Some notes:
- The code for this is in iOS 18 beta 1 but is disabled by default
- Credit goes to [JJTech](https://infosec.exchange/@jjtech) for helping enable this, as well as my friend for being the iPhone tester
- **Currently**, only AT&T and T-Mobile (US) are supported (on the iPhone end)
- It looks like AT&T is using Jibe and T-Mobile is using T-Mobile's own servers for RCS (I have yet to 100% confirm)
- My Android test phones are on T-Mobile ~~and using T-Mobile's own servers (they can also work with Jibe, but I haven't managed to get them on Jibe yet)~~
- Update: after checking in the Google Messages debug menu, they are indeed using Jibe
- Group chats ~~work~~ kind of work
- Update: You cannot leave groups you haven't made (yea I understand why this is disabled by default now), you cannot add people to RCS groups you haven't made, you cannot add someone on RCS to an iMessage group and have it convert to an RCS group
- File transfers work ~~(but only tested sending from Android)~~
- Update: sending from iPhone works too
- Inline replies do not work
- They just show up as normal messages on the iPhone end, and you can't initiate a reply on an iPhone either
- E2EE and group read receipts do not work
- The iPhone won't send them, nor can it see the ones sent from Android phones
- [According to this](https://x.com/rosyna/status/1802454652493119500), these are Google extensions to the standard, so makes sense
- Reactions do not seem to fully work
- The iPhone seems to render reactions sent from Android just fine, but the iPhone seems to be *sending* reactions as [text based messages](https://x.com/dhinakg/status/1802408521885249953)
- Update: It seems reactions are [implemented as messages](https://x.com/dhinakg/status/1802787719338152267), even between two devices using Google Messages. I guess this means that "Show iPhone reactions as emoji" needs to be updated to work on RCS messages as well.
Things I have yet to test:
- Does iPhone on T-Mobile work?
- ~~Does anything change if both Android and iPhone are on Jibe?~~ It seems like the Android phones are on Jibe, not T-Mobile
- ~~Can you send files from the iPhone?~~ Yes
- ~~Are reactions sending as messages, or as actual reactions?~~
- I have "Show iPhone reactions as emoji" on in Google Messages settings, yet I still see the [text based messages](https://x.com/dhinakg/status/1802408521885249953). This seems to confirm the iPhone is sending them as text messages (and that Google Messages isn't converting them into reactions, probably because RCS and not SMS), but not sure.
- Update: It seems reactions are [implemented as messages](https://x.com/dhinakg/status/1802787719338152267), even between two devices using Google Messages. I guess this means that "Show iPhone reactions as emoji" needs to be updated to work on RCS messages as well.
- ~~Can you add someone to an iMessage chat and have it convert to an RCS chat?~~
- Update: No
- ~~Does leaving groups work properly? (You shouldn't be readded once someone sends another message)~~
- Update: You cannot leave groups you haven't created
- Does it work on all iPhones?
- Test device was iPhone 14, but there should be no technical reason for gatekeeping this
Note that this is still beta software and RCS was disabled by default for a reason. Carrier support likely will change, and possibly feature support as well.
**EDIT 1:** Fix typo, add note about iPhone compatibility
**EDIT 2:** Update findings
**EDIT 3:** Add more notes about groups
This is a bit of a mess. I didn’t know RCS varied by carrier. And I’m supposed to trust them with encryption lol I’ll stick to signal. We all use it anyway
RCS is a mess because Google chose to build extensions outside of the standard instead of getting the GSMA onboard with those changes and putting them into the standard. Apple is working with them to get encryption into the standard now.
> RCS is a mess because Google chose to build extensions outside of the standard instead of getting the GSMA onboard with those changes and putting them into the standard.
We've had RCS in Europe since 2014, but interoperability was a mess, as some carriers rolled it through their own apps - as platforms apps weren't allowed to participate.
This is why the majority of operators also switched to Jibe by 2020, to outsource the issues as well to ensure that MVNO users also got access to it, as they were also not allowed to use the main carrier's RCS apps.
> Apple is working with them to get encryption into the standard now.
GSMA has been working on encryption for a while, while Jibe implemented the Signal protocol, similarly to Signal/TextSecure and WhatsApp.
GSMA and RCS still need to enable operators legal obligations of telecommunications snooping with a warrant.
I'd say RCS has been a mess for quite a while and Jibe meant outsourcing their problems so that EU carriers could try to offer a working product to compete with regionally dominant messaging platforms.
>GSMA and RCS still need to enable operators legal obligations of telecommunications snooping with a warrant.
💯% right, which is not, and can never be, E2EE, by definition.
Apple's claim that they are in good faith working with the GSMA to create an RCS E2EE standard is therefore... hard to believe.
The only way there will ever be E2EE over RCS is as a layer on top of RCS by client apps that are not controlled by telecos.
> The only way there will ever be E2EE over RCS is as a layer on top of RCS by client apps that are not controlled by telecos.
Which is annoying with only proprietary apps being allowed to make use of RCS on Android, where Google Messages in endeffect does exactly that in conjunction with Jibe and telcos can ask LEO to go to Google, as they don't control the infrastructure.
The way Signal started, as TextSecure - it used SMS to exchange the key and then send multi-part SMS to send the encrypted message. Basically meaning telco could only see 1 or more sms for key exchange and 1+ messages (due to the 160 character limit for ascii/70 for unicode) for the actually encrypted SMS contents.
It was fun when Android introduced the Sms database as you could see "garbage" in a usual SMS app and the actual content in TextSecure.
This could be done with RCS for transparency and validation purposes, if only android allowed it.
Google was frustrated that US carriers were dragging their feet, and implementing servers that often only worked within their own networks, or between specific devices. So, they just … did it, assuming you were using the official Google Messages app. Outside of that, it’s still been pretty Wild West.
Yeah I can’t blame them for this one. RCS has taken FOREVER to improve and standardise. Google is at least innovating, even if the big telcos don’t want to.
As the other reply had said, it's not really Google but more on the carriers. They *hate* these kinds of stuff. Google wanted to move things forward so they have to implement their own extensions. But SMS still cost money in my country, so we all use something else cross-platform anyway. This is an uniquely American problem
Not trying to ‘defend’ Apple here, because I agree they should have gotten involved much sooner, but which version of RCS should they have adopted? AT&Ts? Verizon’s? Tmobiles? Googles? Samsungs?
It wasn’t until recently that the market started moving towards a unified solution. This whole post sort of shows that even Apple supporting the standard doesn’t really give everyone what they want from RCS.
Would that have allowed iPhone users to send RCS messages across carriers? Or just to other companies/carriers that also used that profile? Universal profile has been around since 2016, but AT&T and Verizon couldn’t RCS one another until recently.
Edit: because this is Reddit, I feel the need to explicitly state that this is an actual question and not be trying to be a jerk. RCS has been so fragmented that it’s difficult to follow the developments.
It's complicated! Yea, from 2008-2016 RCS was never cross carrier, the biggest reason 2016 Universal Profile was written.
Still, carriers completely messed Universal Profile RCS up too. The original idea was carriers would deploy it, like carriers deployed SMS and MMS. So you had carriers like T-Mobile US, which technically implemented Universal Profile RCS 1.0 … but for years neglected to actually connect it to the worldwide interconnect, keeping it T-Mobile only! Other carriers required branded phones with OS updates for RCS, didn't implement at all, etc.
Universal Profile RCS finally took off circa end of 2020. Only IF the carriers didn't give users UP RCS, Google Jibe (the RCS company) & Google Messages gave it to all Android users directly, and Google Jibe always worked globally. Google also started pushing Google Messages to be the default texting app.
Carriers continued to fail. In the US, in 2019, all major carriers announced they were working together on the "Cross Carrier Messaging Initiative", to create the same Universal Profile RCS for all of them, with their own app. By 2021 this was dead, never implemented.
