Last month, Google unveiled plans to bring RCS to all Android phones in the United States, scheduled to roll out over the following weeks. Today, a new update to Carrier Services seems to immediately enable RCS on some Android devices, including Google Pixel phones.
Last month, a method was discovered to force enable RCS/Chat messaging on almost any Android phone with the Google Messages app. As of this morning, this trick is no longer needed, as Google has officially launched RCS messaging in the US, bypassing carriers. Google has now explained how this RCS migration will affect those who used the unofficial trick.
RCS messaging is finally coming to Android smartphones in the United States after a trial in some other countries. If you want to get in on the action, here’s what you’ll need to do to enable RCS messaging on Android.
Earlier this year, Google took over the RCS rollout from carriers in the UK, France, and Mexico. With no market still so reliant on SMS as the US, Google today announced that it’s officially rolling out RCS in Messages stateside.
Despite missteps and issues, if you happen to have a Pixel 4 on Google Fi, you can now enable RCS messaging with DSDS support also added.
A hack that enabled Rich Communication Services on any Android phone and carrier emerged last weekend. According to reports over the past 24 hours, the RCS trick has stopped working for some users.
This has been a big week for Rich Communicator Services with the four largest U.S. carriers announcing (a Google-less) plan to roll out the SMS/MMS successor. Today, a trick has emerged that appears to enable RCS on any Android device and carrier.
Here’s a shocker. All four major US carriers — Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile — have just announced that they’re joining forces to deliver RCS messaging in the US for Android smartphones in 2020.
RCS has been in the works for a few years now, but it’s still not available for the majority of Android users. In a WIRED piece today, a Google executive explains how the RCS rollout hasn’t been sufficient while researchers try to pinpoint where the service will be headed next.
Since the big unveiling of its “Chat” initiative, Google has been investing heavily into RCS, even directly handling the rollout of RCS messaging in the UK and France. At one point, RCS was supposed to be deeply integrated with Android Q and made available to third-party developers, but this sadly ended up not being the case. Now Google is already looking ahead to the next version of Android and adding more RCS APIs.
As we wait for Google’s RCS chat initiative to continue its rollout in more countries, Google has confirmed this weekend that the messaging option has been fully rolled out to Android users in both the UK and France.
Carriers have completely botched Google’s plans for RCS messaging, so the company has taken over with its own approach. However, some carriers are still delivering the functionality, with some Google Messages users on Visible, Xfinity Mobile, and Simple Mobile reporting RCS working on their devices.
RCS Chat is now live within Google Messages in just two countries — the U.K. and France. We know all about the rich communication services and how they might offer something akin to iMessage, but for Android smartphone owners.
The RCS revolution on Android has begun, well, at least in the UK as RCS Chat is now starting to roll out to Google Messages in the United Kingdom and France — although it comes with a few caveats.
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With Rich Communication Services slow to proliferate around the world, Google announced today that it’s stepping in to help boost adoption. The company is specifically offering to handle RCS rollout so that individual carriers do not have to.
The rollout of RCS messaging has been dreadfully slow to date, and also fairly unpredictable. This week, the Samsung Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ on Verizon Wireless are getting RCS support.
The rollout of RCS messaging has been incredibly slow, and it doesn’t help that even when you have it, it can be hard to tell. In the latest update for Messages, Google has quietly added a status indicator to the app’s settings to show when you’re connected and ready for RCS messaging.
RCS is barely available, but even for those it’s been activated for, it can easily be broken. In the latest beta for Android Q, some Pixel users are finding that RCS is broken. Thankfully, there might be a simple fix.
Google’s initiative to bring RCS messaging to Android phones is almost completely reliant on carriers, and that’s going just about as well as everyone thought it would. Today, T-Mobile has casually mentioned that the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3a won’t support RCS messaging on its network.
Google is putting all of its cards in messaging on RCS, but carriers are being very slow to roll it out. This past week, though, some dual-SIM Android users noticed RCS going live on their devices in North America.
Last year, a change to Chrome OS revealed that Messages for Web would be transitioning from Android.com to Google.com. This lined up with the recent transition from the “Android Messages” name to simply “Messages.” Today, a slightly updated version of Messages for Web with RCS settings has gone live on Google.com.
Last month, we covered the strong possibility of Android Q providing new APIs for RCS messaging to third-party app developers, based on some evidence in Android code. It appears that Google’s plans may have changed in the intervening month, according to a new commit.
With last year’s announcement of the “Chat” initiative, it became clear that Google would be working to make RCS the best possible messaging product for everyone. Staying true to that commitment, it seems Android Q may bring RCS capabilities to third-party apps with new system APIs.
Over the past week, the narrative around Google’s messaging and communication services has been defined by a spate of planned deprecations — both of which 9to5Google first reported about. While older services will be “sunset,” the company’s vision for consumers hasn’t changed much since earlier this year, revolving around RCS “Chat” and Google Duo video calling.
However, complicating this dual-service future now is the newly-revealed fact that the enterprise-focused Hangouts Chat and Meet will also be available to consumers, and that Google Voice is still an active service. This is just the latest in Google’s tangled and sometimes incoherent strategy for simply saying “Hello.”
