This week, Apple released iOS 26.5 , an update that supports end-to-end encryption for Rich Communication Services (RCS), meaning conversations between Android and iPhone will soon be encrypted in the default chat apps. This has been a long time coming, and is a welcome delivery on a promise both Google and Apple made . With this update, conversations that take place between Apple’s Messages app and Google Messages on Android will be end-to-end encrypted by default, as long as the carrier supports both RCS and encrypted messages (you can find a list of carriers here ). RCS messages are a replacement for SMS , and in 2024 Apple started supporting it, making for a marked improvement in the quality of images and other media shared between Android and iPhones.  Now, those conversations can also benefit from the increased privacy and security that end-to-end encryption offers, making it so neither Google, Apple, nor the cellular carriers have access to the contents of messages.…