Next week, Apple will release the iOS 18.1 update with Apple Intelligence and more. But despite months of beta testing, there’s one new feature we just learned about today: iOS 18.1 updates Business Messages, including RCS support.
Business Chat Is No Longer Just for iMessage
A few years ago, Apple updated iMessage with a new feature: Business Chat (now known as Messages for Business).
Where supported, this lets you communicate with businesses entirely within the Messages app.
The appeal of this feature is simple: instead of using the often buggy chat interfaces of the web, you can communicate with businesses within the safe and secure hub of Apple’s Messages app.
Previously, this feature was limited to using iMessage. But in iOS 18.1, it’s expanding to support RCS networks.
What does that mean? Hopefully more businesses will join this way of reaching iOS users.
This may be overly optimistic, but I suspect Apple has heard feedback from users and businesses that it would be useful to use Messages for Business without iMessage.
And it will be soon. But only on carriers that currently support RCS in iOS 18, of course.
Are you excited to see Business Messages moving to RCS? Let us know in the comments.
