I’ve waited years for Apple to fix iPhone-to-Android texting, and it’s finally happening

Apple is beta-testing end-to-end encrypted RCS in iOS 26.5 for iPhone-to-Android chats.

The feature uses the GSMA RCS Universal Profile, so encryption can work automatically on supported carriers and devices.

This should make cross-platform texting more secure by default, closing a long-standing gap between iPhone and Android messaging.