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From an European perspective RCS is not very relevant.

Nobody uses SMS anymore, and nobody uses iMessage. All the feet dragging and non platform agnostic apps made WhatsApp dominant.

Well, with RCS perhaps we will get nicer bank and delivery SMS notifications.
 
It's a good question. If it's for business purposes, SMS will suffice as a base level communications mechanism. These are usually brief and don't require complex feature support (emojis, reactions, deletions, images, video are almost never needed in these cases). E-mail is actually a better medium than SMS here.

For work colleagues, you go with the company defined communications tool. Slack or Microsoft Teams for instance.

It's only for more serious relationships (friends, family, etc.) then you work on convincing people to use a platform. That's where the investment is worthwhile.
So you have to get people at work to use slack or Microsoft teams? None of my work colleagues use those either. It's just not common in my job. We all just text or email. But mostly text because it supports all those things you mentioned: emojis, reactions, images, and video but not deletions unless everyone is on iMessage, which most people are. Even SMS/MMS supports all those minus the deletion. Email is only for files like PDFs for call sheets and one-liner schedules, etc. Although my work flow is a little more immediate than most. Email is way too slow for what I do most of the time. But using an app instead of the system that is on every single smart phone and is cross platform seems like trying to "make fetch happen". So I guess there must be some benefit that iMessage doesn't have. I'm just at a loss as to what it could be and how it would be worth limiting the number of people who can communicate with you... Anyway, thanks for the info. :)
 
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From an European perspective RCS is not very relevant.

Nobody uses SMS anymore, and nobody uses iMessage. All the feet dragging and non platform agnostic apps made WhatsApp dominant.

Well, with RCS perhaps we will get nicer bank and delivery SMS notifications.
If I look at iMessage, I actually get loads of messages from companies - re appointments, deliveries, etc.

And now I think about it, I have no idea how they are sent to me! I think they are all SMS but have never even bothered to find out - not even to find how to find out! They arrive. 99% I simply read and that's it.
 
If I look at iMessage, I actually get loads of messages from companies - re appointments, deliveries, etc.

And now I think about it, I have no idea how they are sent to me! I think they are all SMS but have never even bothered to find out - not even to find how to find out! They arrive. 99% I simply read and that's it.
Yes, around here that's mainly also the purpose left to SMS.

And some companies are even starting to use Whatsapp for some communication.
 
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No. SMS is not going through WiFi (or internet in general). Calls can. SMS can not. I'm talking about pure SMS, not iMessage nor Whatsapp nor RCS. So putting your phone on airplane mode definitely does not send SMS.
It does in the United States. T-Mobile does it. AT&T does it. Verizon does as well.

I have terrible cell signal at home (with all 3 major carriers in the U.S.). When I'm at home I keep my phone in Airplane Mode (WiFi and Bluetooth on). I send and receive SMS/MMS all the time to family and friends who have Android phones.

Granted, this doesn't work everywhere in the world (it didn't work for family on a cruise) but I know for a fact that it works in the U.S. and Canada. WiFi calling needs to be enabled for this to work.
 
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Email is way too slow and cumbersome for most of my use cases... and I haven't paid for a text message in the last 10 years. Most cellular carriers are free unlimited texts on most if not all plans anyway.
 
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How? SMS only works over cellular. I was just on a cruise and my phone was in airplane mode the whole time and android people could only communicate via Facebook messenger cus I don’t think many actually even have rcs yet
I guess it assumes that your carrier has Wifi-calling that can send your cellular connection though a Wifi network if reception is poor.
 
Why do I have this feeling that Apple will take RCS to a whole new level. :p
Apple has it figured out , or they would not be doing it. In fact, they have most likely had it working very well for a very long time. Waiting for the need. I was once told they are working on the next 5 products. - maybe more now. I just don't like the exodus of engineering and engineering management talent. And Apple Health should go to a whole new level. Newbie, but Apple User since before 1984 - year of the Mac.
 
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You can have end to end encryption all day long. The concern is what the device itself does with that info on the other side.
 
How? SMS only works over cellular. I was just on a cruise and my phone was in airplane mode the whole time and android people could only communicate via Facebook messenger cus I don’t think many actually even have rcs yet
That's basically the only time it doesn't work (it's a carrier issue at that point) or if you happen to live somewhere in the world without the carrier enabling it (the U.S. carriers have it enabled, Canada as well, most/all European ones should too). If you live on a cruise ship, you're out of luck.

Are you from the U.S.? Try it when not on a cruise ship. I do SMS over WiFi (unless iOS is lying and my phone really isn't in Airplane Mode) almost every day of my life and have for 2-3 years. I don't use Facebook Messenger or any other messaging app other than iMessage. Most of the people I text with have iPhones but there are dozens that I text regularly that have Android phones. It works. I've also done it in Canada. I've also sent MMS over WiFi (in Airplane Mode from an iPhone to an Android phone).

Here it is in Australia: https://www.telstra.com.au/exchange/switching-on-sms-over-wi-fi-on-our-mobile-network

Before I started switching on Airplane Mode, sending and receiving SMS at home (poor cell coverage) was a pain. I'd have to find the couple spots in my house where there was almost enough signal for it to work (or walk outside for a while to find better signal). Once I switched to Airplane Mode, all those issues (and the fast battery drain due to no cell coverage!) went away. It just works.
 
