RCS vs iMessage Debate
The cluster revolves around debates on RCS as an upgrade to SMS, Apple's refusal to support it, Google's proprietary extensions and promotion via Google Messages, and comparisons to iMessage's features and ecosystem lock-in.
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RCS isn't by Google, it's a standard that Apple refuses to support.
This is about RCS vs. SMS. Apple and Google support SMS as a cross-platform standard. They should support RCS, which is superior.
If RCS was better for Messages Google wouldn’t have to advertise for it
RCS improves SMS, it doesn't replace iMessage.
I have only used Android phones and I strongly dislike RCS. RCS in theory is a standard but in practice it is == "Google Messages" the app. I don't know of a single telco that supports it (hosting their own infra of it), nor does any other SMS app (maybe 1 or 2 being exception that proves the rule). RCS(Google Messages) is just another messaging app like Whatsapp/Signal just that it pretends being a standard. AFAIK AOSP has no RCS APIs like it has for SMS. Not to mention the
RCS' rollout has been a complete shit show. Carriers have deployed it inconsistently between markets, messaging apps have had inconsistent support for it, different apps have added their own extensions, and interoperability between carriers has been inconsistent. Shit, Google Messages only started supporting it in 2018 with most users needing to use Google's servers to actually get it working across carriers. Google only added E2EE last summer and only in 1:1 conversations between Goog
Isn't Google's RCS implementation proprietary anyhow?
Google version of RCS would cripple iMessage. standard RCS is not good enough to be used in practice. Basically google wants apple to use its own version of iMessage (conveniently calls it as RCS and make it looks like it is standard)
RCS is Google's iMessage with the same vendor locking — not actually cross-platform.
RCSIt's still getting rolled out a lot of places. Google sees it as the successor to SMS and it's built into native messaging apps. I recently saw cross-carrier support get enabled locally and that made it universal enough that so far anyone I message that's running Android is already connected via RCS.Apple intentionally doesn't support RCS in order to keep imessages from interoperating with android.