Newbie Question - Texting App

[Bstep55]

Can I make an app like QKSMS, Simple SMS Messenger or Telegram my default texting app and receive messages from all my contacts? Regardless of which texting app my contacts have? And of course, have them receive my messages without them having the app I use.

 

[Milo Williamson]

Can I make an app like QKSMS, Simple SMS Messenger or Telegram my default texting app and receive messages from all my contacts? Regardless of which texting app my contacts have? And of course, have them receive my messages without them having the app I use.

Pretty much any app you download and can choose the three, have it set on always for your contacts.

 

[Hadron]

For SMS you can - indeed with the last 4 or so versions of Android you will only be able to use a SMS app like QKSMS by making it the default.

Telegram is different: it uses its own, Internet-based messaging, and only Telegram can receive Telegram messages. It also does not do SMS. So if you use SMS and Telegram you have to use 2 different apps.

There are also apps like Signal or Facebook Messenger which have their own message protocols (so like Telegram no other app can read or send those messages) but can also handle SMS.

But the short answer is that SMS/MMS are universal, anything else will need its own app. So unless you only use SMS the answer is probably "no".

 

[Trom]

Can I make an app like QKSMS, Simple SMS Messenger or Telegram my default texting app and receive messages from all my contacts? Regardless of which texting app my contacts have? And of course, have them receive my messages without them having the app I use.

If you go to settings > apps > default apps > SMS text, (settings tree may vary phone to phone but you'll find it) a list of text messaging apps will be shown and you can choose the default. Remember to turn notifications on for the default and off for the one you're sidelining.

Telegram uses its own protocol and is not compatible with SMS/MMS and will not appear on the list if apps to choose from.

 

[Bstep55]

Thanks. I will ponder whether to change. The question came up because some of my contacts weren't getting my messages from my Samsung A32 5G phone. I have changed Android phones in the past and never encountered this before.

 

[Hadron]

What type of message were they not getting (SMS, MMS, Telegram, other...?) and is there anything in common between these contacts who don't receive them (e.g. they are with a particular carrier, they are all iPhone users, ...?).

For SMS/MMS it really, really should not matter what app you use: they are all just front-ends for the same SMS service, the message and the protocol that carries it is the same regardless. For other types of message there is generally no choice of app anyway.

 

[Bstep55]

My first Android phone was a BLU phone and I was able to send and receive text messages using the Messages app. Next I switched to a Moto X4 phone and continued to use the Messages app without any problem.
Recently, I switched phones and got a Samsung A32 5G. Again I continued using the Messages app. These are all Android phones with the Messages app setup by default. I made no changes.
One of my contacts, who switched phones from an iPhone to a Moto phone then developed this problem: I would receive texts from her but she would not receive any of my texts.
I later found out that I had to set my phone to send ONLY SMS/MMS messages. So I made the change for that contact and it seems to be working fine again. I can only assume the Samsung phone does not have the same Messages app that other Android phones have.
So I will stick with the Messages app on this Samsung phone, but I did contemplate using a different app for my texts.

 

[Hadron]

Are we sure that the problem isn't with your former iPhone-owning friend? When someone switching platforms has a problem with messages it's usually Apple that is behind it, e.g. the infamous feature where if they don't sign out of iMessage when leaving Apple they will never receive a message from an iPhone owner.

Setting your phone to only send SMS/MMS should not be a problem because all phones can receive those. It's other types of message (RCS, Telegram, Signal, WhatsApp, Facebook, iMessage and all of the rest) where some can receive and some can't. So if your former iPhone owner cannot receive SMS I am sure that the problem is with her phone. Maybe she should check that she did sign out of iMessage (you can sign out from the web these days), though I'd not expect that to be the issue when you are using Android.

Anyway, "Messages" is a very generic name, so it isn't necessarily the same app on all devices. The Samsung app does support RCS (in fact the Samsung app and the Google app of the same name are the only 2 that I know do support it), so I guess the unspecified change you made was related to that? I'm afraid I've no experience of RCS myself, so can't help with anything related to that (it's not cross-platform, even on Android only some apps and some networks support it, so it's of little use to me). But as I say it's odd that she has problems with the universal, cross-platform protocols, and if these started when she changed platform my suspicion is that there's something related to that change behind it rather than a problem with your phone.

 

[Bstep55]

After changing the setting in the Messages app on the Samsung phone whereby texts sent to this particular contact uses SMS/MMS, we can now send and receive text messages.
Before switching over to the Moto phone, she did turn off iMessage on the iPhone. I too, at first thought Apple was the culprit. Wasn't sure how (as she followed switch-over steps as set out by an article on CNet).
Anyway, setting my Samsung to send this contact SMS and MMS ONLY, has solved the problem. So it seems the Messages app on the Samsung phone can send messages by default by some other protocol, maybe RCS. I don't know.

 

[Hadron]

Ah, sorry, I misunderstood. I thought that setting it to allow something other than SMS/MMS was the problem.

Yeah, not even all Android users can receive RCS, so that may well have been the problem (of course you'd hope that the RCS protocol was smart enough to check whether the other person was using RCS and send as SMS/MMS instead, but maybe not?).

RCS is actually a rather old protocol for enhancing SMS, which Google started pushing a few years back. Unfortunately it's also something that required work on the part of the networks to support it (because it is network-based like SMS, rather than run from central servers like iMessage, WhatsApp and the rest). Of course Apple immediately said that they wouldn't support it on iPhones (because if RCS became an out-of-the-box cross-platform enhanced message system it would undermine iMessage, and iMessage is deliberately Apple-only so that it locks iPhone users into the platform - and I'm also sure this was why Google were pushing it). This meant that there was less incentive for carriers to support it (as it wouldn't work for a large fraction of customers), which also meant less incentive for other apps to support it, and so it's never really caught on the way Google intended, and I would not be surprised if it withers away over time: it won't just get turned-off like other products Google lose interest in, because Google don't own it, but I think Google will lose interest in pushing it (TBH I get the impression they already have), and without someone pushing it it will gradually fall into disuse.

 

[Bstep55]

Thanks so much for your information and interest in my problem.