Apple has officially started rolling out end-to-end encrypted RCS messaging between iPhones and Android devices, closing one of the biggest long-standing gaps in cross-platform texting security.
Here’s what changed:
* Messages sent between iPhones and Android phones using.
* RCS (Rich Communication Services) can now be end-to-end encrypted (E2EE).
* The rollout began with iOS 26.5 beta and compatible Android messaging apps/carriers.
* Users will see a lock icon and “Encrypted” label in supported chats.
This matters because historically:
* iPhone-to-iPhone chats used iMessage encryption
* Android-to-Android RCS chats in Google Messages were already encrypted
* But iPhone & Android conversations usually fell back to insecure SMS/MMS or unencrypted RCS
Now Apple and Google are using the GSMA’s newer RCS standard with Messaging Layer Security (MLS) support for interoperability.
A few important caveats:
* Encryption only works if both devices, apps, carriers, and software versions support the new standard.
* Group chats can lose encryption if one participant lacks support.
* Metadata may still be visible to carriers/platforms, so apps like Signal remain more privacy-focused overall.
This is also a major shift for Apple, which resisted RCS for years before adding standard RCS support in iOS 18 and now encrypted cross-platform RCS in iOS 26.5.
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