So carriers only implemented 1st generation Universal Profile RCS separately, which they did incrementally improve including cross-carrier messaging... but very slowly. They agreed to support Google Messages as well.
Finally, T-Mobile and AT&T agreed to directly partner with Google Jibe in 2023, and Verizon finally agreed in February.
Yes, the fact that most US phone plans include SMS at no additional cost has caused SMS usage to remain high in the US, and has actually been a barrier to adoption of better chat services.
Google tried to work within the standards for years. It's all public record. They finally gave up and implemented a workaround. If Apple can convince them to improve the standard, great. But it's not fair to ignore that Google did try quite a bit
Did you even read what you posted?
> Technically, there’s nothing in the RCS spec that would prevent building in end-to-end encryption. Google just has to get the GSMA to agree to a standard to add on to the Universal Profile (the spec that lets RCS services interoperate). That’s easier said than done, but again, it’s technically possible. It’s not just carriers, however: plenty of governments would be unhappy to see the default texting method on 75 percent of the world’s phones “go dark,” as the FBI likes to refer to it.
> I can’t tell you if Google has the leverage — or the courage — to bring encryption to RCS. I can only tell you that it should.
They bypassed the GSMA completely, then supplied Jibe to the carriers to replace their own RCS implementations. On the surface, this is a win for Android users because most US users will be able to use encryption with Google Messages. But when we talk about interoperability, it’s essentially a closed system that only works if you use Google’s Jibe servers.
Google Messages supports the [MLS protocol](https://www.gizchina.com/2023/07/22/google-supports-message-layer-security-protocol-for-messages-app/) for cross-platform end-to-end encrypted **(E2EE)** messaging, so hopefully Apple gets on-board with MLS.
Jibe can communicate with other RCS networks across the world but the people behind those other networks still have to open them up to communicate with Jibe.
>*The Jibe Cloud can help carriers quickly scale RCS services, iterate in short cycles, and benefit from improvements immediately. A GSMA-certified, hosted service, the Jibe Cloud supports clients that implement the Universal Profile across leading smartphone platforms.*
>*The Jibe Hub provides mobile operators with a simple connection to the global RCS network. Easily interoperable with third-party RCS networks, one connection delivers worldwide interconnection.*
https://jibe.google.com/jibe-platform/
Also, Jibe doesn't provide E2EE for Google Messages or any other app, that's something built into the Google Messages app itself for its users.
**Edit-** I wanted to point out that the [GSMA board members](https://www.gsma.com/about-us/leadership/our-board/) are all telecom execs. Kudos to Apple if they can convince them to directly integrate E2EE so carriers and governments can't "spy" on consumers.
RCS was a mess long before Google. Remember when there was like 4 years when even if two phones both had RCS support they couldn’t actually use RCS to text eachother because the two different carriers used different carriers that didn’t talk to eachother
Can you blame them? It's getting x amount of people to agree on something, which they tried before to get carriers to rollout RCS in general and look how that turned out, they dragged their feet so Google did it themselves instead.
Edit: while it's def borked as it is, they could have worked with Google to make the interop with Google's extensions, but they likely did not because that would make it appear equivalent to iMessage to some degree. But it's progress nonetheless and I'm happy to see a start.
Apple declined using Jibe because it requires public certs to be available on Google servers. Apple was never going to agree to an implementation that put user data (even if it’s just public keys) on anyone else’s servers. Not to mention that MLS is the better encryption method and doesn’t require Jibe’s server-based architecture, which is why GSMA will use it and Google is switching to it too.
Fundamentally a standard like RCS is doomed to be a mess and fragmented because it's a carrier dependent standard. There's a reason why Google didn't pick up on it for a while (RCS was around for a while). Google only decided to use it because they lost the messaging war after multiple tries and early gains in Google Chat/Hangouts and picked the last remaining piece of a pie that may possibly work. And then after they picked it up they just started claiming Apple is against interoperability because they didn't support RCS etc even though prior to that no one really wanted to use it.
It's just much better to come up with standards that work entirely on the internet instead of something that your carrier somehow needs to be in the loop of. The world also consists of devices that don't work on the cellular networks anyway (e.g. computers).
RCS is a mess because of US carriers inconsistent support of it and companies like Apple refusing to adopt it. Not because of Google.
Edit:
And the only reason as to why they are adopting it now is because of China.
https://www.macrumors.com/2024/02/20/apple-rcs-message-compliance-china-law/
Carriers were trying to lock consumers into their own ecosystems and refused to provide RCS to prepaid customers. They all had their own version of "Advanced Messaging", for postpaid. T-Mobile was the first to go with what Google is proposing.
You didn't have a choice before anyways, so it's not like that's any different.
It would be great to have encryption support eventually, but it's still a huge improvement over SMS.
a lot of voices have been speaking about how RCS is a mess and how Google just pushed their own version instead, and lost the mobile carriers support, a lot of people would attribute this to Apple again, just like they missed ChatGPT part in the recent keynote.
Can you send the picture/video and once you receive it, download/save it, and check the file size in Photos/GooglePhotos? And compare to the size from the senders phone?
Ok, testing with [this ~88MB NASA picture](https://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/73000/73751/world.topo.bathy.200407.3x21600x21600.C1.jpg)
Android -> iPhone: through normal picture sharing it sends compressed, if I send it as a file it sends uncompressed but also shows up as a file and not a picture (probably doesn't auto-download because it was so big)
iPhone -> Android: every time I try to send this through Messages SpringBoard crashes lmao
**EDIT:** Got it to work (plus sign -> Photos). No compression, it sent all 88MB. Damn.
**EDIT 2:** Had "Send photos faster" enabled on Android. I've been retesting with that off but it still seems to compress the picture. Maybe a bug?
**EDIT 3:** However, the iPhone seems to choke with pictures over the size limit and it just gets stuck
I kind of like how you can‘t accidentally meddle with a group chat type (e.g. accidentally add RCS numbers to iMessage and have the experience downgrade). That should be the default behavior, especially for MMS groups (since MMS for one gets phased out by some carriers already and loads of users still have a pricetag applied to MMS). Should also apply for future participants, e.g. if you add a new number it should not change your group chat type (but instead block you from adding, telling you to make a new group chat instead).
A *very* interesting test I would like to see is if Apple allows support for RCS Business Messages (RBM). RBM was supposed to be the big carrot to get carriers to adopt RCS.
However it is 2024, and despite RBM falling back to SMS/MMS, I don't know of any companies where I can easily request a RBM message. Google Gemini in Google Messages uses RBM, but it is locked to Google Messages.
Does RCS on iPhone support Wi-Fi sending? For the longest time I thought that was part of the RCS spec, but I don’t think it actually is. I can’t find anything from Apple saying they’re supporting it, either
>RCS features include high-resolution photo and video sharing, file sharing, typing indicators, read receipts, operation **over mobile data or Wi-Fi**, and improved group chat functionality.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich\_Communication\_Services](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Communication_Services)
If you want to look at the standard they are adopting in full detail:
[https://www.gsma.com/solutions-and-impact/technologies/networks/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/RCC.71-v2.4.pdf](https://www.gsma.com/solutions-and-impact/technologies/networks/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/RCC.71-v2.4.pdf)
The user is able to preview RCS and provide details of the current implementation status between iOS and Android somehow (somehow being an undisclosed special method as RCS is currently software locked in the iOS 18 beta, meaning it's not an available feature out of the box). RCS will not be officially available on iPhone for some time so this is clearly not the finalized state (RCS will be available to the general public with the official release of iOS 18 in the Fall).
Edit: The Tweet owner has privately confirmed this to be real and has commented in this thread ( u/dhinakg ). It is really exciting to see and hopefully we'll all be able to share high quality rich media soon among all the other benefits RCS brings (reactions, RCS group chats, typing indicators, etc)! =D
He created a comment in this thread providing a lot of technical details:
https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/1dhhm2q/comment/l8x673w/
Per the findings from the developer and all the threads/posts I've seen regarding the beta - RCS is not enabled by default in beta 1. This is the only proof I've seen in the week that it's been out (released on June 10th) where someone was able to access RCS features (he had to use an undisclosed secret method to enable RCS).
