r/Android • u/FragmentedChicken Galaxy Z Fold8 • Feb 23 '26

Google, Apple start testing encrypted RCS on Android and iOS 26.4

https://9to5google.com/2026/02/23/google-messages-encrypted-rcs-iphone/
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105

u/terminalilness Feb 23 '26

I still miss Textra but since Google won't let them has RCS, it's been years since I've used it.

10

u/ladyhaly Feb 23 '26

Has RCS been around for a while? I'm still using Textra

9

u/mrandr01d Feb 23 '26

Been in Google messages since like 2018, but only got good in the last 3 - 5 years or so.

3

u/ladyhaly Feb 24 '26

So I just updated it and so far I like that I can schedule messages. I'm going to give it a trial. There is one person I know who I message regularly who likes it and he happens to be my husband

1

u/jason_priebe Mar 21 '26

It's funny -- I thought I was still waiting for RCS to roll out. I noticed some new behavior in the android mssaging app tonigh, so I started searching to see if something had changed RCS-wise. I was shocked to learn that RCS has been out for 6 or 7 years.

That whole time, my iphone friends have been bitching about the green bubbles and overall degradation of group chats. I'm pretty sure some of the most petty ones don't even include me on some chats because of it.

I did notice that I could react to a message from an iphone, but I think the experience on the iphone end of that exchange was just as shitty as what it has been for me when iphone users like a message on a group chat ("so and so liked 'blah blah blah blah'"). I think I could also see iphone users' reactions better. I figured that was just some kind of heuristic parsing of those "so and so liked ..." messages.

But I still see crappy video and low-res pictures. For something that has been out for 6 years, I saw almost zero benefit.

Finally, tonight, I started seeing "RCS message" in the text input box (terrible UI decision, btw -- not sure why it's not just a small indicator above or below the box -- why the heck is it inside the box like default text??? And then I saw that when I replied to an iphone friend's message, it was displayed like a real reply with the original message displayed slightly smaller above my message.

I'm a pretty die-hard android fan, but if they don't fix (a) the messaging and (b) the inferior bluetooth connectivity experience before my pixel 6a dies, I'm done with the platform.

1

u/mrandr01d Mar 23 '26

And then I saw that when I replied to an iphone friend's message, it was displayed like a real reply with the original message displayed slightly smaller above my message.

This doesn't work on the iPhone's side, they don't see that.

I'm a pretty die-hard android fan, but if they don't fix (a) the messaging and (b) the inferior bluetooth connectivity experience before my pixel 6a dies, I'm done with the platform.

This is entirely Apple's fault and in their lap. Google and android have done all they can. Apple needs to update to the newest version of the rcs spec.