After relentless call-outs from Google, Apple finally embraced RCS (Rich Communication Services). Starting with iOS 18, the modern messaging standard is available for iPhone users, enabling seamless cross-platform communication with Android users. However, Samsung has warned that RCS chats between iPhones and Android devices, including Galaxy phones, aren’t as secure as Android-to-Android messaging.
RCS chats between iPhone and Android lack end-to-end encryption
Samsung has been actively promoting RCS, even replacing its native messaging app with Google Messages on Galaxy devices to help speed up its adoption. In a recent official press release, the company detailed its collaboration with Google to bring modern messaging features to more users. Since Samsung sells more phones than any other Android OEM, this move quickly pushes millions of people to RCS.
However, Samsung’s press release footnotes contained an interesting detail that many missed. It turns out RCS chats between Android and iPhone aren’t protected by end-to-end encryption. That’s not the case for messages sent between two Android devices. Whether in direct messages or group chats, these conversations are always encrypted, ensuring maximum security. This is a major security lapse that undermines Samsung’s efforts.
Since iPhone-to-iPhone chats bypass RCS entirely and default to Apple’s iMessage, those messages are encrypted. This is a problem only when sending and receiving messages between an Android phone and an iPhone. These conversations lack end-to-end encryption, which raises security concerns. Samsung has not provided a clear explanation for this limitation, suggesting that technical challenges may be to blame.
Implementing end-to-end encryption across different operating systems could be complex and may require further collaboration between Apple and Google. Hopefully, the former will cooperate to make cross-platform messaging more secure. For now, while RCS bridges some gaps in communication between Android and iOS users with modern features, the absence of encryption means chats are only as secure as they were in the SMS era.
