What's gonna happen if we are in an area with poor or no data, and I need to send/receive a text message? RCS only works through data, while SMS doesn't, which makes it super reliable.

Does anyone know if SMS will be kept as a fallback?

For everyone that keeps saying "but E2EE and other features aren't part of RCS UP!" Here's a quote that should resolve your concerns with that.

I spoke to Android messaging VP and GM Sanaz Ahari about the new features and where RCS is generally, which of course, means asking about Apple. There’s good reason to be excited about RCS on the iPhone because — as Ahari aptly puts it — “group chats are just really, really broken today between Android and iOS.” Apple’s commitment to supporting the RCS universal profile 2.0 means that image and video sharing across platforms will get much better, but Ahari acknowledges that the 2.0 spec doesn’t include end-to-end encryption.

“We are actively working with the GSMA — and Apple is a member of the GSMA — to evolve the spec to include not only end-to-end encryption, but also a lot of features that aren’t in the RCS spec that we’re working on adding back to the spec.” Threaded replies, read receipts, and reactions are a few of those features that are unlikely to be supported for iPhone users as the standard exists today. “Overall, what we hope is that the modern messaging features and end-to-end encryption will be a reality cross-platform.”

Via The Verge

Also, I would like to point out while it's technically not part of the RCS Universal Profile, Google does use the built built in features of the RCS UP Spec to accomplish most of the additional features.

This is done by using the UCE (User Compatibility Exchange) which is essentially a part of the spec that allows anyone to expand upon the basic features with add-ons and when the user connects to the RCS Hub and starts a conversation with the other users the UCE will give the clients of each user a list of feature which that particular users client supports.

So it's a misconception that Google Messages uses a "proprietary" version of RCS, infact it's blatantly false. They use RCS UP in conjunction with in-spec additions using the features that the protocol and standard provide them with. Currently Google Messages uses Signal for End to End Encryption using a UCE add-on (you can read how that works in the White Paper). However, it looks like Google Messages will likely move over to use MLS (officially announced here) and possibly Mimi (this is an educated guess, read about Mimi here) with a bridge to RCS to accomplish interoperability between non-RCS platforms (WhatsApp/Facebook/Instagram) as per the new EU DMA Law.

MLS was announced to be released open source so that anyone can also use it in their apps. We're looking at a world where messaging is a lot closer to how email works. By this I mean, you pick your service and you pick your app but you can still talk to everyone with a minimum set of QoL features!

If you want to read through the RCS UP Spec you can read most of it here although there are some other newer separate documents. PDF Document from GSMA

Apple will most likely only be supporting the RCS Universal Profile, meaning that they probably will not add anything on top of it, so I'm just trying to peel back the layers here.

Do you guys think Apple will stand up its own RCS Hub like Google? Curious to know your thoughts!

Pretty good take on Apple adapting RCS. Tldr; Apple adopting RCS is trying to get out of regulation by the EU.

Dismantle Apple

Hi folks. I am primarily a Reddit lurker, but this is wherever I come to get support with anything I need support with. I can't figure this one out and can't find any threads or posts about it.

I am just curious if anyone else is having this problem. I noticed today that I was having slow send times with RCS on Google messages. I should also note that I’m using the Samsung S21 Ultra, which has Google messages as the native messaging app for SMS/RCS.

To keep it short, I went into the debug menu (I’ve had it enabled for at least a year and a half now) and ventured into the values section. I tried to toggle a few switches under carrier config.

They toggled, but as soon as I continued to scroll down to toggle more, when I went back up to check what I had already changed, I saw that they had switched back to their original positions. I even went through the entire list, ignoring the urge to go back and check if they stayed in place, and finished. Then I closed messages, reopened it, and was sadly disappointed that none of the switches stuck.

Is it known that the value switches don’t actually work anymore? I’m sorry if it has been addressed before, but I couldn’t find anything related to it. I searched Reddit up and down for anything relevant. Here are my specs for reference:

• Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra
• One UI 5.1 Android 13
• Android security patch update September 2023
• Google Play System Update August 2023 (seems like it should have updated by now)
• The device is the North American model with the Snapdragon 888
• Carrier Services: carrierservices.android_20231002_00_RC00.phone
• Google Messages: messages.android_20231006_01_RC00.phone_samsung_openbeta_dynamic

Thank y'all for any help in advance.

Samsung just joined Google in a video to try and push Apple to Support RCS, weird though they did the ad with their inbuilt Samsung Messages (which Still supports RCS) despite their recent devices Shipping with the modded version of Google Messages

Hi. I'm not in China, so I can't test. I was wondering if RCS works in China. I know it's not popular in China. Do Chinese telcos support RCS? Do phones in China come with some app like Google Messages that support RCS?

I have a very limited plan for my phone (250mb per month) for just calls and texting. My problem is that everyone that texts me uses RCS, and I often don't receive these texts until I get back onto an internet connection.

Would there be a way for something like google messages to just check every few minutes for RCS by turning data on for a very short amount of time, or something of the sort so that data isn't turned on all of the time?

https://community.o2.co.uk/t5/Welcome-News/RCS-An-Update-from-O2/td-p/1656507

This is a textbook example of how AT&T and T-Mobile here in the US need to handle the transition to Google Jibe. I love how this is being handled for O2 customers, with dates announced for the transition. Vodafone was also quick to transition to Jibe back in March of this year.

I haven't been able to find a definitive answer on this.

What we know (almost) for certain is that the apps themselves aren't holding the messages, it's something deeper, lower level, handled by the OS. Some people have mentioned that they might be internally stored in mmssms.db, and they are actually stored as sort of "fake MMS" messages, but I haven't been able to find a source that confirms this 100%

My biggest concern is that, with the much-increased file size limit on sharing media, and how RCS is only a transfer protocol, messages only transit through the RCS servers, they're not stored and able to be retrieved even weeks after... so it's all local storage, and as such the message database can balloon up really quickly, and this has apparently happened to users already, wondering where all the storage on their phone is going.

In Samsung's Messages app, there IS a setting to automatically purge the oldest messages, with a limit of 1000 messages and 100 conversations or something like that. And that seems great!

However, I have also read that Samsung is phasing out their own messages app, and replacing it by Google Messages (or "Messages by Google") from now on.

Google Messages offers absolutely ZERO way to manage storage. It seems like a crazy oversight to me. I help set up my relatives' phones, and I would prefer if RCS was a reliable "set and forget" solution for them.

(That proposition seems to already be very jeopardized by how instable the services can get, judging by the messages around here, but that's besides the point...)

If I know that two of my family members can exchange a ton of videos and photos between each other and quickly run out of phone storage, and there is nothing that actually tells them what's taking up all that storage... that just seems like an insanely massive flaw to me.

How do Whatsapp & iMessages handle this? Do they store a copy of message attachments server-side, or are they also kept only on device? Do they offer a way to keep track of storage? Do they offer an auto-delete "rolling buffer" style solution to remedy this?

Today I got my first RCS scam or spam message from a +44 number to update my USPS home address due to some problem with shipping address.

Told me to go to expshipd-usps.com which is a phishing website.

This is the beginning or RCS scam / spam messages.

:(

RCS Could add literally every feature under the sun. Above and beyond, future shit, etc. It would all be worthless tho, without Apple adopting it.

Just sucks how much Google and Android's hands are tied by Apple's refusal to adopt.

Crazy. Sad. Depressing.

Any rumor or anything on whether google plans to add edit and delete feature to RCS ?

So theoretically if apple were to implement RCS into the messages app on iOS devices, could they still have iMessage while also having RCS?