When Apple added Rich Communication Services to its messaging services last year, it meant big changes when messages were sent between iPhones and Android handsets. But there was still the issue of security—iMessage has routinely been very secure in the way that SMS have not. Now, support for end-to-end encryption is on its way.
On Friday, March 14, Apple announced that it will add this support. “End-to-end encryption is a powerful privacy and security technology that iMessage has supported since the beginning, and now we are pleased to have helped lead a cross industry effort to bring end-to-end encryption to the RCS Universal Profile published by the GSMA. We will add support for end-to-end encrypted RCS messages to iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and watchOS in future software updates,” Apple said in a statement that it sent to me.
So, what does this mean?
Many extra features arrived in the past few months, so that if you send a message from an Android phone to an iPhone, you could now see the typing indicator and emoji reactions, for instance, that had been familiar when messages were received on the same platform as the sender. But encryption wasn’t as strong. That’s what’s being addressed now, and it is a big deal.
The RCS Universal Profile 3.0 was announced earlier on March 14 by the GSM Association, and there’s no timeline for when the support will arrive.
But it means that the security of messages sent in regular messaging apps will be much more secure than before. As a point of reference, iMessage has long been secure, but SMS has not. Which is why messaging between Android and iPhone hasn’t matched that of, say, messages sent on WhatsApp on any device. WhatsApp’s success (outside the U.S.) is likely to continue, as people on every kind of phone are now used to it as the messaging system that just works.
When the future software updates that Apple refers to will arrive is anyone’s guess, though mine is that it is likely to land this fall, likely as part of iOS 19.
