Text messages between Android and iPhones, however, are still vulnerable to eavesdropping.
Google has long been pushing RCS as the common messaging standard to replace SMS and MMS, but the company has had little success trying to convince companies like Apple to move to the new protocol. However, even though RCS has been slow to gain traction, Google is continuing to implement new features for the fledgling messaging standard, suggesting it is still committed to the technology. As part of its plans to make RCS more popular among users, the search giant has now announced a couple of new features that it believes will help convince more people to ditch SMS in favor of the new protocol.
First off, the company is making all RCS messages end-to-end encrypted by default, meaning all text messages between Android devices, including in group chats, are fully secured from eavesdropping by third parties. End-to-end encryption is already implemented by default on the best instant messaging apps like WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram and iMessage, meaning Google's move now brings RCS feature parity with these apps in terms of security and privacy.
Unfortunately, the new feature is only applicable for RCS messages, meaning texts between iPhones and Android devices still aren't end-to-end encrypted. That's because Apple hasn't adopted RCS yet, nor is iMessage available on Android. So as things stand now, the best option to get end-to-end encryption for messages between Android and iPhone is to use a third party messaging app like the ones mentioned above. All those apps will encrypt your messages irrespective of the device you're using.
Meanwhile, Google also announced that it is now enabling RCS by default for all new and existing users of Google Messages, unless they have already turned RCS off in the app settings. Even if the feature is turned on automatically following Google's new move, users will be able to turn it off by going into settings any time they want. While the company says that it's forcing the switch to RCS to ensure more people benefit from the added security, it may annoy some users who would ideally stick to the older protocol and not use RCS at all, despite using Google Messages as their default messaging app.
Kishalaya has almost a decade’s worth of experience in tech journalism, having written thousands of news, guides, features, and reviews for multiple American, Canadian, and Indian blogs. As a tech buff, he loves to build his own PCs and flash custom ROMs on his Android devices. Apart from tech, his interests include automobiles and sports.

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