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Class action lawsuit against Apple for making RCS messages green despite their having substantially the same functionality as iMessage in 3, 2, 1…

Right, cause people have suffered a measurable loss from it...

They charge for MMS and quite a lot

Yes here in the UK (on EE at least but I'm sure it applies to other carriers) it costs 55 pence to send a MMS.

Wow. I get unlimited messages and calls for one flat rate. Is that a UK/EU thing?

It's a small amount relative to their revenue, but if they feel like it won't get them much/any return then there's still little incentive to do it.

Exactly. No reason to invest money in a little used service when you can do other things that people want.

blue vs green bubbles is already confusing for many.

I doubt most people notice or care. They just message.
 
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From an European perspective RCS is not very relevant.

Nobody uses SMS anymore, and nobody uses iMessage. All the feet dragging and non platform agnostic apps made WhatsApp dominant.

Well, with RCS perhaps we will get nicer bank and delivery SMS notifications.
It's very region-dependent in Europe. I live in Sweden right now and my order, in terms of messages sent/received is: iMessage > Signal > SMS > WhatsApp.

I used to live in Austria though, and everything used WhatsApp there, even contact with my doctor was through WhatsApp.
 
Wow. I get unlimited messages and calls for one flat rate. Is that a UK/EU thing?
We get unlimited text messages in the UK on most if not all call packages now and have done for a long time. It is just MMS messages that are not included and thus incur a 55 pence charge.
 
I'm on Hallon, which admittedly is a budget carrier and subsidy of Tre (Three Sweden). But it's hard to find information about RCS from Swedish carriers in general. Google's implementation is not the same as network RCS that Apple seems to be planning to use. Google's version works like iMessage, and works with any data connection, while RCS from the GSM Association will be more akin to SMS/MMS from the provider's point of view. Almost all info I find though mentions only Google's variant.
I have problems getting photos (mms) from a friend who's using android on Comvig. I am on Telia (and iPhone). Sometimes it could take more than 24 hours before I get an sms from Telia with a code to log in to a webpage so I could read the message/photo. He has no problems receiving what I'm sending. I just wonder what the problem could be and if RCS would solve it.
 
We get unlimited text messages in the UK on most if not all call packages now and have done for a long time. It is just MMS messages that are not included and thus incur a 55 pence charge.
So they treat sms different than mms? That's very different than how it is done see in the US. MMS and SMS are the same and most carrier plans include unlimited texting anyway. So if you send a pic, video, or just some text, it doesn't cost anything more than what you pay monthly. No wonder people use 3rd party apps. Who would want to pay multiple dollars/pounds/euros to share some vacation pics with family or friends?! That's nuts.
 
This is not true. Perhaps a particular country/carrier did not adopt to this technology yet but it exists for years and is fairly mainstream nowadays.
One can verify if their iPhone/carrier technically supports it by taping on "Settings > About > IMS Status".
It is only available if "Settings > Phone > Calls > Wi-Fi Calling" is set to "On".
View attachment 2315646
Is this something that's not available in the US? I don't have that menu on my phone (AT&T).
 
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Perhaps it is because the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China has issued a draft for comments on the notification document on RCS. If this notification document is officially released, all 5G mobile phones that apply for network access licenses must support "5G Xiaoxi/5G Message", or RCS, 6 months after the notification document is issued.
We can even make a guess that Apple will announce support for RCS later next year, which may mean that the launch time of the new iPhone in September next year will be six months after the official release of this notification document. Otherwise, Apple will even support RCS in 2025.
Finally, the comment was converted from the iOS built-in translation app to English, so it may contain ambiguity.
 
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I have problems getting photos (mms) from a friend who's using android on Comvig. I am on Telia (and iPhone). Sometimes it could take more than 24 hours before I get an sms from Telia with a code to log in to a webpage so I could read the message/photo. He has no problems receiving what I'm sending. I just wonder what the problem could be and if RCS would solve it.
Sounds like you might have a configuration issue. Here's Telia's page for how to set up MMS on an iPhone: https://www.telia.se/foretag/support/info/apn-installningar-for-din-iphone

Telia sends a link as a fallback to phones that are not set up for MMS.
 
So Apple finally decided to take the plunge by starting to support RCS (in 2024) which is an initiative Google has specifically been trying to get handset makers onboard w/ since as early as 2019 from what I can recall... Good on them.
 
Green Bubbles vs. Blue Bubbles

While it will be less frustrating to communicate with "green bubble" people on an Apple device, chat bubble colors are not changing.

iMessage conversations will continue to be denoted with blue chat bubbles, and RCS messages will continue to be green, the same as SMS/MMS messages are now. Note that SMS and MMS aren't going away. They'll continue to be available on networks that don't support RCS and in situations where RCS is unavailable.

Tim Cook's mediocrity strikes again. If both SMS and RCS messages are green, how will we know if the message is SMS or RCS?

Why not make RCS messages a different color, i.e., not green nor blue, but rather a third color? Oh, I forgot—that's far too logical and user-friendly for Tim Cook's mediocre MBA mind to comprehend.
 
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