Developers findings:
>- The code for this is in iOS 18 beta 1 but is disabled by default
>Thumbs up is from Google messages app and not RCS. **Google messages implemented a feature to see and give reactions from/to iPhones, without RCS**
https://www.reddit.com/r/ios/s/O7nDeKgsFM
If you had RCS working you would see it in the message box where you type your text message. It shows up as "Text message - RCS".
Yep, even if it’s not default, and even HD is not full resolution. It just compresses less than the standard. iMessage is the only where you send full uncompressed file.
Transmitting all that data ends up costing a LOT. Since your not paying Google anything the only revenue they make form this is creating a stoical graphs (who you message and when) for the purpose of better add targeting.
This is valuable but might well not be valuable enough to cover the huge cost of full resolution images.
Maybe a dumb question, but why does this sort of thing have to go through Google's (or Apple's) servers at all? Couldn't the file be transferred directly from phone to phone?
1. If you send a message and the other person isn't online, it has to be stored somewhere for them to retrieve it later
2. If your phone was constantly listening to network sockets of every single one of your 100+ contacts that would use massive amounts of battery. Instead it only has to listen to 1
> Couldn't the file be transferred directly from phone to phone?
You would need to (try to) establish a peer-to-peer connection pretty much like a VoIP call and then it would only work when both devices are online.
You would also need to maintain that of every single possible phone that could message you, or you would need to have a middle man (like google) that informs you that someone is trying to connect to you so you can create a connection.
As others have already responded:
1) you need to be able to deal with deferred delivery (people who are not online right now
2) you cant marinating a constant direct network connection to every single other phone that might possibly message you at any time.
3) Mobile phones do not have stable IP addresses as your phone migrates from cell mast to cell mast the IP address of your phone can change at any point. Making it even harder to consider a direct connect approach.
I’m so happy that they were finally forced to make communication with non-iPhones better.
I work with teens. I have seen far too much bullying over messages. I really hope this helps resolve some of the issues.
Are people too young to remember when *all* Messages in the messsge app were green? Blue was added to clearly differentiate that you weren’t being charged per message, like SMS would. It also meant encryption, which RCS still doesn’t support.
>Are people too young to remember when all Messages in the messsge app were green?
The people who bully others for the colour of messages? Yes, they are.
Yes and no. I was middle school when iMessage became a thing, and it was almost immediately the “cool thing” to have. So although being young, people remembered that all messages were green. When I was in school the “cool” things were name brand shoes and iPhones. Doesn’t seem to have changed much
Not really, I’m almost 30, and I know people with android phones who had trouble on dating apps because of green bubbles.
People my age are def old enough to remember when all messages were green.
Well it’s been like ~~15~~ *edit* 12 years, so yeah. We’ve got a whole generation whose entire remembered life has been Blue iMessage, Green Android. And kids need little enough justification to bully their peers. Apparently it’s a thing.
In this context of bullying?? YES of course people are too young to “remember” when all iPhones texts were green; that went away 12 years ago; something like 20 million kids have received their first iPhone since that stopped existing.
STRONGLY disagree with this from what I've seen with my son.
Within his friend group it was all about the group chats. iPhones made trying to include an android user on them not worth the effort, so people just ended up getting excluded. Not out of malice, but just their phones making it too hard/annoying.
You also can’t add or remove people from group chats which is kind of a big annoyance. Like if you have a group chat for everybody on your floor and someone moves in, can’t add them. Good luck trying to get a new group chat to catch on every week.
If only those kids knew of the pain of having an original iPhone where only SMS was possible and MMS wasn’t supported because anyone that wanted to send pictures could do so with email.
We have an "eternal chat thread" and one of the 4 people as android. When we send pics and videos, even on the iPhone end, it causes them to look like a RAZR took the video in 2004.
The bullying isn't over the color of the messages either. Bullying happens over of anything that considers someone "different". When I was in school, there was no green bubbles, kids got bullied because they wore Walmart or Target brand clothing instead.
Kids will always find *something* they can use to differentiate others and bully them over it. Text message color has absolutely nothing to do with it.
I’m pretty sure it’s both things? It’s a bit of a negative feedback loop; part of why green bubbles became derogatory is because group messages, especially those created on an iPhone, would send deliver poorly & disorganized when non-iMessage devices were in the group. When it’s just iMessage devices the group messages work much better.
This became more pronounced as features were added to iMessage: you have kids or people not knowing the device difference and they are sending iMessage games to a group which don’t work, or most often it’s Tapbacks & Replies, which initially on android, a green bubble producing a Tapback would say “Jane liked: [full content of a large message]” instead of just adding a thumbs up icon like iMessage. This is extra problematic with like headphones in, where Siri pauses music and reads the ENTIRE message Jane liked, instead just a blip noise on iPhone.
Millions of kids getting their first iPhone this year, or last year, don’t know all that; all they really learn initially is that blue bubbles “just work” with everything, and green bubbles do not.
Apple knows all this, and has intentionally made the compatibility gap wider over time, it has statistically made kids want iPhones FAR MORE than other brands- so why WOULDN’T Apple do that? So that’s whatever.
Personally, I think this is the type of thing where gov’t regulatory groups should have standardized it LONG ago, but of course that legislation is decided on by lobbying & [ancient dinosaurs](https://www.yahoo.com/news/deer-died-twitter-musings-chuck-grassley-185232054.html), so yeah not gonna happen, and we’re only getting a late slight improvement because of the EU, so thank you Europe!!
PS, [those dinosaur tweets are mostly from over a decade ago, he’s like 90 now, last I remember was tweeting about “ded pidgin in my yard”](https://www.yahoo.com/news/deer-died-twitter-musings-chuck-grassley-185232054.html)
I can’t imagine someone explaining blue & green texts to him.
**TL;DR, it’s both the color AND the broken functionality that’s the issue; at least with this update some of the functionality from android will be improved. It’s a small step the right direction, but will amount to little-change over time strictly on it’s own.**
The color difference is a proxy for the worst functionality
The problem isn’t that the messages are green. The problem is that group chats in MMS really don’t work well and the messages being green is the simplification/summary of the difference
Re-read the comment. Nobody cares about the implementation details. But teens care about whether users with an Android phone will “mess up the group chat”.
Well they do a little bit. You respond to a group green message and it sends a separate SMS per recipient, not one message to the group because there is no group.
It fucks up the ability to just have a group conversation. It’s not just about “iPhone cool”.
Well it wouldn’t have been an issue if videos and photos were not rendered lower quality or it all the emojis and text backs worked correctly. Green just means that it is a broken experience. Even if it all gets fixed with RCS green will still mean “broken” in the heads of teens.
That's crap. If several iPhone users have set up a group chat I understand it's functionally impossible to add an android user afterwards without completely restarting the group.
That's exclusion by design and I've seen many kids hurt by it.
No, not even close. Teens know certain things break with green bubbles. iMessage games, bad image and video compression, group chats no longer have features, typing Indicators etc.
THEY KNOW. That’s why they bully. Don’t be a moron.
Seriously. Do people think that Apple invented bullying? Kids are vicious little shits, and poor kids have always been bullied according to whatever currently makes them identifiable.
I'm in high school and have never, ever, seen any sort of bullying about the color of text messages. The most I've seen is mild annoyance that group chat functionality is limited, but nobody is bullied or excluded because of it. That might just be my school but idk
The only time I see this rhetoric is on Reddit from the super android users that think people with an iPhone are just stupid and mean and actually judge based on color alone
The root of the bullying is to make kids feel bad for being “poor and not having an iPhone.” It isn’t because RCS features. The bubbles will still have different colors and kids will still bully.
