When iOS 18 ships later this year it will bring support for RCS to the iPhone for the first time. RCS will allow iPhones to send and receive rich messages with Android devices and function similarly to iMessage, but some people report that they're seeing RCS-like behavior with older versions of iOS as well.
Read receipts are part of the RCS specification and they're one of the features iPhone owners are already looking forward to when chatting with their Android-toting friends and family. But some people say that they are already seeing SMS messages marked as "read" even when using older versions of the iPhone's operating system and long before iOS 18 ships to the public.
Some of those reporting this experience say they are using iOS 17, but oddly others say that they have experienced the same thing as far back as iOS 13, suggesting that this is more a bug than a feature.
Getting the message
A new post on Reddit includes a screenshot from an iPhone reportedly running iOS 17 complete with "Read" text beneath a green bubble. The poster says that the status started to appear on messages last week, while others have chimed in to say they're experiencing the same thing.
However, others say that this has been happening for a long time now, suggesting that perhaps Apple has a bug that it's yet to squash rather than this being some pre-launch RCS configuration on Apple's end that is bleeding over into iOS 17 devices.
As for iOS 18, that's currently available in developer beta while a public beta program will go live later this month. A final global public release isn't expected until September, though.
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