This year will be one for the tech history books, marked as the year Apple finally relented in its stubborn fight against Rich Communication Services (RCS) and embraced proper cross-platform messaging on the iPhone.

RCS has a longer history than most folks realize. The standard was created in 2007, but it got bogged down in carrier politics and didn't go mainstream until Google took the ball and ran with it in 2016. Within a few years, RCS had become the de facto standard for rich messaging on Android across several different SMS/RCS apps, and over the past two years, Google Messages has become the dominant app.

That effectively makes it Android's version of iMessage, except for one crucial point: unlike Apple, RCS is an open standard that anyone can adopt. Google has cooked up a few proprietary extensions to fill in pieces that are missing from the RCS Universal Standard, such as end-to-end encryption, but anyone can build a messaging app that supports RCS.

Google spent years trying to get Apple on board, often resorting to taking jabs at Apple's stubborn refusal to embrace RCS. However, Apple held out for years, insisting that those who want a better messaging experience with other iPhone users should just buy an iPhone. In the end, it wasn't Google or even the European Union that convinced Apple to wave the white flag -- it was China.

Unlike iMessage, WhatsApp, and a dozen other instant messaging platforms, RCS is still very much a carrier-dependent technology. China mandated that new 5G devices are required to support RCS, so if Apple wants to sell the iPhone in China, RCS needs to be part of the package. As a result, Apple announced last year that RCS would be coming in iOS 18, and we saw the first fruits of that by the time the third iOS 18 beta landed in July.

Unfortunately, RCS's biggest drawback is that it is still carrier-driven. Instead of building its own RCS messaging infrastructure, Apple has chosen to adhere closely to the RCS Universal Standard and rely on carrier support. This means that you can only use RCS if your carrier is on board.

That's been slow going in various parts of the world. While the big three US carriers were on board when iOS 18 launched, many smaller carriers and MVNOs have been slower in setting up the infrastructure needed to support RCS.

To enable RCS support on the iPhone, carriers need to not only have the necessary servers in place but also provide this information in a carrier configuration file installed on the iPhone. While carriers can send these "carrier bundle" updates over the air at any time, it's more common to see them show up as part of an iOS update, and December's iOS 18.2 release is no exception.

Apple has long maintained a list of iPhone features supported by each carrier, and as of iOS 18, this now includes RCS messaging. To save you a bit of digging, here's a list of the carriers that now officially support RCS in Canada and the United States:

While Boost Mobile is still missing from Apple's list, the carrier has confirmed in a help article (via 9to5Mac) that it also now supports RCS in iOS 18.2. However, you'll need to apply a carrier update to Boost 61.1 or later as the Boost carrier profile in iOS 18.2 doesn't yet have RCS activated.

That update could be good news for Mint Mobile and Ultra Mobile customers. While Boost has shed its MVNO mantle, it's still loosely affiliated with T-Mobile's network in much the same way as Mint and Ultra Mobile. Mint Mobile promised RCS support was coming in December; it has about a week left to fulfill that promise and there's still time for it to launch a carrier update the same way that Boost has.

You can confirm that RCS is available and enabled on your iPhone by going to Settings > Apps > Messages and scrolling down to look for RCS Messaging, which should appear under "Text Messaging" (as shown in the image above). Make sure that's toggled on, and you should be good to go.

Of course, the person on the other end also has to have RCS support, and that's still far from universal, even among Android users. For example, many Samsung owners are still using Samsung messages, and carriers are slowly deprecating the RCS support in favor of Google Messages (which is now the standard on newer Samsung phones). Other Android makers may also have their own proprietary messaging apps less likely to support RCS.

Although the same green bubbles are used for SMS and RCS conversations, you can tell that you're using RCS by looking at the watermarked text in the text entry box. Seeing typing indicators or read receipts should also make this obvious, as SMS doesn't support those.

If you're still chatting over SMS with somebody you feel should be using RCS, it's most likely because they're using the wrong app. Google Messages can be installed on any modern Android phone, and unlike Apple, It can speak RCS even on carriers that haven't added support yet. This means the best way to get a rich messaging experience with your Android-toting friends is to suggest they switch to Google Messages, which is probably much easier than convincing them to buy an iPhone.