RCS message reactions from Android are finally being displayed properly on iOS

Sending messages between Android and iOS is now becoming more fun as it seems Apple is finally letting message reactions sent from Android to be displayed correctly on iOS.

Now, if an Android user reacts to an RCS message from an iOS user, the selected emoji will appear with the message bubble on iOS. Before this change, any reactions from Android users would appear as a separate line on iMessage.


RCS first launched globally on iOS back in September. However, message reactions from Android users weren't displayed properly on the iPhone, although it worked just fine the other way around.

The improvement of RCS messages on Apple devices is indeed a little bit surprising. Google has been campaigning in recent years to get Apple to offer RCS interoperability, but the Cupertino giant was adamant to do the change. Apple had to comply when pressured by the European Union and China. Support for RCS was first introduced to iPhones with iOS 18.

In the iMessage app, Apple officially supports basic RCS: the standard is known as the RCS Universal Profile. Emoji reactions to messages are part of RCS version 2.7. The standard also allows users to edit a sent message, although this functionality isn't currently working on iOS.

This change makes it more fun to chat with your friends who have Android phones. After all, messaging apps are supposed to interoperate and allow you to have fun conversations with your people no matter what phone each of you is rocking.

Apple is known for being pretty exclusive and not offering a wide range of interoperable features with other OSes, but this is a step in the right direction in my book.