Apple will finally allow green bubble messages to send reactions.
Goodbye to a feature exclusive to the blue bubble.
Apple has improved the display of message reactions for Android users, allowing emoji responses to appear correctly on iOS. This means that when an Android user reacts to an RCS message sent from an iOS device, the emoji will show up within the same message thread instead of appearing on a separate line as it did before.
Tests conducted with iPhones running iOS 18.1 and various Android phones confirmed that reactions are now displayed as intended. Although it is unclear when this change was implemented, or if Google or Apple made adjustments to achieve it, the improvement comes after a long wait. Since its rushed launch on iOS last September, reactions from Android users were not displaying correctly on iPhones, even though they worked the other way around.
The big surprise is that Apple has finally made this adjustment despite having ignored Google's requests for years to adopt the RCS standard. Basic support for this system was included in iOS 18, following pressure in regions like China and the European Union. Apple respects the universal profile of RCS within its Messages app, which also includes support for emoji reactions.
RCS version 2.7 also provides the option to edit a sent message; however, this aspect could not be verified on iOS. Still, Apple will likely retain as many exclusive features as possible for its iMessage service as long as it is not forced to change.