Apple's Promised RCS Upgrade Still Not Implemented in iOS 26 Beta

[mthomas184]

Airpower imminent?
Carplay Ultra imminent?
Apple Car imminent?
Apple Intelligence imminent?
Siri overhaul imminent?

Don't you guys get it?

Its not just one failure, its multiple failures at the same company.

AirPower - Failure
CarPlay Ultra - Already released
Apple Car - Never existed. I dont care what the “rumors” claimed
Apple Intelligence - Kinda sorta exists
Siri overhaul - Failure

Don’t you get it?

It’s 2 failures, not all 5.

 

[yeah]

Maybe they should focus on the bug in messages app where it’s not deleting texts from the server end. Usually when you manually delete texts and from recently deleted folder it takes 24hrs-4 days for the texts to be deleted on the server end which frees up space on the icloud essentially. It’s not doing that. It’s been a known bug since ios 18.2 and I keep reporting it on the feedback. They just havent fixed it yet. Prob wont for a year or so per usual. They never fix real bugs for like a year or so.

There are many problems with the messages app. I have an issue where messages have disappeared on iOS but show up on macOS, and vice versa!

 

[turbineseaplane]

You currently can do that on iOS 18 with RCS and iMessage groups.

It doesn’t seem to be working right for me. I have seen it one time and then every other time it’s delete and block even though the exact same people are involved.

Is it possibly due to whatever connection the android person is using at that time?

 

[BeatsByTim]

jesus can we give them some time to finish the OS before we talk about whats missing

No

 

[mthomas184]

It doesn’t seem to be working right for me. I have seen it one time and then every other time it’s delete and block even though the exact same people are involved.

Is it possibly due to whatever connection the android person is using at that time?

It could be. I will say, when I went and checked on mine, at first it showed “Leave Conversation” but them almost immediately switched to “Delete and Block” and I noticed it switched to SMS. But once it went back to RCS, it was back.

 

[turbineseaplane]

It could be. I will say, when I went and checked on mine, at first it showed “Leave Conversation” but them almost immediately switched to “Delete and Block” and I noticed it switched to SMS. But once it went back to RCS, it was back.

Interesting ... hopeful at least ..
I'll keep checking on a couple of these threads I'm stuck in.
Thx

 

[currocj]

Apple disdain and being forced into RCS kicking and screaming…is quite entertaining…even though it’s a good thing for the consumer.

 

[insomniac86]

Which carrier? Typically customer service reps are low-level initial support folks who follow scripts. You’d probably need to ask to be escalated to someone technical to find out what’s going on.

There are a couple of reasons why a carrier might have incomplete support for RCS. One is that, historically, carriers were not required to support RCS at all. So, especially for carriers that still use 4G, or which are piggybacked on other carriers’ systems, they may either have limited capacity, or may even be using one of the older versions, such as Universal Profile 1.0, that may not be able to be provisioned for devices that require later UP versions.

Fortunately, the 5G specifications do require carriers to support RCS, since RCS is intended to replace SMS. This drives wider adoption, and hopefully, all carriers will be able to support UP 3.0 later this year.

RCS requires the carrier to host their own RCS message relay servers. This has nothing to do with 5G, 4G etc.
RCS works over any connectivity method, meaning it works over WiFi with no cellular connectivity.


The history of RCS rollout:
-Originally, RCS required carriers to provide their own message servers for RCS support.
-Google got tired that carriers didn't do this, so Google now provides their own RCS servers (Jibe) for Android devices world wide to connect to, bypassing the carrier having to provide their own RCS servers.
-Google doesn't allow Apple devices to talk to its RCS servers directly without the carrier having an agreement in place. Once an agreement between the carrier and Google is established, the carrier defines the Jibe servers in the carrier profile config.
-Carriers have been very slow to do this, because it costs them money to host their own or negotiate a deal with Google to use theirs, so it's something they avoid doing as it costs them money to implement.

Not a single Australian carrier supports RCS, and they are all 5G networks.
Australian Android users can use RCS because their devices communicate directly to Google Jibe servers without the need for a carrier profile instructing the device to do so. This is why Android devices support RCS and iPhones don't.
Android devices have the Jibe servers defined by the messaging app. While iPhones rely on the carrier profile to define the servers.

