The days of going completely off the grid might be over. If you have an iPhone 14 or newer, you’ll be able to send texts and iMessages without cell reception from basically anywhere in the United States, just as long as you have a clear view of the sky.
See, when you wander outside of cellular range, your messages will be ferried to their recipients thanks to satellites — a feat that used to be limited to contacting emergency services. (Even better, the feature is free to use, at least for now.)
In our early testing, the feature seems to work at least partially; I managed to fire off a few text messages to my wife and a colleague on a craggy stretch of beach along California’s Highway 1 that Verizon service couldn’t reach. The catch? Even though those messages took only about 15 seconds to send, my wife wasn’t using Apple’s preview software, so I couldn’t see any of her responses until I found cell service again.
As an emergency outreach feature, satellite messaging seems to do the trick even in its incomplete form. Just, please, do yourself a favor: Don’t cavalierly put yourself in a situation where you’d need to rely on satellite messages to work perfectly. That’s asking way too much from unfinished software.
You may notice some long-overdue changes to the way messages work even if you aren’t traipsing through the backcountry.
IOS 18 also includes support for RCS messages, so when you text your Android-using pals, you’ll see modern messaging flourishes such as typing indicators and read receipts, plus full-quality photos and full-length videos coming and going.
It’s not quite iMessage for Android, but it’s as close as we’re probably going to get for a long time.
