RCS Encryption Ready to Rollout Between iPhones and Android in New Update

Back in February, Google and Apple confirmed that they had begun testing end-to-end encryption (E2EE) through RCS when messages were sent between an iPhone and an Android device. That was all happening as a part of iOS 26.4 beta builds, but it now appears that with an update to iOS 26.5 that the true rollout will begin.

According to a changelog posted by 9to5Mac, iOS 26.5 will add E2EE RCS messaging (still in “beta”) through supported carriers and could take some time to land on your devices.

The changelog they listed says the following:

• End-to-end encrypted RCS messaging (beta) in Messages is available with supported carriers and will roll out over time.

As much as this news bring us joy and will lead to more secure conversations between our friends with iPhones, those “roll out over time” and “with supported carriers” pieces could mean a lengthy period before we get access. Carriers in the US are notoriously bad at supporting anything new, but they’ve been particularly bad with RCS. RCS still feels like a broken service at times depending on which carriers you are attempting to send between.

I will say that RCS has been a tremendous success for the most part with Apple on board. While I still see some issues with Android-to-iPhone messaging, it works for the most part and the group chats, media sharing, and reactions have all been greatly improved. The only issue now is on Apple’s end, with VPNs (NordVPN specifically) not playing nicely with RCS between the two platforms. Here’s to hoping that gets fixed with this 26.5 update.

For those of you who use Google Messages and RCS frequently, how have things been when messaging an iPhone?