Googleโ€™s making its implementation of RCS even better. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Google announced itโ€™s going to start rolling out end-to-end encrypted group RCS chats to the Google Messages beta over the next few weeks. Googleโ€™s messaging app has supported encryption for one-on-one conversations for a while now, but this is a big step for feeling confident that most of your conversations canโ€™t be read by carriers or Google.

In an announcement post on Friday, Google said the feature will be โ€œavailable to some users in the open beta program over the coming weeks,โ€ so it may be a moment before itโ€™s generally available. Google also officially announced that itโ€™s working on a feature thatโ€™ll let you use any emoji when reacting to an RCS message; the company was spotted testing this last month.

Image: Google
Keep your dinner plans to the people actually invited to dinner.

While Googleโ€™s announcement post is styled as a farewell to SMS messaging, most of us wonโ€™t be able to ditch it that easily, as Apple has so far refused to bring the tech to iOS. (Tim Cook even told one person that a better solution is just buying their mom an iPhone.) Google acknowledges this and takes a few shots at its competitor, ending its post by saying, โ€œall of the major mobile carriers and manufacturers have adopted RCS as the standard โ€“ except for Apple,โ€ and that Appleโ€™s use of SMS โ€œmeans their texting is stuck in the 1990s.โ€

Image: Google
Arbitrary emoji reactions for text messages do indeed feel like the future of messaging.

Itโ€™s the latest in a mostly one-sided feud between Google and Apple over RCS, with the Android maker seemingly trying to publicly shame Apple into adopting the standard, arguing that it would make things better for everyone.

The thought has often been that Appleโ€™s iMessage is a decent competitor for iPhone users, though that may not be the case for much longer; given Appleโ€™s stance on privacy, thereโ€™s been some concern over the fact that iMessageโ€™s end-to-end encryption could be defeated if you or the person youโ€™re talking to has iCloud backups on. If Google Messagesโ€™ RCS group chats donโ€™t have that problem, it, along with options like WhatsApp and Signal, which have been expanding the ambitions of encrypted group chats even further, might be a better option for most people.

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