 

[TimFL1]

Does RCS 3.0 support allow us to "leave the conversation" when stuck in a big group thread of mixed iMessage/RCS users?

Mixed platform group messaging on iMessage is one of my least favorite things of all time.

"Delete & Block" only seems to keep things at bay for a little while .. and on some devices ...
It's brutal.

That works? I am in a hybrid group (iMessage and RCS) and leave conversation is an option. It only gets disabled / replaced by delete and block if it‘s a MMS group.

Makes sense. This requires coordination with carriers. I'd expect it to launch when iOS 26 launches.

Given that no carrier has announced that they’re supporting Universal Profile 3.0, it makes sense that neither Apple nor Google have publicly made available any code that supports it. Most likely, their respective developer teams are still working privately with carriers, and the GSMA on the implementation, which would then appear as part of a carrier services update on phones when the carrier is ready for customer testing. Much like T-Mobile’s beta test of Starlink direct to cell services, it’s quite possible that carriers will run separate beta programs for it.

Article is misleading, you don‘t have to wait on carriers for this seeing as all carriers did was provide a Google Jibe endpoint for RCS. So it‘s Google we‘re waiting on, carriers wont have to do anything other than push a carrier profile with RCS enabled and Jibe as their RCS hub.

AFAIK there are exactly zero carriers who provide their own RCS implementation, everyone just tells Google to be their backend.

 

[svish]

Think it will take some more time, probably will be available around the time iOS 26 launches. Carriers have to fully support it and worldwide availability might take even longer.

 

[SMH4KIDIOT]

-Google doesn't allow Apple devices to talk to its RCS servers directly. Hence the carrier needs to provide a replay server for iPhones.
-Carriers have been very slow to do this, because it costs them money to host their own or negotiate a deal with Google to use theirs, so it's something they avoid doing as it costs them money to implement.

RCS on iOS goes through Jibe network, that's because most, if not every carrier at this point have defaulted to using Google Jibe network.

 

[clg82]

It's a "future capability" 🤣

 

[mandrake2016]

I’ve noticed Verizon, whose app/website has been total and utter outsourced layers of spaghetti garbage, has been highlighting how many minutes texts are used, like anyone counts that anymore.. or maybe they’re planning to restart charging per minute and message… would not shock me.

 

[justanotherdave]

Google will support UP 3.0 with encryption as well once the carriers add support for 3.0. They added their own encryption because they got tired of waiting. But both Apple and Google will end up supporting the same encryption.

That’s not the point.

Google wanted to become relevant again after 20 years of failure in messaging and watching others (like WhatsApp or iMessage) dominate.

Google hoped for a messaging duopoly where iPhone users had iMessage and Android users had Google Messages and the two would interoperate vis RCS. This would render other messaging platforms obsolete as you would no longer need to get your friends to use an alternate service.

They even took specific steps to try and make this happen (like their campaign to shame Apple into supporting RCS while at the same time refusing to let Android developers access RCS APIs so they could also integrate RCS).

This article is 4 years old but nicely sums up Google’s complete failure in the messaging world.

A decade and a half of instability: The history of Google messaging apps

Sixteen years after the launch of Google Talk, Google messaging is still a mess.

arstechnica.com

 

[Kottu]

Which carrier? Typically customer service reps are low-level initial support folks who follow scripts. You’d probably need to ask to be escalated to someone technical to find out what’s going on.

There are a couple of reasons why a carrier might have incomplete support for RCS. One is that, historically, carriers were not required to support RCS at all. So, especially for carriers that still use 4G, or which are piggybacked on other carriers’ systems, they may either have limited capacity, or may even be using one of the older versions, such as Universal Profile 1.0, that may not be able to be provisioned for devices that require later UP versions.

Fortunately, the 5G specifications do require carriers to support RCS, since RCS is intended to replace SMS. This drives wider adoption, and hopefully, all carriers will be able to support UP 3.0 later this year.

Operator : 3 (Sweden)
I spoke with tech support !!!

