The rollout of RCS has been slow, but as Sundar Pichai mentioned recently, it’s starting to gain momentum. This week, user reports reveal that Google is apparently rolling out RCS support to Google Messages users in India.
Today, the folks at APKMirror got ahold of an internal “dogfood” build of Google Messages version 6.2. Here, “dogfood” is used in the sense of the phrase “eat your own dog food,” meaning actually use the product you’re building. Of course, our APK Insight team immediately dug in to see what all is coming with the next version of Google Messages. While we’re still actively looking through the many changes found within, one in particular stood out — end-to-end encryption for RCS messages.
Update 5/26: We now have a screenshot of one of the end-to-end encryption settings pages in action.
Google’s initiative to bring RCS to every Android user has been a slow process, but it’s expanded quite a lot, even just in the past few months. Today, T-Mobile has announced a partnership with Google to bring RCS to every Android user on T-Mobile and Metro.
Between the COVID-19 pandemic, ongoing projects, and recent reports, things are kind of a whirlwind for Google at the moment. In an interview released today, Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai discussed the future of the Google Pixel lineup, progress of RCS, and how COVID-19 has been affecting Google’s business. Here’s the summary.
For the last few months, our APK Insight team has been tracking Google’s efforts to add emoji reactions to RCS and specifically their own Messages app. Some are now reporting that they’re able to add iMessage-like reactions to RCS messages.
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RCS messaging has had a rocky rollout so far, but Samsung and Google are now teaming up directly to enable the rich text message service on more Galaxy phones.
RCS chat is Google’s latest attempt to fix the Android messaging mess, and slowly the company has been rolling out the functionality to Android users around the world. Now, Google Messages is delivering RCS to users in Spain.
Google has recently begun making progress toward bringing reactions to RCS, or at least their version of RCS in the Google Messages app. In the latest salvo in the petty war of blue bubble vs green bubble, Google Messages is getting ready to send some very iMessage-like reaction text messages, such as “Liked a photo.”
RCS is widely rolled out in the US, Mexico, UK, and France after Google took charge of the rollout last year. There are now reports this afternoon that RCS is down, with many Android users stuck on the “Connecting…” status in Google Messages.
Last October, a trick to enable RCS in the Messages app on any Android phone emerged. Google today announced that it will be killing “unsupported workarounds” by the end of February.
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.