Finally, texts between Android and iPhone users can be encrypted end-to-end

Finally, Android and iPhone users will be able to send end-to-end encrypted text messages to each other. On Monday, end-to-end encrypted messaging began rolling out in beta for conversations between iPhone and Android users using the latest software.

End-to-end encrypted (e2ee) messaging is an important privacy feature that makes users less vulnerable to surveillance by hackers, governments, or the companies that make these communications platforms. When these messages are sent between devices, they are encrypted during transmission, making it nearly impossible for anyone else to intercept and read the message. But until now, messages sent between iPhone and Android devices (e2ee) cannot be end-to-end encrypted, although iMessage has been encrypted since its launch in 2011, and Android users have been able to communicate with each other via e2ee since 2021.

Over the years, iOS and Android users have had legacy connections — Android users can’t use Apple-owned iMessage, but Apple has refused to support RCS messaging, a more sophisticated upgrade to decades-old SMS, since 2020. Now an industry-standard text messaging protocol, RCS offers features like typing indicators, read receipts, emoji reactions, longer message lengths, and text message encryption. But Apple didn’t support RCS until 2023, once it finally gave in due to regulatory pressure.

Google urged Apple to support RCS text messaging to make communication between its devices more seamless — and it was an issue that people honestly thought about the “green bubble stigma,” referring to the color of the message bubbles that iPhone users receive from Android devices.

Until Apple started supporting RCS, it was common for iPhone users to get text messages from their friends who used Android, which could disrupt group chats, or lead to poor quality multimedia sharing. Now, Apple’s long-awaited support for e2ee on RCS is helping bridge the gap between the green and blue bubbles.

The end-to-end encrypted RCS messaging service has only started rolling out in beta, so users may not have access to it yet. If the conversation between Google and Apple devices is encrypted, users will see a lock icon indicating that the chat is protected.