Tech Friday: RCS messaging between Android and iOS devices
Posted By RichC on October 4, 2024
There is little doubt our family and friends aren’t the only ones who struggle with differences of opinions … be they political or technology related. In today’s case it’s not politics, Microsoft Windows vs Apple MacOS or Linux … but Google’s Android text messaging vs Apple’s iOS and their proprietary encrypted “Messages” app. Thankfully Apple has caved and accepted their users “improved messaging requests.” Apple is
finally offering RCS (Rich Communication Services) support … meaning we can now exchange higher quality images and video with Android users by sending and receiving “RCS Messages.”
My son-in-law Drew has been on top of this for the past year and we’ve exchanged a few hopeful text messages. Since Brenda and I are iPhone users and they are diehard Android Google Pixel phone users. We’ve both thought it would be nice to receive better quality photos and videos of our family (our granddaughters deserve high quality photos too … well, at least “we” deserve higher quality photos of them!) 😊
Anyway, part of the problem has been solved since Apple is no longer holding out … now that iOS18 has rolled out … but the fact that it still requires carrier support. The big carrier names are moving it along, but the MVNO carriers are a little slower. Thankfully US Mobile’s founder and CEO has been pretty transparent on Reddit boards and keeping us in the loop. Almost to the day US Mobile had it up and running at least with their WARP product which is their Verizon 
as carrier service (they offer AT&T and T-Mobile services too).
The process to get RCS up on running required a couple step, at least for me, on two of our iPhones … and then to make sure it was working on both my iPad and MacBook Air. I suspect RCS require running updated operating systems and for me the iCloud sync backup running (iPhone Messages app data to the other devices). I’m not sure older devices (my 2012 iMac) will be able to exchange quality images and video, but it does receive them IF iCloud is synchronizing.
The steps I took to enable RCS on an iPhone:
- Updated the iPhone to iOS18
- Flipped the Messaging App completely closed (may not be necessary)
- Turn on RCS under Settings>Apps>Messages … then under TEXT MESSAGING select RCS Messaging and toggle it “on” (mine was already on)
- IMPORTANT: Turned US Mobile’s Verizon WARP line off, wait until it completely disconnects and then toggled it back on
- Reopening Messaging App and look for the indication that RCS is available in a message thread with Android user (see below)
Much Better: We can now exchange RCS images and video with the family. In a test below, Drew’s original 12.5 MB image was reduced, but still high-quality compared to what could be sent and received previously — video quality is 100 times improved.
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