Apple Will Keep Using Green Bubbles for RCS Messages on iPhones

Apple announced yesterday that it will finally add support for RCS messaging on iPhones next year. The company said that RCS messages “will work alongside iMessage,” which Apple still considers as “the best and most secure messaging experience for Apple users.”

iMessage launched with iOS 5 back in 2011, and it lets iPhone users send encrypted messages over the Internet. Apple never made iMessage available on Android as it considers its proprietary messaging app as one of the iPhone’s killer features. And it’s not wrong that iMessage probably remains one of the key elements of the Apple walled garden, along with the App Store and iCloud.

On iPhones, messages sent via iMessage appear in blue bubbles while messages sent to Android devices (or iPhones with iMessage disabled) appear in green bubbles. Beyond the color difference, most iPhone users know that having group conversations with people using Android phones is not great because SMS technology, unlike iMessage or RCS, wasn’t really made for that.

Anyway, if Apple announced yesterday that RCS support was coming to iPhones next year, it wasn’t exactly clear how it would work in practice. Well, Apple has since confirmed to 9to5Mac that RCS messages will continue to use green bubbles on iPhones, just like SMS messages. This may not be the best way to let iPhone users know that their SMS conversations have just been upgraded, but we’ll see.

For those unfamiliar, RCS (Rich Communication Services) is a new messaging standard developed by mobile carriers to replace the decades-old SMS technology. It lets users send messages over WiFi, send voice messages and high-quality pictures and videos, receive read receipts, and more. Group conversations on RCS also offer a similar experience to what iMessage, WhatsApp, or other Internet-based messaging apps offer today.

RCS messaging is enabled by default on Google’s Messages app for Android, and in recent years, the company has become one of RCS’ biggest supporters. Apple CEO Tim Cook, however argued back in September 2022 that iPhone users weren’t asking for RCS support.

Why did the company have a change of mind a year later? Well, the EU Commission currently investigating whether iMessage should be regulated under its Digital Markets Act may well have forced Apple to make some concessions. And ultimately, RCS messages working across iPhones and Android phones will be a good thing for consumers.