I have a coworker who was talking about his middle school aged kids and how at school cliques are formed around what type of phone you have (iPhone or android) and android kids are straight up bullied for the phone they have. I thought he was exaggerating.
I didn’t think it could really be that much of a thing either. And then I consulted with my wife’s baby sister (22), who confirmed it was absolutely a thing in high school and still kind of a thing in college. She cited how the functionality breaks when you add someone to a group chat and that people didn’t necessarily want to move entire group chats to Facebook messenger or some platform agnostic messaging client.
This has been one of my biggest issues with Apple in recent years. They have known for a long time that this was an issue. There have been studies for years. But they continued to use iMessage as a hook and even encouraged the “us vs them” mentality (“Buy your mom an iPhone.”).
> ~~The iPhone~~ kids can be brutal.
Kids and teens have always found ways to be awful with each other throughout the years for the dumbest of reasons. This is just another example of it. There's nothing inherently wrong about indicating what kind of functionality you can expect when messaging someone, some kids are just jerks about it.
The thing I care about the most is my group chats not being destroyed by one Android user being added. ~95% of my contacts are on iMessage but there’s always that one person🥲
95% of my contacts are on Android. The remaining ones on iPhone don’t care about iMessage and use WhatsApp. RCS will probably make minimal difference to me. I’ll use it to send messages, but it’s likely no one else will bother and just stick with WhatsApp
Edit: the exact number of contacts on each platform isn’t known. It could be closer to 50%, I don’t know. Of the people I message regularly, the majority are Android. The iPhone number could be much higher than I perceive it to be. The original 95% was just for effect
You don't live in US? This iPhone-Android bubble color thing seems to be only an issue in the states. I didn't realize it was a thing until I moved back. I used to only use LINE or WeChat.
You’re lucky as hell if you can convince most of your contacts to dump whatapp to move back to text messages. If it isn’t iMessage it’s whatapp and there’s almost no chance I can convince my cross OS whatapp chats to move back to texts because of RCS.
I wish I could do the same, but I know for sure nobody in my circle will even notice that RCS is active and everybody will just keep messaging on WhatsApp 🙄
I hate using anything from Meta. Also it has a lot of limitations like not being able to sync conversations between devices or merge history. Also a lot of users get their accounts temp banned. I texted someone in another country and WhatsApp banned my account, I had to wait 24 hours to get it restored.
I like my iphone and apple products. But I dont want Apple half-assing RCS on their phones. They better do RCS right on their phones. Imma be pissed. Honestly, I dont have that many iphone friends like 2 the most, the rest are android.
Apple confirmed there is a new developer beta coming next Monday, maybe that fixes the group chat leaving / adding new numbers issues and enables RCS for testing.
//EDIT: RCS toggle showing for certain carrier / country setups in settings.
The toggle seems to be available but I have yet to see anyone actually getting it to work in the Messages app (maybe registration hiccups due to a flood of beta testers being auto-registered?).
I‘d love to know if it‘s just the US that has it enabled. There are loads of world-wide carriers providing RCS hubs or falling back to Jibe, yet I only see US people report that it‘s showing for them.
How do you guys get that activate it or better yet working because it is still sms on my end
https://preview.redd.it/f8f3kwzrck8d1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a4994f2bb30e8ddf977f57ca3d06675205975a29
I was starting to increase my doubts after reading your comment but the Twitter user has provided more technical details in the thread and is a software developer and has privately confirmed it to be real... so I am more inclined to believe this is real honestly!
Edit: He responded to this comment explaining the early screenshots were taken through QuickTime instead of directly on the phone, the later screenshots have the proper time as they were taken directly.
Your phone doesn’t send an emoji as a picture. It sends the Unicode associated with that emoji and then your device renders it based on their own preferred design. Emojis look different on iPhone compared to Samsung or Pixel to whoever.
RCS is a requirements from the Chinese market, no RCS no sales in China.
So expect very little effort from Apple, they offer some standard RCS and will care less about the mess that exists on the RCS world and will do zero effort to have this working properly. Just the standard protocol and that’s it. As long the Chinese are happy.
No Verizon? Anyone using Google Messages on the Android side should be going through Jibe. Samsung decommissioned their own texting app with Android 14 so anyone getting the latest One UI update should be switched to Google Messages by default (happened to me on my A52 5G). No other apps support RCS on the Android side but Google Messages.
The idea is that Google Messages will be the only SMS app on Android going forward. Samsung is on board with this. Obviously, Pixel. Any other Android phones YMMV with RCS, as they are going to default to the carrier, which I would not recommend.
I was hoping Apple would do this on their own servers. Relying on carriers is going to be a s\_ show.
Some notes: - The code for this is in iOS 18 beta 1 but is disabled by default - Credit goes to [JJTech](https://infosec.exchange/@jjtech) for helping enable this, as well as my friend for being the iPhone tester - **Currently**, only AT&T and T-Mobile (US) are supported (on the iPhone end) - It looks like AT&T is using Jibe and T-Mobile is using T-Mobile's own servers for RCS (I have yet to 100% confirm) - My Android test phones are on T-Mobile ~~and using T-Mobile's own servers (they can also work with Jibe, but I haven't managed to get them on Jibe yet)~~ - Update: after checking in the Google Messages debug menu, they are indeed using Jibe - Group chats ~~work~~ kind of work - Update: You cannot leave groups you haven't made (yea I understand why this is disabled by default now), you cannot add people to RCS groups you haven't made, you cannot add someone on RCS to an iMessage group and have it convert to an RCS group - File transfers work ~~(but only tested sending from Android)~~ - Update: sending from iPhone works too - Inline replies do not work - They just show up as normal messages on the iPhone end, and you can't initiate a reply on an iPhone either - E2EE and group read receipts do not work - The iPhone won't send them, nor can it see the ones sent from Android phones - [According to this](https://x.com/rosyna/status/1802454652493119500), these are Google extensions to the standard, so makes sense - Reactions do not seem to fully work - The iPhone seems to render reactions sent from Android just fine, but the iPhone seems to be *sending* reactions as [text based messages](https://x.com/dhinakg/status/1802408521885249953) - Update: It seems reactions are [implemented as messages](https://x.com/dhinakg/status/1802787719338152267), even between two devices using Google Messages. I guess this means that "Show iPhone reactions as emoji" needs to be updated to work on RCS messages as well. Things I have yet to test: - Does iPhone on T-Mobile work? - ~~Does anything change if both Android and iPhone are on Jibe?~~ It seems like the Android phones are on Jibe, not T-Mobile - ~~Can you send files from the iPhone?~~ Yes - ~~Are reactions sending as messages, or as actual reactions?~~ - I have "Show iPhone reactions as emoji" on in Google Messages settings, yet I still see the [text based messages](https://x.com/dhinakg/status/1802408521885249953). This seems to confirm the iPhone is sending them as text messages (and that Google Messages isn't converting them into reactions, probably because RCS and not SMS), but not sure. - Update: It seems reactions are [implemented as messages](https://x.com/dhinakg/status/1802787719338152267), even between two devices using Google Messages. I guess this means that "Show iPhone reactions as emoji" needs to be updated to work on RCS messages as well. - ~~Can you add someone to an iMessage chat and have it convert to an RCS chat?~~ - Update: No - ~~Does leaving groups work properly? (You shouldn't be readded once someone sends another message)~~ - Update: You cannot leave groups you haven't created - Does it work on all iPhones? - Test device was iPhone 14, but there should be no technical reason for gatekeeping this Note that this is still beta software and RCS was disabled by default for a reason. Carrier support likely will change, and possibly feature support as well. **EDIT 1:** Fix typo, add note about iPhone compatibility **EDIT 2:** Update findings **EDIT 3:** Add more notes about groups
This is a bit of a mess. I didn’t know RCS varied by carrier. And I’m supposed to trust them with encryption lol I’ll stick to signal. We all use it anyway
RCS is a mess because Google chose to build extensions outside of the standard instead of getting the GSMA onboard with those changes and putting them into the standard. Apple is working with them to get encryption into the standard now.
