Apple has officially announced support for RCS Universal Profile 3.0 in “future software updates.”
The Meta-owned tech giant on Saturday, March 15, 2025, revealed that it will roll out a number of texting updates in iOS 19.
One major benefit is that it brings end-to-end encryption to iPhone users using RCS.
When Apple introduced RCS messaging to the iPhone as part of iOS 18, it supported version 2.4. This still introduced numerous quality-of-life improvements for texting Android users, such as higher-quality images, read receipts, and more.
Related: iOS 18.3.2 — Apple introduces latest update with bug fixes
Additionally, Apple will be taking the leap from RCS version 2.4 to RCS version 3.0, bringing along all of the great upgrades introduced in version 2.7.
Apple issued a statement, noting, “End-to-end encryption is a powerful privacy and security technology that iMessage has supported since the beginning, and now we are pleased to have helped lead a cross-industry effort to bring end-to-end encryption to the RCS Universal Profile published by the GSMA."
It added, "We will add support for end-to-end encrypted RCS messages to iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and watchOS in future software updates.”
However, Apple hasn’t provided a timeline for supporting RCS version 3.0, other than the fact that it will arrive in a future software update, likely sometime during the iOS 19 lifecycle.
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