Apple updates iPhone messaging with RCS but green bubbles and security concerns remain

Apple is preparing its biggest change to iPhone messaging in more than a decade, introducing enhanced support for Rich Communication Services (RCS) but security concerns still remain.

The update is expected to improve messaging between iPhone and Android users, with some messages now capable of end to end encryption.

When Apple introduced iMessage in 2011, it was designed to be fully secure. The company says that with blue bubble messages, “your conversations are encrypted end-to-end, so they can’t be read while they’re sent between devices.”

By contrast, traditional SMS messages, shown as green bubbles, are not encrypted.

Apple previously warned that “RCS messages aren’t end-to-end encrypted, which means they’re not protected from a third-party reading them while they're sent between devices."

While the new upgrade adds encryption capabilities to RCS, it still depends on all users and carriers supporting the same standards.

If not, messages may fall back to less secure formats such as standard RCS or SMS.

This limitation has led to renewed warnings about the risks of texting across platforms.

Despite the changes, Apple’s green bubbles will remain, highlighting the divide between secure and less secure messaging systems.