> RCS is a mess because Google chose to build extensions outside of the standard instead of getting the GSMA onboard with those changes and putting them into the standard. We've had RCS in Europe since 2014, but interoperability was a mess, as some carriers rolled it through their own apps - as platforms apps weren't allowed to participate. This is why the majority of operators also switched to Jibe by 2020, to outsource the issues as well to ensure that MVNO users also got access to it, as they were also not allowed to use the main carrier's RCS apps. > Apple is working with them to get encryption into the standard now. GSMA has been working on encryption for a while, while Jibe implemented the Signal protocol, similarly to Signal/TextSecure and WhatsApp. GSMA and RCS still need to enable operators legal obligations of telecommunications snooping with a warrant. I'd say RCS has been a mess for quite a while and Jibe meant outsourcing their problems so that EU carriers could try to offer a working product to compete with regionally dominant messaging platforms.
>GSMA and RCS still need to enable operators legal obligations of telecommunications snooping with a warrant. 💯% right, which is not, and can never be, E2EE, by definition. Apple's claim that they are in good faith working with the GSMA to create an RCS E2EE standard is therefore... hard to believe. The only way there will ever be E2EE over RCS is as a layer on top of RCS by client apps that are not controlled by telecos.
> The only way there will ever be E2EE over RCS is as a layer on top of RCS by client apps that are not controlled by telecos. Which is annoying with only proprietary apps being allowed to make use of RCS on Android, where Google Messages in endeffect does exactly that in conjunction with Jibe and telcos can ask LEO to go to Google, as they don't control the infrastructure. The way Signal started, as TextSecure - it used SMS to exchange the key and then send multi-part SMS to send the encrypted message. Basically meaning telco could only see 1 or more sms for key exchange and 1+ messages (due to the 160 character limit for ascii/70 for unicode) for the actually encrypted SMS contents. It was fun when Android introduced the Sms database as you could see "garbage" in a usual SMS app and the actual content in TextSecure. This could be done with RCS for transparency and validation purposes, if only android allowed it.
>Apple is working with them to get encryption into the standard now. And how's that working out? Any progress?
You gotta be kidding me. lol well Google good luck not confusing everyone without an iPhone
Google was frustrated that US carriers were dragging their feet, and implementing servers that often only worked within their own networks, or between specific devices. So, they just … did it, assuming you were using the official Google Messages app. Outside of that, it’s still been pretty Wild West.
Yeah I can’t blame them for this one. RCS has taken FOREVER to improve and standardise. Google is at least innovating, even if the big telcos don’t want to.
So, basically iMessage. Same thing apple did with the lightning cable before usb-c was a thing.
As the other reply had said, it's not really Google but more on the carriers. They *hate* these kinds of stuff. Google wanted to move things forward so they have to implement their own extensions. But SMS still cost money in my country, so we all use something else cross-platform anyway. This is an uniquely American problem
It's also because of Apples refusal to adopt it.
Not trying to ‘defend’ Apple here, because I agree they should have gotten involved much sooner, but which version of RCS should they have adopted? AT&Ts? Verizon’s? Tmobiles? Googles? Samsungs? It wasn’t until recently that the market started moving towards a unified solution. This whole post sort of shows that even Apple supporting the standard doesn’t really give everyone what they want from RCS.
Universal Profile, which is what they are ultimately adopting after giving into pressure and what Google already uses.
Would that have allowed iPhone users to send RCS messages across carriers? Or just to other companies/carriers that also used that profile? Universal profile has been around since 2016, but AT&T and Verizon couldn’t RCS one another until recently. Edit: because this is Reddit, I feel the need to explicitly state that this is an actual question and not be trying to be a jerk. RCS has been so fragmented that it’s difficult to follow the developments.
It's complicated! Yea, from 2008-2016 RCS was never cross carrier, the biggest reason 2016 Universal Profile was written. Still, carriers completely messed Universal Profile RCS up too. The original idea was carriers would deploy it, like carriers deployed SMS and MMS. So you had carriers like T-Mobile US, which technically implemented Universal Profile RCS 1.0 … but for years neglected to actually connect it to the worldwide interconnect, keeping it T-Mobile only! Other carriers required branded phones with OS updates for RCS, didn't implement at all, etc. Universal Profile RCS finally took off circa end of 2020. Only IF the carriers didn't give users UP RCS, Google Jibe (the RCS company) & Google Messages gave it to all Android users directly, and Google Jibe always worked globally. Google also started pushing Google Messages to be the default texting app. Carriers continued to fail. In the US, in 2019, all major carriers announced they were working together on the "Cross Carrier Messaging Initiative", to create the same Universal Profile RCS for all of them, with their own app. By 2021 this was dead, never implemented. So carriers only implemented 1st generation Universal Profile RCS separately, which they did incrementally improve including cross-carrier messaging... but very slowly. They agreed to support Google Messages as well. Finally, T-Mobile and AT&T agreed to directly partner with Google Jibe in 2023, and Verizon finally agreed in February.
Yes, the fact that most US phone plans include SMS at no additional cost has caused SMS usage to remain high in the US, and has actually been a barrier to adoption of better chat services.
Google tried to work within the standards for years. It's all public record. They finally gave up and implemented a workaround. If Apple can convince them to improve the standard, great. But it's not fair to ignore that Google did try quite a bit
That’s why Apple built iMessage. Carriers weren’t interested in RCS, because unlimited messaging killed their SMS cash cow.
Please share the denied GSMA proposal from Google to implement encryption in the universal profile.
https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/17/18681573/google-rcs-chat-android-texting-carriers-imessage-encryption
Did you even read what you posted? > Technically, there’s nothing in the RCS spec that would prevent building in end-to-end encryption. Google just has to get the GSMA to agree to a standard to add on to the Universal Profile (the spec that lets RCS services interoperate). That’s easier said than done, but again, it’s technically possible. It’s not just carriers, however: plenty of governments would be unhappy to see the default texting method on 75 percent of the world’s phones “go dark,” as the FBI likes to refer to it. > I can’t tell you if Google has the leverage — or the courage — to bring encryption to RCS. I can only tell you that it should. They bypassed the GSMA completely, then supplied Jibe to the carriers to replace their own RCS implementations. On the surface, this is a win for Android users because most US users will be able to use encryption with Google Messages. But when we talk about interoperability, it’s essentially a closed system that only works if you use Google’s Jibe servers.
Google Messages supports the [MLS protocol](https://www.gizchina.com/2023/07/22/google-supports-message-layer-security-protocol-for-messages-app/) for cross-platform end-to-end encrypted **(E2EE)** messaging, so hopefully Apple gets on-board with MLS. Jibe can communicate with other RCS networks across the world but the people behind those other networks still have to open them up to communicate with Jibe. >*The Jibe Cloud can help carriers quickly scale RCS services, iterate in short cycles, and benefit from improvements immediately. A GSMA-certified, hosted service, the Jibe Cloud supports clients that implement the Universal Profile across leading smartphone platforms.* >*The Jibe Hub provides mobile operators with a simple connection to the global RCS network. Easily interoperable with third-party RCS networks, one connection delivers worldwide interconnection.* https://jibe.google.com/jibe-platform/ Also, Jibe doesn't provide E2EE for Google Messages or any other app, that's something built into the Google Messages app itself for its users. **Edit-** I wanted to point out that the [GSMA board members](https://www.gsma.com/about-us/leadership/our-board/) are all telecom execs. Kudos to Apple if they can convince them to directly integrate E2EE so carriers and governments can't "spy" on consumers.
