Here is the thing. People gripe about secured messaging, but no one seems to use it. I have both Signal, and WhatsApp installed, and none of my contacts uses either service. This makes one wonder keep these app services? Wouldn’t it just be simpler to use iMessage, or RCS? Well, the answer is Yes, it will.
There are claims that iOS 26.5 supports end to end encryption with RCS. If this is the case, then I will make sure that the bugs are worked out, and wait for iOS 27 to support encryption in RCS, and uninstall the two apps that are not being used, and just taking up space. When that happens links to send me an SMS will open Apple or Google Messages. With Apple Messages, if the recipient is not an iPhone user, then iOS 27 will be some assurance that encryption is supported.
So what does this means for the users of Signal and WhatsApp? Well probably nothing much. Again, none of my contacts seems to use either of these 2 services, and the only reason I have these apps is for the encryption. WhatsApp does a half-a** job at the encryption, and encryption is only in transit. Once it reaches to where it is going to, that encryption is no longer applied. This is because WhatsApp is a product of META who owns Facebook. The very privacy offending social network also owns one of the most popular messaging platforms. This does not sit well with me.
So even though researching for encryption in RCS, it will seem that it already does, but again – I want to make sure all of the kinks are worked out. iOS 27 should come in the last quarter of 2026, or first quarter of 2027. This means that I mostly have 7 months for people to actually communicate with me via the messaging apps before I decide they aren’t worth it, remove their entry from my contact sites, and uninstall the app.