Apple on Monday released a new developer beta for iOS and iPadOS that supports end-to-end encryption (E2EE) on Rich Communications Services (RCS) messages.
This feature is currently available for testing in iOS and iPadOS 26.4 beta and will be available to customers in future updates to iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and watchOS.
“End-to-end encryption is in beta and not available on all devices or carriers,” Apple said in its release notes. “Conversations labeled encrypted are end-to-end encrypted, so messages cannot be read as they are sent between devices.”
The iPhone maker also pointed out that RCS encryption is only available for conversations between Apple devices and is not available on other platforms such as Android.
The secure messaging test was conducted nearly a year after the GSM Association (GSMA) officially announced support for E2EE to secure messages sent via the RCS protocol. E2EE for RCS requires Apple to update to RCS Universal Profile 3.0, which is built on top of the Messaging Layer Security (MLS) protocol.
The latest beta also includes a new feature that allows applications to opt-in to the full Memory Integrity Enforcement (MIE) protection feature for enhanced memory safety protection. Apple says that previously applications were limited to soft mode.
MIE was announced by the company last September as a way to counter advanced mercenary spyware attacks targeting its platform by providing “always-on memory safeguards” across critical attack surfaces such as the kernel and over 70 userland processes without imposing any performance overhead.
According to a report from MacRumors, iOS 26.4 will enable stolen device protection by default for all iPhone users. This feature adds an extra layer of security by requiring Face ID or Touch ID biometric authentication when performing sensitive operations, such as accessing stored passwords or credit cards, when the device is away from familiar locations such as home or work.
In addition to Face ID or Touch ID authentication, Stolen Device Protection also adds a one-hour delay before changing your Apple account password, giving users time to mark their device as lost if it’s stolen.
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