Apple may announce RCS with cross-platform end-to-end encryption at WWDC25

Apple's annual developer conference, WWDC25 , is coming up soon. WWDC25 is expected to include major OS design overhauls and improvements to Apple Intelligence, but Apple-related media 9to5Mac has reported that the company may also announce RCS with cross-platform end-to-end encryption (E2EE) support.

Security Bite: Apple could announce cross-platform E2EE for RCS messaging at WWDC - 9to5Mac
https://9to5mac.com/2025/05/30/security-bite-apple-could-announce-cross-platform-e2ee-for-rcs-messaging-at-wwdc/

Google, which develops Android, has adopted and promoted 'RCS,' which adds file transfer and read notification functions to ' SMS ,' which allows messages to be sent and received between phone numbers. Apple had not supported RCS for a long time in its messaging app iMessage, but announced that it would support RCS in November 2023.

Apple announces that it will adopt RCS from 2024, enabling read notifications for text messages and sending and receiving high-resolution photos and videos between iPhone and Android - GIGAZINE

And finally, RCS was supported in iOS 18, released in September 2024. This allows iPhone users to send rich messages containing audio files and large media files in SMS exchanges with Android users. However, since RCS does not implement end-to-end encryption between different OSes, the GSMA , the standardization organization developing RCS, has set cross-platform end-to-end encryption as the next goal for RCS.

'RCS', which allows you to send high-quality images between Android and iPhone and display a mark while typing text, will finally be implemented in iOS 18, and in the future we will focus on introducing end-to-end encryption - GIGAZINE

Apple then announced that it plans to work with the GSMA to support cross-platform end-to-end encryption for RCS in March 2025. Google followed suit and announced that it would support cross-platform end-to-end encryption for RCS on Android.

With the current version of RCS, when an iPhone communicates with a non-Apple device via RCS, messages are encrypted in transit only if the device uses TLS , which prevents basic eavesdropping during transmission, but it is different from end-to-end encryption, which means that only the sender and recipient can see the contents, so messages can still be intercepted by the server.

If iOS and Android support RCS cross-platform end-to-end encryption, SMS conversations between iPhones and Android smartphones will be encrypted and the contents of the messages can only be decrypted with the decryption key stored on the user's device. Therefore, 9to5Mac points out that 'if this is realized, it will be a big step forward for user privacy.'

Furthermore, 9to5Mac pointed out, 'What better place than WWDC to demonstrate Apple's leadership in privacy and security? Delays in releasing new features for Apple Intelligence have had a negative impact on Apple's reputation, so this event will be closely watched. There is no better way for Apple to reaffirm its position as an industry leader than for the GSMA, who will likely be in attendance at WWDC, to take to the stage during the keynote and announce that Apple will strengthen its commitment to privacy by introducing E2EE to the RCS Universal Profile.'