Apple finally allows green bubbles to send reactions to messages

Apple is showing some love to Android users by finally displaying reactions to messages correctly. Now, when an Android user reacts to an RCS message from an iOS user, the selected emoji will appear next to the message bubble on iOS, rather than in the archaic form as a separate line, such as: ” to ‘that shouldn’t have happened.'”

Edge sent test messages and emoji reactions between iPhones running iOS 18.1 and different Android phones, confirming that both devices are now displaying reactions as intended. It’s unclear when this change occurred or which party—Google or Apple—had to make the change for it to work.

When RCS first launched widely on iOS in September, reactions to messages from Android users still didn’t show up correctly on iPhone, even though it worked the other way around. We reached out to both companies for comment but did not receive a response before publication.

Apple’s quiet improvement to RCS messages came as a surprise. Apple ignored Google’s campaign for years to force the company to adopt the standard, and ultimately agreed to it only after a combination of pressure from both sides. China and the EU. Basic RCS support was included in iOS 18.

In the Messages app, Apple officially supports a basic RCS standard known as the Universal RCS Profile. Support for Emoji reactions is part of RCS version 2.7, which should also include the ability to edit a sent message, but we were unable to implement this functionality on iOS. Of course, Apple will keep as many exclusive features for its iMessage service as possible, at least until it is forced to change.