Apple has always had its own Messages setup but earlier this year, the company announced it would make Apple messages compatible with Rich Communications Services, the text messaging standard used on Android phones. Now, it looks like an Apple iMessage upgrade has just landed.
While this emphatically did not mean that the perceived inequality between green bubbles (Android users messaging iPhone owners) and blue bubbles (iPhone owners texting each other), it promised closer integration.
For a start, the typing indicators iPhone users can enjoy while waiting for someone to just get on and finish typing that text that’s taken them five minutes already, for goodness’ sake.
It also shows read receipts, better-quality images and more. But it hasn’t yet been working perfectly. However, a new report says that now emoji received by an iOS user on iOS 18.1 will actually appear as it should, according to The Verge. When things weren’t working quite right, instead of the painstakingly curated emoji the sender had reached for, instead it would show a skull and the words, “that wasn’t supposed to happen.”
Annoying, right? How is that the same as that perky penguin or succulent pea pod you’d meant to transmit?
Now, the report says, the emoji appear as they should, though it’s not clear whether the change has come about because of an update on Apple’s side or Google’s.
When RCS first launched on iPhone in September, images sent from the iPhone looked right, but those sent from Android handsets to iPhones didn’t quite work out.
There’s still further to go, it seems. While emoji reaction support now seems to be in place, editing a sent message—the holy grail for sloppy typists like myself—doesn’t seem to be quite there yet.
Apple is protective of the advanced features iMessage offers when texts ping between iPhone owners and there are newly introduced text features to keep things looking especially spiffy, such as words that shake, grow, nod, ripple or jitter. While those effects won’t be available on Android phones soon, the interoperability for emoji is a welcome Apple iMessage upgrade.
