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.”
Last month, it emerged that Verizon was planning to launch Universal Profile RCS early next year. The Google-backed messaging standard is now set to officially begin rolling out on December 6th for the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL.
When Google earlier this year detailed that its future consumer messaging effort would be centered around RCS and Messages, AT&T and Verizon also signaled that it would adopt the Universal Profile. The latter carrier might be launching support early next year.
RCS is the next big attempt spearheaded by Google to improve messaging on Android, and today Samsung has announced that it is working with Google to ensure that its messaging app works properly with RCS and Android Messages.
Google last month introduced the highly anticipated ability to send and receive texts from the web. The feature reflects how Google is centering its messaging future around Android Messages and ultimately RCS. That standard, long touted as an upgrade to SMS, is finally getting adoption from all the key players around the world and users are closer than ever to benefiting from it.
But as the world makes this shift, it can be a bit confusing to see what distinguishes Google’s Android Messages app and the RCS standard. Oh, and what’s that “Chat” thing I’ve heard about?
Oreo has been slowly rolling out to various Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge variants over the last several months, and now it’s T-Mobile’s turn. But this update involves more than just a firmware update, it also includes support for RCS Universal Profile 1.0, allowing for richer communications between carriers.
While the Executive Branch is warming up to Chinese companies like ZTE following the reversal of an export ban, Congress is continuing to scrutinize US companies working with China. The legislative body is now particularly focusing on a Google and Huawei partnership announced in January to push RCS adoption.
Over a year ago, Google announced that Android Messages would be preloaded by 20+ OEMs as the official RCS client. Now, Google is finalizing its RCS partnerships with carriers and OEMs and will be calling the RCS standard “Chat.”
