Apple finally secures iPhone-to-Android chats with end-to-end encryption rollout in iOS 26.5: here's what it means

Apple and Google have finally announced that end-to-end encryption (E2EE) is coming to Rich Communication Services (RCS) messages sent between Android and iPhones. Notably, Apple had first rolled out RCS support for iPhones with iOS 18 which brought features like Typing Indicators, read receipts and high resolution photo and video transfer but E2E encryption was not available for these messages then.

“Apple and Google have led a cross-industry effort to bring end-to-end encryption to Rich Communication Services (RCS), making the cross-platform messaging format that replaces traditional SMS more secure and private.” the two companies announced in a blogpost

The Cupertino based tech giant went on to announce E2EE for RCS chats last year and the feature first arrived in the beta version of iOS 26.4 but was later removed with the stable build of that version. However, with the iOS 26.5 update, Apple has officially brought E2EE support for RCS messages between iOS and Android devices.

But why is it a big deal to get E2EE support for RCS chats? Well, the support for E2EE means that these chats are scrambled in a way that the messages can only be read by the sender and the recipient, meaning that even Apple, Google or telecom operators cannot access the contents of the conversation even if they wanted to.

“Each end-to-end encrypted conversation has a unique verification code. This code must be the same for you and your contact to verify that your messages are end-to-end encrypted.” Google explains in a support page

The support for E2EE for cross device RCS chats comes at a time when apps like Instagram are backtracking on the crucial privacy protection and instead resorting to standard encryption which puts the sensitive data of users at risk.

How will you know your chats are E2EE protected?

Apple users will know when a conversation is encrypted between their iPhone and Android device when they see the “Text Message · RCS | [lock icon] Encrypted” message in their conversations while Google Messages users will see the same lock icon in that they earlier saw in all RCS chats.

The feature is currently in beta and is announced in partnership with supported carriers. The E2EE protection is expected to rolled out to all users in the next few months.

Apple says that E2EE is turned on by default for all RCS chats after users have updated to the latest iOS 26.5 version. Meanwhile, Android users need to be on the latest version of the Google Messages app in order to start enjoying E2EE protection.