You can now edit Android texts sent to iPhones—sort of
But, iPhone users still can’t edit RCS messages they send to Android phones.
We’ve all been there—you send a text, spot a glaring typo, and wish you could undo it. If you're messaging between iPhones or between Androids using Rich Communication Services (RCS), fixing it is easy. But cross-platform? Until now, that was a dead end.
That’s finally starting to shift. As seen in a report by Android Authority, some Android users have begun to notice they can now edit RCS messages they’ve already sent to iPhone users. With over a billion RCS messages sent daily in the US, it’s a long-overdue upgrade and a small victory for anyone who’s ever cringed at a mistake they couldn’t take back.
It works like this: after sending an RCS message to an iPhone user, you can long-press the message on your Android device, tap a pencil icon, and make your edit, so long as you’re within the 15-minute window. On the Android side, it behaves like a proper edit. But on the iPhone, the updated message shows up as a brand-new text, prefixed with an asterisk.
Emmanuel Oyedeji
There’s also a bigger limitation. iPhone users still can’t edit RCS messages they send to Android phones. That’s because Apple’s implementation of RCS is still based on an older version of the standard—Universal Profile 2.4—which didn’t support message editing. But, earlier this year, the GSM Association released Universal Profile 3.0, which finally includes message editing and end-to-end encryption. Google’s moving on it, but Apple, unsurprisingly, hasn’t rushed to overhaul its Messages app just to match what Google is doing.
It’s also worth noting that the feature hasn’t rolled out widely yet. According to the report, only a few people have seen the editing feature live. So this isn’t a broad rollout. It looks like Google is A/B testing the feature in the Messages beta, which means most people won’t have access yet.
If you’re using Google Messages beta and the person on the other end is running iOS 18.5 or the latest iOS 26 beta, you might get lucky, and be able to edit a text you send from Android to an iPhone—but your iPhone friend will get it as a slightly awkward follow-up message, and they still won’t be able to do the same in return.
Still, it’s an encouraging step. Google has spent years pushing for RCS to become the universal messaging standard. Now that Apple is finally playing ball, the messaging gap is finally closing, one long-overdue feature at a time. So yes, this is progress, albeit it’s still lopsided and far from finished.
Maybe one day, texting between Android and iPhone will feel like it all just works. Today is not that day. But it’s a start.
Emmanuel Oyedeji
