Apple is now allowing green bubble messages to send reactions.

Apple has finally improved the way message reactions from Android users display on iOS. Now, when an Android user reacts to an RCS message from an iOS user, the selected emoji appears directly in the message bubble on iOS, rather than as a separate line (e.g., “💀 to ‘that wasn’t supposed to happen’”). The Verge tested message reactions between iPhones running iOS 18.1 and various Android devices, confirming that reactions now display correctly on both.

It’s unclear when this change was made or if adjustments came from Google or Apple. When RCS launched widely on iOS in September, Android reactions still displayed incorrectly on iPhones, even though they worked the other way around. Both companies were contacted for comment but didn’t respond before publication.

Apple’s quiet improvement to RCS messaging is unexpected, especially since it had resisted Google’s push to adopt the RCS standard, eventually doing so after regulatory pressure from China and the EU. Basic RCS support was added with iOS 18, and Apple’s Messages app now officially supports the RCS Universal Profile. While RCS version 2.7 includes support for emoji reactions and message editing, the latter feature doesn’t currently work on iOS. Apple, however, is expected to keep many exclusive features for its blue bubble iMessage service unless required to make changes.