One of the biggest pain points of texting between iOS and Android may finally be over. Even after Apple allowed the RCS protocol in messages between iOS to Android, users still experienced the dreaded 🤮 translating to “this sucks’” when they posted an emoji react. Now, we can all emoji react to our hearts’ content, no matter what phone you’re using—so long as RCS actually works.
Apple added the ability to use any emoji as a “Tapback” in Messages with iOS 18, and after we tested it out it seems all those emojis now react to messages, just as God intended. Gizmodo tested it across several phones, and found that, as long as the message uses RCS, you should be able to both receive and send emoji reacts. It works with iPhones running iOS 18.1 and the iOS 18.2 beta. The Verge first picked up on the news, but neither Apple nor Google has yet to claim credit.
However, iPhone users still have limited control over whether messages send as RCS or SMS. Personally, I experience issues where messages randomly switch between the two, even within the same thread. So, while message compatibility has improved significantly, I wouldn’t call this latest change a panacea for all the lingering issues.
Apple previously made it clear that it only supports the most basic version of RCS in iOS 18. However, emoji reactions only work on RCS version 2.7, not the RCS Universal Profile. Either Apple updated the protocol without notifying anyone, or Google silently made a change on its end. The latter seems more likely, as The Verge pointed out that RCS 2.7 should also allow users to edit sent messages—a feature still unavailable in the current version.
Google has a track record on that score. It previously got basic Tapback reacts to work correctly in 2021 between Messages and iMessages. You would think Google would be more outspoken about this change considering how long it campaigned with overt, antagonistic messaging for Apple to adopt the RCS protocol.
Let’s not forget that it wasn’t competition between tech companies that resulted in RCS messaging, but pressure from the European Union. It’s why Apple barely made a made a peep about the change when it announced support for the messaging protocol in June.
RCS between iOS and Android still isn’t perfect. Personally, I find that my texts occasionally revert back to SMS for no apparent reason. However, since iOS 18, my messages with family members have generally been much better, even if the world remains divided between green and blue bubbles.
Perhaps one day, far in the future, we might have truly encrypted messages between iOS and Android. It seems like a pipe dream, though—for a time, so did RCS compatibility between the two largest phone ecosystems.