Android w/ Google Messages RCS

[cwr64]

I have Samsung A32 5G running Android 13 and Google Messages with RCS turned on. I text with about 20 people, but in Google Messages only about 3 of them in the main screen show RCS. Some of the people I text with use Android and some use iPhone, Why do not more of them show RCS? Do they also have to have RCS turned on in their messaging app?

 

[Clementine_3]

Apple uses iMessage and it doesn't play nice with Android. Google semi-recently started using RCS and it doesn't play nice with Apple (short answer is they won't open either up so Apple's fault on both). Your Android contacts do have to have it turned on, those are the ones showing RCS or chat but they don't have to use it.
I use Textra so, even though I'm using Android, it doesn't show as RCS. Messaging is all messed up and I use WhatsApp for group and iPhone situations.

 

[Hadron]

Those using iPhones cannot access RCS. Those using Android can use RCS if they both use an RCS-capable messaging app and have signed in to RCS messaging.

There are currently only 2 RCS-capable messaging apps, Google's Messages app and Samsung's app (which has the same name), so anyone who uses a different app will not have access to RCS. I do not know why Google will not allow anyone else to use the APIs: it's like they want everyone to use it, but also want to be Apple-like in their control. Maybe there's a good reason, maybe there's a bad reason, maybe there's no reason at all - Google have never explained.

As for signing in, I suspect many people don't even know it exists: lots of people just use the default app with the default options and never look at the settings, in which case they'll never realise it's there. And not all of those who do know will bother: I don't know anyone who uses it, so for me it's not worth doing, especially since that would mean using either Google's or Samsung's app, both of which I find sadly lacking in customisation compared to what I use myself (edit: I'm another Textra user).

Personally I find it easier to use WhatsApp or Signal: work with both Android and iOS, and while Signal is more select everyone I know has WhatsApp so it's essentially replaced SMS (I get SMS from companies, but personal SMS have been rare for some years now).

 

[cwr64]

OK. I do know that iPhones are not using RCS. I was not aware that only Google Messages and Samsung have RCS. I run Google Messages mainly because I find it difficult to use the tiny cell phone keyboards, and Messages allows me to use the W10 desktop full size keyboard. I used Signal for awhile but gave it up when I uncovered a nasty bug in the product having to do with group messaging, and after a number of months, nobody "at Signal" worked to fix that problem (I submitted documentation of the problem more than once). I have not looked at WhatsApp but would be interested in anything that is free and uses end-to-end encryption I do like the benefits of RCS and wish more folks turned it on. I am not aware of cons with RCS. I do not care about any Messaging customization.

 

[Hadron]

The big con of RCS for me is that it doesn't work between platforms, and has limited reach even within android. It's been around for years, so isn't likely to change quickly now.

WhatsApp is free and end-to-end encrypted. Its drawback is that someone has to install it, but in my experience that's far more likely than them having RCS. A second drawback is that these days it's owned by Meta (Facebook), but then the RCS system is operated by Google (even though they didn't invent it) so either way you have a surveillance capitalist gathering data on who you message, though not the content of the messages (Google could do this for SMS, but as it's their servers that RCS are handled by you can be certain they are for RCS). One useful thing about WhatsApp is that you can also make calls through it, which is handy if you have data access but are somewhere were voice calls are expensive (e.g. travelling internationally: a data-only eSIM is a lot cheaper than internal roaming).

 

[cwr64]

I don't know what you mean by "doesn't work between platforms, and has limited reach".

 

[Hadron]

The term "platform" is similar to "operating system", and often used interchangeably (though technically a platform is a mix of hardware and software while an operating system is purely software). In the context of smartphones there are 2 main platforms, Android and iOS. Apps and services that are available on more than one platform or operating system are referred to as "cross-platform", which is why I used the word "platform" rather than "operating system" in that post. So the fact that RCS doesn't work on iPhones is a disadvantage (and the same is true for Apple's iMessage system, but both of these are Apple's choices).

As for the reach within Android, it's just a restatement of what you were bemoaning at the start: many Android users don't or can't use RCS, and therefore it doesn't reach many people.

 

[mikedt]

I don't and can't use RCS, and nobody else around here uses RCS either.

RCS is only something I've read about, but never had the options to use it myself.