Android users generally couldn’t care less about updates to Apples iOS, the operating system for iPhones. The soon-to-be-released iOS 18 has a feature that every Android user will appreciate.

You’d think after all these years of smartphones, sending videos or photos between iPhone and Android would be simpler. It isn’t and it’s one of the more frustrating experiences for friends who have friends using the “other” type of smartphone.

shot on iphone video played on Android

If someone with an iPhone sends an Android user a photo or video, the image is grainy and blurry. The picture is small and doesn’t fit the screen. It looks terrible and friends have no other choice but to share photos and videos using a third-party messaging app such as WeChat or Facebook Messenger.

The reason is that Apple and Google use different messaging protocols. Apple uses its own “iMessage” while Android has always used SMS/MMS for messages. Google most recently began using RCS or Rich Communication Services and has been pressuring Apple to use it as an option. 

The latest iOS 18 adopts RCS for sharing messages, photos, and videos with Android users.

With RCS enabled, iPhone users can now send high-quality photos and videos to their Android counterparts, and vice versa.

The difference is noticeable. Derek Alter, an Android user in a family of iPhone enthusiasts, has long suffered from the poor quality of media received from iPhones. 

He showed an example of a video shot with an iPhone of him diving into the water off a boat in Greece. The video filled only a third of the screen and was blurry and pixelated. 

“I looked at the person’s phone who took the picture and it was a phenomenal video. They send it to me and it looks crummy.”

To test out RCS on an iPhone I shot a quick video on an iPhone 15 Pro and texted it to Derek. Rather than the same blurry and small video, it came to his phone crisp, clear, and full screen. 

“I didn’t know it was going to come in like I took the picture.”

To enable RCS on your iPhone, once you’ve updated to iOS 18, simply go to Settings, then Messages, and turn on RCS. When you text an Android phone, you’ll see that it’s being sent via RCS, ensuring a better visual experience for the recipient.

While this update doesn’t eliminate the green bubbles that distinguish Android messages from iMessage, it does address other issues like broken group chats. Apple maintains that the green bubbles are a security feature, indicating that the conversation is not as secure as iMessage.

The iOS 18 update is currently in beta and is expected to be released to the public later this month. This development is a welcome change for smartphone users everywhere, making cross-platform communication more enjoyable and less frustrating.