Apple's adoption of the RCS protocol in iOS 18 has improved communications in iMessage between users of iPhones and Android, but some security issues remain. Apple and Google are working together to fix them.

In the announcement, GSMA technical director Tom Van Pelt said the next milestone for RCS Universal Profile is the “first deployment of standardized, interoperable messaging encryption between different computing platforms.

RCS messaging just rolled out for iPhones with iOS 18, but the GSMA is now looking ahead to allow end-to-end encrypted messages between iPhones and Android devices.