Rcs 4.0 lands with video calls and tighter encryption—iphones still stuck in 2022

The ink on RCS Universal Profile 4.0 is barely dry, yet the split-screen reality is already glaring: Android users can taste native video calls and stronger encryption filters in coming months, while iMessage green-bubble refugees watch from the nose-bleed seats.

The spec drops, the gap widens

GSMA published the 4.0 bible on Monday. Inside: real-time video calling baked straight into the carrier pipe, end-to-end encryption hooks for group chats, beefed-up spam shields, and group size limits that finally rival Telegram. The document is 141 pages of telecom poetry—every comma paid for by a decade of SMS regret.

Google Messages engineers were refreshing the page before the PDF finished downloading. History says they’ll ship the goodies before the holidays; Mountain View has never needed a second invitation to out-feature Apple. Carriers who already flipped the RCS switch—think Verizon, Orange, Vodafone—will push the update server-side, so users wake up to new buttons without lifting a thumb.

Apple, meanwhile, is still on UP 2.4, a specification old enough to have a kindergarten diploma. iOS 18 added RCS last year only after the EU started muttering about gatekeepers. The result: higher-resolution memes, but zero encryption when texts cross the platform DMZ. UP 4.0 closes that cryptographic hole—if anyone on the iSide bothers to code it.

Encryption theater, same cast

Here is the part no keynote will say aloud: even if Apple ports 4.0 tomorrow, cross-platform threads remain unencrypted until both endpoints negotiate keys in real time. Google’s client already does this for Android-to-Android chats; Apple would need to build a compatible key server, then convince carriers to stop scanning metadata for “network optimization.” Translation: don’t hold your breath.

Regulators could bang the table, but the GSMA has no enforcement teeth. Compliance is voluntary, like a pirate code. Apple understood this math in 2024 and sat out UP 2.7; nothing structural has changed since except the version number.

For 1.2 billion Android users, 4.0 is a straightforward upgrade pipeline. For the roughly one billion iPhone owners, it is a spectator sport scored in corporate priorities. The next time someone claims messaging is “solved,” show them the specification footnotes—and the empty seat where Apple was supposed to be.