Android and iPhone owners can finally text each other securely

• End-to-end encryption for RCS messaging is rolling out in beta to iPhone users running iOS 26.5.
• iPhone owners will need to be on a supported carrier’s network to have access to the feature.
• Android owners will need to have the latest version of Google Messages installed.

Android users have long been able to enjoy private conversations over text due to end-to-end encryption (E2EE) on rich communication services (RCS). While this has not been the case for chats between Android and iPhone, Apple added interoperable E2EE for RCS to the recently rolled out iOS 26.5 release candidate. Now the privacy feature is finally here to keep your messages private, regardless of who you’re texting.

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