With the launch of iOS 18, iPhone users are finally able to exchange rich text messages with their Android counterparts. But beyond Apple's support of RCS, each carrier needs to activate the capability -- and for now, many carriers have yet to jump on the bandwagon.

In the announcement, GSMA technical director Tom Van Pelt said the next milestone for RCS Universal Profile is the “first deployment of standardized, interoperable messaging encryption between different computing platforms.

The GSM Association (GSMA), the organization responsible for developing the Rich Communication Services (RCS) standard, announced on Tuesday that

Apple's iPhones finally have RCS, but it's not available to iPhone owners on Google Fi. Now, Google has revealed the reason for this.

We've finally made it past the finish line, folks. The day is here, and at long last, the iPhone-to-Android messaging experience is about to get a whole lot better thanks to Apples (likely-reluctant) inclusion of RCS in iMessage.