this post was submitted on 15 May 2025
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They need to rebrand RCS as something else. Messages is still synonymous with sms with android users, especially older devices and yes, older users.
Its actually enabled by default in new devices. Problem is, RCS requires internet, and not everyone has unlimited data.
But it's clunky somehow. After having it enabled for years I recently received a new SIM from my carrier and with that new physical SIM it just told me my carrier doesn't support RCS. That's it, no way to configure it or something. Just no, doesn't do. The same carrier that did support it the day before mind you. And it didn't work for a couple of weeks, then when I had already forgotten about it, it enabled itself over night or something.
And possibly for similar reasons I know people where from one day to another the chat falls back to SMS and I have confirmed with them that they are on the same phone and contract etc... we both have no idea why RCS stopped working for them.
Like this, it isn't really mass marketable imo.
Yea, RCS requires both the carrier and Google's systems to inter-operate. Meanwhile, Apple's iMessage only requires Apple to work with themselves.
Google could theoretically build a Google Messages counterpart to iMessage and skip the Carrier as the middleman, but then it wouldn't be interoperable with iPhones since it wouldn't be an "open standard"
Google did that, in 2013. Hangouts was briefly the default SMS client on Android, and it would upgrade conversations from SMS to its protocol when available. It was available for iPhone, but couldn't be an SMS client there.
Rumor has it, carriers whined about it, and Google caved out of fear they would promote Windows Phone devices instead. I think that was a foolish move on Google's part, but I think I'm glad Google doesn't own a dominant messaging platform.
It doesn't need a carrier to be an open standard.
The current standard requires carriers to make it work.
Maybe someone needs to make a new RCS without needing carriers to also do anything. Because if we are relying on carriers to implement something, its likely they'll not get implemented for decades.
Surely Google wouldn’t put an untested, buggy technology directly into production?!?!
I've been using it for years to chat with people on a bunch of different carriers... Seems like carrier incompetence, not Google's fault
I don't think this is a Google thing.
We have working cross-carrrier RCS in Ukraine. No one uses it though.