The Messages app on the iPhone will see significant changes as part of the iOS upgrade, which engineers claim is the “biggest-ever.” Additionally, it appears that you can view those changes immediately if you’ve registered for the latest iOS developer beta.
After Apple published the second iOS 18 developer beta on Monday, June 24, users are reporting that beat users may now utilize the advantages of RCS—a far more sophisticated system than SMS, which iPhones had previously avoided using in favor of its own iMessage set-up.
The Messages settings in the beta now have a toggle labeled RCS Messaging. Users have the option to enable or disable this, and several testers have now verified that users with Android phones may receive RCS messages.
Rich Communication Services, or RCS for short, has various advantages over text messaging, such as enhanced group chats, voice communications, and higher-resolution photos and videos in messages.
It also offers many of the features that iMessages has had for years, like read receipts and typing indications that show who is writing to you at that moment. Although Android offers comparable capabilities, up until now, the two systems have declined to share these functions. They can now support higher file sizes and emoji reactions in addition to that thanks to RCS.
The texts that are transferred back and forth between iPhones still display the blue bubbles, which some people consider to be more superior. However, even though Android phones have more functionality, incoming texts from those phones will still remain green.
Several commenters have mentioned that viewing read receipts on green bubbles requires some getting used to.
The public beta isn’t expected until next month, and only Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile are currently supported. As such, most of us will need to exercise patience for the time being, but this is a harbinger of really exciting things to come.