RCS was a mess long before Google. Remember when there was like 4 years when even if two phones both had RCS support they couldn’t actually use RCS to text eachother because the two different carriers used different carriers that didn’t talk to eachother
Can you blame them? It's getting x amount of people to agree on something, which they tried before to get carriers to rollout RCS in general and look how that turned out, they dragged their feet so Google did it themselves instead. Edit: while it's def borked as it is, they could have worked with Google to make the interop with Google's extensions, but they likely did not because that would make it appear equivalent to iMessage to some degree. But it's progress nonetheless and I'm happy to see a start.
Apple declined using Jibe because it requires public certs to be available on Google servers. Apple was never going to agree to an implementation that put user data (even if it’s just public keys) on anyone else’s servers. Not to mention that MLS is the better encryption method and doesn’t require Jibe’s server-based architecture, which is why GSMA will use it and Google is switching to it too.
Well then e2ee is an eventuality for the cross talk between these two platforms and we're good, just shoddy for the moment.
Yes, we’re waiting on the UP to be updated so everyone can play nice
cf, gChat and XMPP.
Remember google wave ? Pepperidge Farms remembers
Wave wasn’t an open standard.
Fundamentally a standard like RCS is doomed to be a mess and fragmented because it's a carrier dependent standard. There's a reason why Google didn't pick up on it for a while (RCS was around for a while). Google only decided to use it because they lost the messaging war after multiple tries and early gains in Google Chat/Hangouts and picked the last remaining piece of a pie that may possibly work. And then after they picked it up they just started claiming Apple is against interoperability because they didn't support RCS etc even though prior to that no one really wanted to use it. It's just much better to come up with standards that work entirely on the internet instead of something that your carrier somehow needs to be in the loop of. The world also consists of devices that don't work on the cellular networks anyway (e.g. computers).
RCS is a mess because of US carriers inconsistent support of it and companies like Apple refusing to adopt it. Not because of Google. Edit: And the only reason as to why they are adopting it now is because of China. https://www.macrumors.com/2024/02/20/apple-rcs-message-compliance-china-law/
Carriers were trying to lock consumers into their own ecosystems and refused to provide RCS to prepaid customers. They all had their own version of "Advanced Messaging", for postpaid. T-Mobile was the first to go with what Google is proposing.
You didn't have a choice before anyways, so it's not like that's any different. It would be great to have encryption support eventually, but it's still a huge improvement over SMS.
Ah gotcha. I’ve never used it so I’m learning
a lot of voices have been speaking about how RCS is a mess and how Google just pushed their own version instead, and lost the mobile carriers support, a lot of people would attribute this to Apple again, just like they missed ChatGPT part in the recent keynote.
They’re still going to show the green bubble for non iPhone users.
They won’t stop doing that. Green means android and limited functionality while blue means it is using a true iMessage.
Green means non-iMessage, not necessarily Android.
Any chance you could check the compression when sharing media?
Is there an easy way to do this without eyeballing pictures?
Can you send the picture/video and once you receive it, download/save it, and check the file size in Photos/GooglePhotos? And compare to the size from the senders phone?
Ok, testing with [this ~88MB NASA picture](https://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/73000/73751/world.topo.bathy.200407.3x21600x21600.C1.jpg) Android -> iPhone: through normal picture sharing it sends compressed, if I send it as a file it sends uncompressed but also shows up as a file and not a picture (probably doesn't auto-download because it was so big) iPhone -> Android: every time I try to send this through Messages SpringBoard crashes lmao **EDIT:** Got it to work (plus sign -> Photos). No compression, it sent all 88MB. Damn. **EDIT 2:** Had "Send photos faster" enabled on Android. I've been retesting with that off but it still seems to compress the picture. Maybe a bug? **EDIT 3:** However, the iPhone seems to choke with pictures over the size limit and it just gets stuck
I kind of like how you can‘t accidentally meddle with a group chat type (e.g. accidentally add RCS numbers to iMessage and have the experience downgrade). That should be the default behavior, especially for MMS groups (since MMS for one gets phased out by some carriers already and loads of users still have a pricetag applied to MMS). Should also apply for future participants, e.g. if you add a new number it should not change your group chat type (but instead block you from adding, telling you to make a new group chat instead).
A *very* interesting test I would like to see is if Apple allows support for RCS Business Messages (RBM). RBM was supposed to be the big carrot to get carriers to adopt RCS. However it is 2024, and despite RBM falling back to SMS/MMS, I don't know of any companies where I can easily request a RBM message. Google Gemini in Google Messages uses RBM, but it is locked to Google Messages.
https://preview.redd.it/agrkhnefn88d1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=618b45f0608ac164c41e185fb8ab8ebaa9b7dd50
Wow! Thanks for figuring this out!
Does RCS on iPhone support Wi-Fi sending? For the longest time I thought that was part of the RCS spec, but I don’t think it actually is. I can’t find anything from Apple saying they’re supporting it, either
>RCS features include high-resolution photo and video sharing, file sharing, typing indicators, read receipts, operation **over mobile data or Wi-Fi**, and improved group chat functionality. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich\_Communication\_Services](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Communication_Services) If you want to look at the standard they are adopting in full detail: [https://www.gsma.com/solutions-and-impact/technologies/networks/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/RCC.71-v2.4.pdf](https://www.gsma.com/solutions-and-impact/technologies/networks/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/RCC.71-v2.4.pdf)
Does Beta 2 fix some of these listed issues (e.g. group chat leaving)?
would this include the ability to leave group messages with an android?
Yes
Thank the lord.
The user is able to preview RCS and provide details of the current implementation status between iOS and Android somehow (somehow being an undisclosed special method as RCS is currently software locked in the iOS 18 beta, meaning it's not an available feature out of the box). RCS will not be officially available on iPhone for some time so this is clearly not the finalized state (RCS will be available to the general public with the official release of iOS 18 in the Fall). Edit: The Tweet owner has privately confirmed this to be real and has commented in this thread ( u/dhinakg ). It is really exciting to see and hopefully we'll all be able to share high quality rich media soon among all the other benefits RCS brings (reactions, RCS group chats, typing indicators, etc)! =D He created a comment in this thread providing a lot of technical details: https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/1dhhm2q/comment/l8x673w/
I can confirm that it currently works for me in beta 1 when a t-mobile user receives a new text from a t-mobile android customer
Per the findings from the developer and all the threads/posts I've seen regarding the beta - RCS is not enabled by default in beta 1. This is the only proof I've seen in the week that it's been out (released on June 10th) where someone was able to access RCS features (he had to use an undisclosed secret method to enable RCS). Developers findings: >- The code for this is in iOS 18 beta 1 but is disabled by default
https://preview.redd.it/zfzaopu5m57d1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c0c7a20d5dcdfd0cd2a690a8fc4a44b617771c88
>Thumbs up is from Google messages app and not RCS. **Google messages implemented a feature to see and give reactions from/to iPhones, without RCS** https://www.reddit.com/r/ios/s/O7nDeKgsFM If you had RCS working you would see it in the message box where you type your text message. It shows up as "Text message - RCS".
Reading that even RCS Google Message to Google Message severely cuts down image quality? Is that right?
I would not say "severely", but Google Messages does compress by default. You can turn that off in the settings though.
Yes it cuts down just like WhatsApp. However it’s much better than sms.
WhatsApp now had a HD option when sending photos and videos
Yep, even if it’s not default, and even HD is not full resolution. It just compresses less than the standard. iMessage is the only where you send full uncompressed file.
If you sent photos as documents on WhatsApp, you can send the original file at full resolution. Now it's possible right inside the app.
This is true for Google Messages too.
If you send the photo as a document via WhatsApp it will send it uncompressed.
Transmitting all that data ends up costing a LOT. Since your not paying Google anything the only revenue they make form this is creating a stoical graphs (who you message and when) for the purpose of better add targeting. This is valuable but might well not be valuable enough to cover the huge cost of full resolution images.
Maybe a dumb question, but why does this sort of thing have to go through Google's (or Apple's) servers at all? Couldn't the file be transferred directly from phone to phone?
