Google Messages now lets you edit texts you’re sending to iPhones, but there’s a serious catch

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  • You can now edit texts sent from Android to iOS
  • The change is part of the updated RCS standard
  • Texts sent from iOS to Android can’t yet be edited, though

Sending text messages between an iPhone and an Android device has long been a pretty poor experience, with features like typing indicators and read receipts missing for years. That’s shifted in recent years thanks to the use of Rich Communication Services (RCS), and it’s bringing another benefit to your cross-platform chats.

In this case, that’s the ability to edit texts sent from an Android phone to an iPhone (via Android Authority). This feature appears to be rolling out gradually to Android users, so it’s not available to everyone just yet. But if it’s working for you, all you’ve got to do is long press on a sent message, then tap the pencil icon, make your adjustments and save your message.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t work the other way around – that is, texts sent from an iPhone to an Android device cannot be edited. Presumably, Apple will need to update its Messages app to add support for this functionality.

You’ve been able to edit texts sent between iPhones for years, and messages going from one Android device to another have been editable when using RCS for about twelve months. But although editable messages are now part of RCS, companies like Apple and Google need to support the feature – which is why it’s not available in iOS right now.

Slowly adding support

The bottom left corner of an Android phone, showing the Phone, Messages, Google icons and Google Search bar

(Image credit: Shutterstock / Tada Images)

Apple has been reluctant to support RCS for a long time, partly because it previously offered much weaker encryption than Apple’s iMessage platform, which is end-to-end encrypted. However, the change that introduced editable texts to RCS has now also brought forth end-to-end encryption, which might help to smooth things over with Apple.

The rollout of editable messages also hasn’t been entirely pain-free. While edited messages appear as normal on Android (with a small “Edited” timestamp underneath them), they behave differently in iOS. There, iPhone users see a second message preceded by an asterisk, doubling up the number of texts on their screen.

Both Apple and Google gave their support to cross-platform RCS messages earlier this year, so we’re hoping that these bugs and oddities will be ironed out in due course. For now, though, the situation when texting across phone platforms has been improved, even if only in one small way.

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Alex Blake
Alex Blake
Freelance Contributor

Alex Blake has been fooling around with computers since the early 1990s, and since that time he's learned a thing or two about tech. No more than two things, though. That's all his brain can hold. As well as TechRadar, Alex writes for iMore, Digital Trends and Creative Bloq, among others. He was previously commissioning editor at MacFormat magazine. That means he mostly covers the world of Apple and its latest products, but also Windows, computer peripherals, mobile apps, and much more beyond. When not writing, you can find him hiking the English countryside and gaming on his PC.

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