Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Mobile
  3. News

We now know when Apple is adding RCS to the iPhone

Joe Maring
By
The iPhone 14 Plus held in a man's hand.
Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

Last November, Apple made a surprise announcement when it confirmed that RCS was coming to the iPhone in 2024. It’s something iPhone and Android phone users alike have been waiting years for, but there was just one small problem: Apple never said when in 2024 RCS was coming. Thanks to Google, of all companies, we now have a better idea of when RCS is heading to the iPhone.

As spotted by 9to5Google, the Android website was recently updated with a new page dedicated to Google Messages. If you click on the “See more features” button for the section talking about RCS, there’s a section titled “Better messaging for all” with the following text: “Apple has announced it will be adopting RCS in the fall of 2024. Once that happens, it will mean a better messaging experience for everyone.”

Recommended Videos

When Apple announced RCS support in November, all it said was that RCS was coming “later next year.” Google’s statement of this fall doesn’t provide an exact date, but it does give us a tighter release window. Assuming Apple’s plans don’t change between now and then, this means we should expect RCS to arrive on the iPhone in September, October, or November.

A screenshot of the Android website, showing information about RCS coming to the iPhone in fall 2024.
Google

This means RCS will almost certainly be a part of Apple’s upcoming iOS 18 update. Apple is expected to announce iOS 18 during WWDC 2024 this June, with the public release likely to coincide with the iPhone 16 launch in September. It’s possible we may have to wait until a “point” update like iOS 18.1 or iOS 18.2, but it shouldn’t go beyond that.

Related

When RCS arrives on the iPhone, texting between iPhones and Android phones will be a much better experience than it is today. RCS will make conversations with Android users very similar to iMessage ones — adding things like typing indicators, read receipts, high-resolution photo sharing, better group chats, and more. There’s still a while to go before we get to fall and can finally use these things, but the light is finally at the end of the tunnel.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Joe Maring
Joe Maring
Section Editor, Mobile
Joe Maring is the Section Editor for Digital Trends' Mobile team, leading the site's coverage for all things smartphones…
iPhone SE 4: news, rumored price, release date, and more
The Apple iPhone SE (2022) and Apple iPhone SE (2020) together.

While the spotlight always seems to be on Apple’s mainline iPhones, the iPhone SE is a great pick for those who are on a budget. If you want an iPhone that doesn't break the bank, the SE is the way to go.

The original iPhone SE came out in 2016, and then Apple revamped it in 2020 and 2022 by giving it some more modern hardware. The iPhone SE tends to get updated every two or so years rather than annually like the traditional iPhone. This means  that we should see a new iPhone SE 4 this year, but it’s not so cut-and-dried with this particular model.

Read more
3 reasons why I’ll actually use Anker’s new iPhone power bank
A person holding the Anker MagGo Power Bank.

Power banks are a necessary evil, and even if you don’t consider yourself a “power user” who's likely to drain a phone’s battery in less than a day, there will be times when one comes in handy. And when I am forced to carry one, I want it to be as helpful and versatile as possible.

I’ve been trying Anker’s MagGo Power Bank 10K -- meaning it has a 10,000mAh cell inside it -- and there are three reasons why I'm OK with it taking up valuable space in my bag.
It has a screen on it

Read more
Here’s how Apple could change your iPhone forever
An iPhone 15 Pro Max laying on its back, showing its home screen.

Over the past few months, Apple has released a steady stream of research papers detailing its work with generative AI. So far, Apple has been tight-lipped about what exactly is cooking in its research labs, while rumors circulate that Apple is in talks with Google to license its Gemini AI for iPhones.

But there have been a couple of teasers of what we can expect. In February, an Apple research paper detailed an open-source model called MLLM-Guided Image Editing (MGIE) that is capable of media editing using natural language instructions from users. Now, another research paper on Ferret UI has sent the AI community into a frenzy.

Read more