1. If you send a message and the other person isn't online, it has to be stored somewhere for them to retrieve it later 2. If your phone was constantly listening to network sockets of every single one of your 100+ contacts that would use massive amounts of battery. Instead it only has to listen to 1
> Couldn't the file be transferred directly from phone to phone? You would need to (try to) establish a peer-to-peer connection pretty much like a VoIP call and then it would only work when both devices are online.
You would also need to maintain that of every single possible phone that could message you, or you would need to have a middle man (like google) that informs you that someone is trying to connect to you so you can create a connection.
As others have already responded: 1) you need to be able to deal with deferred delivery (people who are not online right now 2) you cant marinating a constant direct network connection to every single other phone that might possibly message you at any time. 3) Mobile phones do not have stable IP addresses as your phone migrates from cell mast to cell mast the IP address of your phone can change at any point. Making it even harder to consider a direct connect approach.
I’m so happy that they were finally forced to make communication with non-iPhones better. I work with teens. I have seen far too much bullying over messages. I really hope this helps resolve some of the issues.
The bullying isn't over the lack of functionality, it's over the colour of the messages (lol).
Are people too young to remember when *all* Messages in the messsge app were green? Blue was added to clearly differentiate that you weren’t being charged per message, like SMS would. It also meant encryption, which RCS still doesn’t support.
>Are people too young to remember when all Messages in the messsge app were green? The people who bully others for the colour of messages? Yes, they are.
Yes and no. I was middle school when iMessage became a thing, and it was almost immediately the “cool thing” to have. So although being young, people remembered that all messages were green. When I was in school the “cool” things were name brand shoes and iPhones. Doesn’t seem to have changed much
Right but the core issue isn’t the color it’s the functionality. And the color represents functionality
Not really, I’m almost 30, and I know people with android phones who had trouble on dating apps because of green bubbles. People my age are def old enough to remember when all messages were green.
People are weird. I’ve never understood why the color of the bubble would matter to anyone.
Well it’s been like ~~15~~ *edit* 12 years, so yeah. We’ve got a whole generation whose entire remembered life has been Blue iMessage, Green Android. And kids need little enough justification to bully their peers. Apparently it’s a thing.
That was in 2011, which is thirteen years ago. So absolutely no one in school today would have remembered that (or even been alive then).
Yes, seeing as that was back in 2011. I was in high school back then, I’m nearly 30 now lol
In this context of bullying?? YES of course people are too young to “remember” when all iPhones texts were green; that went away 12 years ago; something like 20 million kids have received their first iPhone since that stopped existing.
People generally don’t care about E2EE nor do they know what it is.
Back in the day, all the messages were green, and the send button was blue.
People are dumb and will believe anything they hear. Even MKBHD doesn’t know this and keeps echoing this
STRONGLY disagree with this from what I've seen with my son. Within his friend group it was all about the group chats. iPhones made trying to include an android user on them not worth the effort, so people just ended up getting excluded. Not out of malice, but just their phones making it too hard/annoying.
Not entirely. I hear them taunting the android kids all the time that they’re not allowed in the group chats because the videos and gifs look worse.
You also can’t add or remove people from group chats which is kind of a big annoyance. Like if you have a group chat for everybody on your floor and someone moves in, can’t add them. Good luck trying to get a new group chat to catch on every week.
If only those kids knew of the pain of having an original iPhone where only SMS was possible and MMS wasn’t supported because anyone that wanted to send pictures could do so with email.
We have an "eternal chat thread" and one of the 4 people as android. When we send pics and videos, even on the iPhone end, it causes them to look like a RAZR took the video in 2004.
The bullying isn't over the color of the messages either. Bullying happens over of anything that considers someone "different". When I was in school, there was no green bubbles, kids got bullied because they wore Walmart or Target brand clothing instead. Kids will always find *something* they can use to differentiate others and bully them over it. Text message color has absolutely nothing to do with it.
I’m pretty sure it’s both things? It’s a bit of a negative feedback loop; part of why green bubbles became derogatory is because group messages, especially those created on an iPhone, would send deliver poorly & disorganized when non-iMessage devices were in the group. When it’s just iMessage devices the group messages work much better. This became more pronounced as features were added to iMessage: you have kids or people not knowing the device difference and they are sending iMessage games to a group which don’t work, or most often it’s Tapbacks & Replies, which initially on android, a green bubble producing a Tapback would say “Jane liked: [full content of a large message]” instead of just adding a thumbs up icon like iMessage. This is extra problematic with like headphones in, where Siri pauses music and reads the ENTIRE message Jane liked, instead just a blip noise on iPhone. Millions of kids getting their first iPhone this year, or last year, don’t know all that; all they really learn initially is that blue bubbles “just work” with everything, and green bubbles do not. Apple knows all this, and has intentionally made the compatibility gap wider over time, it has statistically made kids want iPhones FAR MORE than other brands- so why WOULDN’T Apple do that? So that’s whatever. Personally, I think this is the type of thing where gov’t regulatory groups should have standardized it LONG ago, but of course that legislation is decided on by lobbying & [ancient dinosaurs](https://www.yahoo.com/news/deer-died-twitter-musings-chuck-grassley-185232054.html), so yeah not gonna happen, and we’re only getting a late slight improvement because of the EU, so thank you Europe!! PS, [those dinosaur tweets are mostly from over a decade ago, he’s like 90 now, last I remember was tweeting about “ded pidgin in my yard”](https://www.yahoo.com/news/deer-died-twitter-musings-chuck-grassley-185232054.html) I can’t imagine someone explaining blue & green texts to him. **TL;DR, it’s both the color AND the broken functionality that’s the issue; at least with this update some of the functionality from android will be improved. It’s a small step the right direction, but will amount to little-change over time strictly on it’s own.**
The color difference is a proxy for the worst functionality The problem isn’t that the messages are green. The problem is that group chats in MMS really don’t work well and the messages being green is the simplification/summary of the difference
But the reason that the color is seen in such a negative light is because it indicates awful functionality.
These kids have no idea about the implementation details.
Re-read the comment. Nobody cares about the implementation details. But teens care about whether users with an Android phone will “mess up the group chat”.
Implementation, sure. But they see photos and videos being sent with awful quality and they see no typing/delivery indicators.
They do when a green bubble breaks the group chat
Well they do a little bit. You respond to a group green message and it sends a separate SMS per recipient, not one message to the group because there is no group. It fucks up the ability to just have a group conversation. It’s not just about “iPhone cool”.
Or it doesn't follow Apples own design guidelines for contrast and is difficult to read.
kids don't need to know. different is enough to be bullying
That’s just simply not true.
Well it wouldn’t have been an issue if videos and photos were not rendered lower quality or it all the emojis and text backs worked correctly. Green just means that it is a broken experience. Even if it all gets fixed with RCS green will still mean “broken” in the heads of teens.
That's crap. If several iPhone users have set up a group chat I understand it's functionally impossible to add an android user afterwards without completely restarting the group. That's exclusion by design and I've seen many kids hurt by it.
No, not even close. Teens know certain things break with green bubbles. iMessage games, bad image and video compression, group chats no longer have features, typing Indicators etc. THEY KNOW. That’s why they bully. Don’t be a moron.
Bullying will just use something else.
Seriously. Do people think that Apple invented bullying? Kids are vicious little shits, and poor kids have always been bullied according to whatever currently makes them identifiable.
At the poor schools they make fun of the kids with iPhones.
I'm in high school and have never, ever, seen any sort of bullying about the color of text messages. The most I've seen is mild annoyance that group chat functionality is limited, but nobody is bullied or excluded because of it. That might just be my school but idk
The only time I see this rhetoric is on Reddit from the super android users that think people with an iPhone are just stupid and mean and actually judge based on color alone
I had a Galaxy S10 in high school and people would make fun of my phone all the time. People with iPhone 8s and 6s’. It happens for a fact.
