send replies and reactions to specific messages through support for RCS Universal Profile 2.7. Additional RCS features, such as editing, recalling, and deleting sent messages, were introduced at the same time. End-to-end encryption was added with the iOS 26.5 update.

When iOS 27 is released publicly for eligible devices in September, the RCS messaging experience between Android phones and iPhones should improve significantly. However, many mobile carriers in several countries still do not support RCS on iPhones.

The latest RCS Universal Profile version is 4.0, and it brings native video calls between Android and iOS, but it has not yet been implemented on either iPhones or Android phones.