Huge update confirmed for all iPhone owners | Tech News

Although WhatsApp guidelines the roost in terms of cellular messaging within the UK, many people use the textual content messaging app on their smartphones each day to keep involved with household, pals and colleagues.

For years, iPhone owners have skilled textual content messaging in two distinct shades: blue or inexperienced. The former denotes you’re texting with one other iPhone (or Apple system registered to iMessage), whereas the latter exhibits you’re texting with an Android cellphone.

It’s not simply a visible distinction both. While blue bubbles, as they’re identified, allow you to work together with reactions in addition to simply ship hi-res photographs and videos, they’re additionally in a position to be despatched over an web connection – so 4G, 5G or Wi-Fi.

When an iPhone consumer is texting with an Android cellphone, these inexperienced bubbles can solely be despatched over the mobile community, and Apple has chosen to limit how the messages will be despatched, so photographs and videos shared between iPhone and Android usually seem pixelated and decrease high quality, as their decision can’t be absolutely uploaded.

After years of frustration – and Apple efficiently driving tens of millions of people to buy iPhones in nations just like the United States the place the SMS apps are nonetheless king – the blue/inexperienced bubble divide seems set to lastly be over.

Things began to change with iOS 18 in 2024, when Apple launched RCS for iPhone. This technology, which is named Rich Communications Services, is a messaging commonplace used on apps resembling Google Messages on Android telephones, and brings fashionable upgrades over conventional SMS, resembling hi-res media sending, reactions and typing indicators.

But whereas this was great for Android customers to textual content iPhones more efficiently, messages have been nonetheless not encrypted by default. That lastly seems set to change

iOS 26.5 seems to introduce RCS end-to-end encryption on the iPhone, which implies messages despatched to Android telephones will lastly be absolutely secure – one thing that isn’t potential with SMS. Just like iMessage, WhatsApp or Signal messages, end-to-end encryption means solely the sender and recipient can learn the chat, and even Apple and Google can’t see the messages.

It’s one other step in the direction of messaging parity for fashionable smartphones, which has taken a surprisingly long time given the market is dominated by the duopoly of Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android platforms.

The people at 9to5Mac noticed the update to incorporate encryption with RCS on iOS 26.5’s beta model. This is a model launched to some customers to check out earlier than Apple pushes the button and ship sit out the world over to all suitable iPhones.

iOS 26.5 is anticipated to be launched later in May.