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Sad part is, the ones crying about "who cares this doesn't matter" doesn't have an android user in their life they text. RCS with IOS18 made group messaging with android users sooo much nicer. Not everyone hates people based on their phone choices and some people like android more than iPhone. Never understood why some iPhone users get mad when a feature gets added just because they won't use it.

I do, they haven’t enabled RCS and I don’t care if they do. They can read the words I type, I can read the words they type. Can I see when they’re typing? Do I get read receipts? No. BUT, I know they’ve been typing AND I know when they’ve read it when they reply with text that references something said in what I texted. RCS is probably nice for those that need it, though.

 

[Premium1]

I do, they haven’t enabled RCS and I don’t care if they do. They can read the words I type, I can read the words they type. Can I see when they’re typing? Do I get read receipts? No. BUT, I know they’ve been typing AND I know when they’ve read it when they reply with text that references something said in what I texted. RCS is probably nice for those that need it, though.

I think the main draw of RCS is in group messages (especially with android users). Group messages before RCS sucked if you had a mixed group of users. It wasn't perfect with RCS but it was leaps and bounds better than the SMS version it replaced.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

I think the main draw of RCS is in group messages (especially with android users). Group messages before RCS sucked if you had a mixed group of users. It wasn't perfect with RCS but it was leaps and bounds better than the SMS version it replaced.

The same person is in a group chat with me and other iPhone users (again SMS, no RCS). We all type words, even share pictures of events, coordinate times to meet, etc. Biggest difference is the bubbles are all green. Again, I’m sure it’s good for those folks that need more than that, I’m just glad I’m not one of them.

 

[Premium1]

The same person is in a group chat with me and other iPhone users (again SMS, no RCS). We all type words, even share pictures of events, coordinate times to meet, etc. Biggest difference is the bubbles are all green. Again, I’m sure it’s good for those folks that need more than that, I’m just glad I’m not one of them.

The green bubbles have 0 to do with it (and outside of teens, nobody cares). Being able to leave group messages, images not looking like they came from a potato are just some of the things that make it better.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

The green bubbles have 0 to do with it (and outside of teens, nobody cares). Being able to leave group messages, images not looking like they came from a potato are just some of the things that make it better.

Green bubbles is the ONLY difference I see whether messaging someone with Android or iPhone. I haven’t gotten any horrible images either, but perhaps that’s due to AT&T not destroying MMS delivered images? I believe that, even over RCS, Google had a problem not delivering quality images, hopefully they’ve resolved that.

I do feel for those folks that haven’t been able to leave group messages or see decent quality images as they’ve been dealing with that for years. I’m glad RCS is around for those people that need it.

 

[mckillio]

Does RCS 3.0 support allow us to "leave the conversation" when stuck in a big group thread of mixed iMessage/RCS users?

Mixed platform group messaging on iMessage is one of my least favorite things of all time.

"Delete & Block" only seems to keep things at bay for a little while .. and on some devices ...
It's brutal.

The current implementation already supports this, I've seen it in action, along with removing people from a thread.

 

[mckillio]

I wonder how Google feels about this? Apple stated they weren’t going to use Google’s proprietary encryption for RCS and would work with standards bodies instead.

Now we have RCS with official support for encryption. After Google spent years trying to shame Apple into adopting RCS and hoping Google Messages would become relevant again. 😁

They probably feel great, they were a big part of this.

 

[mckillio]

It would be nice to actually have RCS but my carrier *cough* Vodafone UK *Cough* doesn't support it iOS yet

How do you know it isn't being held up on Apple's end? That's been the case for basically every carrier to an extent.

 

[mckillio]

Yes, using Universal Profile 2.4, which is the current version deployed by phone carriers. Before either Apple or Google make Universal Profile 3.0 (which adds the functions like E2EE) available in the phone software, the carriers need to upgrade their systems to support it.

I'm pretty confident many support 2.7.

 

[mckillio]

It's funny you say that because Google forces every Android Messenger user to use their own proprietary version of RCS and to send all their messages through Google servers so they can data capture on them.

That's not true. A. You can turn off RCS. B. The carriers have to agree to use Google's servers, those that don't mean that if you're using RCS then you're not using Google's.