With RCS assist, iOS 18 brings an enormous improve to the cross-device Android and iPhone messaging expertise. It permits customers of each units to share high-quality media and revel in options like learn receipts and typing indicators.
Nonetheless, RCS chats between Android and iPhone are usually not end-to-end encrypted (E2EE). The GSM Affiliation, which developed the RCS commonplace, is working to repair this safety hole.
GSMA and Google engaged on including E2EE to RCS Common Profile
RCS (Wealthy Communication Providers) chats on Android assist E2EE. That is because of Google’s Jibe backend, which makes use of a Sign add-on to encrypt conversations. The present RCS Common Profile, as adopted by Apple, doesn’t assist end-to-end encryption. The GSM Affiliation is engaged on including interoperable end-to-end encryption.
“The following main milestone is for the RCS Common Profile so as to add vital consumer protections reminiscent of interoperable end-to-end encryption. This would be the first deployment of standardized, interoperable messaging encryption between completely different computing platforms, addressing important technical challenges reminiscent of key federation and cryptographically-enforced group membership. Moreover, customers will profit from stronger protections from rip-off, fraud, and different safety threats,” mentioned Tom Van Pelt, GSMA’s technical director, within the announcement.
In a LinkedIn put up, Elmar Weber, Basic Supervisor at Google, confirmed working with GSMA to convey E2EE to all RCS customers “as quickly as potential.” Apple additionally beforehand expressed its intent so as to add end-to-end encryption to RCS chats on iPhone.
Apple dedicated to bringing RCS to the Messages app in November 2023. It then formally unveiled RCS integration within the Messages app as part of iOS 18 throughout WWDC24.
No timeline given for E2EE assist in RCS
There’s no timeline from any events concerned on how lengthy it should take for E2EE to come back to RCS Common Profile. After that, will probably be as much as Apple so as to add assist for the latest RCS commonplace to iOS. So, you might need to attend some time to take pleasure in a safer cross-platform messaging expertise.
For now, in case your iPhone is operating iOS 18, benefit from the enhanced texting expertise along with your Android associates. iOS 18’s Messages app additionally has a number of different enhancements price testing, like wealthy textual content formatting and message scheduling.