At the 2024 WWDC Global Developer Conference held today, Apple confirmed that the iOS 18 system launched this fall will support the RCS communication protocol.
The new standard will replace SMS as the default protocol for communication between Android and iPhone devices, but officials have previously revealed that supporting RCS does not mean the end of the blue-green bubble problem, RCS messages will still show green.
In fact, Apple isn’t talking about all of this, just mentioning RCS support in a slide about iOS 18.
iMessage will continue to be the default method for iPhone-to-iphone communication, and RCS will replace the existing SMS and MMS standards. However, SMS and MMS can still be used as an alternative when necessary.
RCS is the international standard of the new generation of message service, and the new generation of information service platform built by telecom operators can make “information as platform, user as customer, mobile phone as application” become a reality.
With the native SMS button on the smartphone as the entry point, 5G messages support users to use a variety of rich media messages such as graphics, audio and video, group chat, file transfer, and content sharing during calls, and you can achieve a one-stop business experience such as search, interaction, sharing, and payment in the message window.
For those of us who are used to using wechat, the green chat bubble has long been the default choice. But in the United States, where iMessage messages are popular, the color of the chat bubbles has become a source of anxiety.
To put it simply, on an Apple device, a blue chat bubble in a message means both parties are using an Apple device, while a green chat bubble means the other party is using a non-Apple device — most likely an Android phone. The green bubble means you can’t use the iPhone’s rich variety of messaging features with each other, even sharing high-definition pictures and participating in group chats.