iOS 18 brings RCS to the iPhone, but you might not be able to use it anytime soon

6 months ago 55

As announced by Apple at WWDC 2024, iOS 18 officially brings support for RCS – or Rich Communication Services – to the iPhone. However, as we previously reported, the feature doesn’t seem to be available to beta users. Unfortunately, iOS 18 beta users might have to wait a bit longer before they can enable RCS on their iPhone.

RCS coming to iPhone with iOS 18

With RCS, iPhone users can send rich messages with audio and larger media files to Android users. Although RCS messages will still have green bubbles, the Messages app will show the label “Text Message – RCS” in the conversation.

No signs of RCS were seen in the first beta of iOS 18 released earlier this month. However, the second beta of iOS 18 released on Monday added a new RCS toggle in the Settings app, at least for some users. This has made beta testers wonder why some of them aren’t seeing the toggle, or even why the feature isn’t working despite the toggle being turned on.

Well, we now have the answer.

As seen by 9to5Mac in the iOS 18 beta 2 code, RCS support on the iPhone relies on Apple working with carrier partners to get them to update their bundles shipped with iOS. Right now, only a few carriers (such as AT&T and T-Mobile in the US) have updated their carrier bundles to support RCS on the iPhone.

Of course, there’s still time for more carriers to work on enabling RCS support on the iPhone by September, when iOS 18 will be available to the public. But at the same time, this means that most beta users probably won’t be able to test the new feature.