If you’re thinking about installing the shiny new iOS 27 developer beta 1 on your iPhone, be aware that the RCS end-to-end encryption option is missing. There’s no need to panic, though. Apple is not phasing out the feature.
What’s happening in beta 1 is almost certainly just branching. Apple forks a new major version off an internal build before all the latest 26.x work gets merged in, so features that already shipped can quietly fall out of the first beta and turn back up a build or two later. It’s a normal part of the cycle.
After all, shipping a half-working encryption toggle in an unstable build would be worse than not shipping it at all.
The feature itself is an important one.
Unlike texts sent over iMessage, which are always end-to-end encrypted, those sent over RCS aren’t. Green bubble chats between iPhone and Android devices could be read in plaintext while they travel between devices.