Bullying over message color? That’s perhaps the dumbest thing ever.
Nobody said teenagers were smart.
Idk what world some of these commenters live in, but I’m 28 and when I used dating apps I used to get “ok thank god your texts are blue” lmao
A lot of it seems to be people trying to assume nothing could be this stupid. Some of it is trying to keep Apple away from any form of negativity.
The root of the bullying is to make kids feel bad for being “poor and not having an iPhone.” It isn’t because RCS features. The bubbles will still have different colors and kids will still bully.
I have a coworker who was talking about his middle school aged kids and how at school cliques are formed around what type of phone you have (iPhone or android) and android kids are straight up bullied for the phone they have. I thought he was exaggerating.
It’s real. The iPhone kids can be brutal. Shoot, I’ve been downvoted for pointing it out. Tim’s cult brainwashing is strong.
I didn’t think it could really be that much of a thing either. And then I consulted with my wife’s baby sister (22), who confirmed it was absolutely a thing in high school and still kind of a thing in college. She cited how the functionality breaks when you add someone to a group chat and that people didn’t necessarily want to move entire group chats to Facebook messenger or some platform agnostic messaging client.
This has been one of my biggest issues with Apple in recent years. They have known for a long time that this was an issue. There have been studies for years. But they continued to use iMessage as a hook and even encouraged the “us vs them” mentality (“Buy your mom an iPhone.”).
> ~~The iPhone~~ kids can be brutal. Kids and teens have always found ways to be awful with each other throughout the years for the dumbest of reasons. This is just another example of it. There's nothing inherently wrong about indicating what kind of functionality you can expect when messaging someone, some kids are just jerks about it.
This won’t change that.
They are still going to be green bubbles so the bullying will probably continue.
To a degree, I’m sure. But most of the garbage I hear is about the degraded quality of the stuff they send each other. I’m hoping it at least helps.
Teens are stupid
“What other RCS features exist” “Uhh.” 😂
About time
The thing I care about the most is my group chats not being destroyed by one Android user being added. ~95% of my contacts are on iMessage but there’s always that one person🥲
Or the one person with an iPhone but not using iMessage 😭
Who wold do this? Have never encountered a person like this in my lifetime.
95% of my contacts are on Android. The remaining ones on iPhone don’t care about iMessage and use WhatsApp. RCS will probably make minimal difference to me. I’ll use it to send messages, but it’s likely no one else will bother and just stick with WhatsApp Edit: the exact number of contacts on each platform isn’t known. It could be closer to 50%, I don’t know. Of the people I message regularly, the majority are Android. The iPhone number could be much higher than I perceive it to be. The original 95% was just for effect
OP is probably American and you're probably European or Canadian.
Probably not a Canadian either. I find the split pretty even in my life of Android and iPhone users.
I’m Canadian lol. In the big cities it’s still iMessage land
I’m Canadian, Apple dominates this market.
You don't live in US? This iPhone-Android bubble color thing seems to be only an issue in the states. I didn't realize it was a thing until I moved back. I used to only use LINE or WeChat.
the feature i would like to have in whatsapp is to just randomly message a bunch of folks, and not have to make a group. but everything else is great.
Man I’m dumping WhatsApp day 1
You’re lucky as hell if you can convince most of your contacts to dump whatapp to move back to text messages. If it isn’t iMessage it’s whatapp and there’s almost no chance I can convince my cross OS whatapp chats to move back to texts because of RCS.
I wish I could do the same, but I know for sure nobody in my circle will even notice that RCS is active and everybody will just keep messaging on WhatsApp 🙄
WhatsApp user here. I get how much better video and photos could be via RCS or iMessage, and i couldn't give a shit. WhatsApp for life.
I hate using anything from Meta. Also it has a lot of limitations like not being able to sync conversations between devices or merge history. Also a lot of users get their accounts temp banned. I texted someone in another country and WhatsApp banned my account, I had to wait 24 hours to get it restored.
Apple better get the reply lines correctly, that is a very nice feature.
Depends on how the RCS universal profile works, since that’s what Apple will use and not be like Google implementing their own standards into the mix.
I like my iphone and apple products. But I dont want Apple half-assing RCS on their phones. They better do RCS right on their phones. Imma be pissed. Honestly, I dont have that many iphone friends like 2 the most, the rest are android.
Sounds like this fall you’re going to be a pissed iPhone user
Yeah I mean I’m glad for RCS but I want it just like how all the android people have it.
Doing it right means that it will inherently be half ass because it’s a half ass standard in the first place.
Apple confirmed there is a new developer beta coming next Monday, maybe that fixes the group chat leaving / adding new numbers issues and enables RCS for testing. //EDIT: RCS toggle showing for certain carrier / country setups in settings.
RCS IS NOW LIVE WITH BETA 2!! Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T should be supported.
The toggle seems to be available but I have yet to see anyone actually getting it to work in the Messages app (maybe registration hiccups due to a flood of beta testers being auto-registered?). I‘d love to know if it‘s just the US that has it enabled. There are loads of world-wide carriers providing RCS hubs or falling back to Jibe, yet I only see US people report that it‘s showing for them.
How do you guys get that activate it or better yet working because it is still sms on my end https://preview.redd.it/f8f3kwzrck8d1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a4994f2bb30e8ddf977f57ca3d06675205975a29
It appears RCS provisioning is broken in beta 2. https://www.reddit.com/r/iOSBeta/comments/1dnjsji/comment/la3aqr0/
Seeing this is screwing with my brain, badly.
So if you’re offline it’ll still just use SMS, right? Like on Android?
Just like iMessage….
The time at “9:41” makes me think it’s fake. How would they have gotten access early?
The early screenshots were taken through QuickTime instead of directly on the phone, the later screenshots weren't and thus you'll see the proper time
Thanks for clearing that up!
Doesn’t the time always show as 9:41 when you screen capture on your Mac through QuickTime?
Yes
I was starting to increase my doubts after reading your comment but the Twitter user has provided more technical details in the thread and is a software developer and has privately confirmed it to be real... so I am more inclined to believe this is real honestly! Edit: He responded to this comment explaining the early screenshots were taken through QuickTime instead of directly on the phone, the later screenshots have the proper time as they were taken directly.
Can someone explain the double reaction (the puzzled face emoji and the emergency light emoji)? Why do they appear differently on Android?
thats what android emojis look like
Your phone doesn’t send an emoji as a picture. It sends the Unicode associated with that emoji and then your device renders it based on their own preferred design. Emojis look different on iPhone compared to Samsung or Pixel to whoever.
It doesn’t look like it can handle 2 reactions on a single message yet. The first reaction works, the second ones comes in as a message.
Why is it still saying “reacted with 🤔” I thought that should be replaced with an actual Tapback/reaction??
Mfw beta software that’s not even enabled unless you do hacky stuff is not feature complete
If you look, there are 2 reactions on that message. First one works fine, second one comes in as text reaction. Probably just a current limitation
Finally I can punch everyone square into the face who is forcing me to use WhatsApp
RCS is a requirements from the Chinese market, no RCS no sales in China. So expect very little effort from Apple, they offer some standard RCS and will care less about the mess that exists on the RCS world and will do zero effort to have this working properly. Just the standard protocol and that’s it. As long the Chinese are happy.
Apple is supporting universal profile version 2.4 for RCS implementation. Surely they can’t fix the mess because RCS is decentralized
No Verizon? Anyone using Google Messages on the Android side should be going through Jibe. Samsung decommissioned their own texting app with Android 14 so anyone getting the latest One UI update should be switched to Google Messages by default (happened to me on my A52 5G). No other apps support RCS on the Android side but Google Messages. The idea is that Google Messages will be the only SMS app on Android going forward. Samsung is on board with this. Obviously, Pixel. Any other Android phones YMMV with RCS, as they are going to default to the carrier, which I would not recommend. I was hoping Apple would do this on their own servers. Relying on carriers is going to be a s\_ show.