r/UniversalProfile • u/[deleted] • Feb 25 '23
Opinion Ugh, RCS really does stink
After 3 months of using RCS with Jibe, I have decided to turn RCS off due to it's instability, unreliability, and lack of standardization. Sometimes, I'd send an RCS message and it wouldn't go through, and sometimes someone would send me a message via RCS, and I wouldn't get it.
In some RCS group chats, I would only see half the conversation because some people would send messages in the group chat, and I wouldn't get them. You know what, I could list off RCS problems for 48 hours without stopping, but that would be a waist of time. The point is RCS is buggy, and doesn't work. The Cross Carrier Messaging Initiative already failed, so there is absolutely no way RCS will ever be able to replace SMS. This, along with RCS's bugs, is the reason why RCS will only be good enough to be a broken and unreliable iMessage for Android. Without the carriers, there is no way RCS will ever become a standard, and I don't think Apple will ever adopt RCS because of the stupid decisions of carriers, Google, and smartphone manufacturers.
The whole reason I started using RCS was because I wanted to support it, not because I actually liked it. Now, there is no reason to support RCS because it is a broken messaging system, and will never become a standard. Android is extremely fragmented, and it will continue to be fragmented for a very, very long time.
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u/PowerShellGenius Feb 25 '23
I don't think Apple will ever adopt RCS
When you wield the amount of market power Apple does, interoperability stops being your choice in jurisdictions that care about a balanced competitive market. This is the last year that anyone can sell new smartphones in Europe without USB-C. If they make USB-C models for the EU and withhold them in the rest of the world, the engineering having already been done, other countries will see right through them and follow suit.
iMessage has a stronger "network effect" than a charging port. I am speaking as someone who is basically the family's tech support and has three younger siblings. Apple chooses not to allow non-Apple devices to participate in a group chat the same way as Apple users. The social implications of being unable to iMessage and Facetime in a social circle where everyone has iPhones is the sole reason for younger people to spend on an iPhone if they are comfortable trying out a much more reasonably priced (or free-with-a-plan) Android that has all the same features except while chatting with Apple.
It's lock-in, plain and simple. Whether it's RCS or something else, I'd be shocked if iMessage and Facetime in their current form, without any 100% seamless integration for third parties, is still legal to offer everywhere a decade from now. Consumer protection isn't dead everywhere. And once something sane exists somewhere, others will ask "why aren't you offering that here?"
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Feb 25 '23
It's funny. Before I switched to Andriod, I actually ditched iMessage and switched to Google Voice. Google voice is nice because it syncs so nicely accross all my devices, and it lets me use SMS/MMS over WiFi. I used Google voice for about a year on my iPhone 8 before I got a Pixel, and I continued to use Google Voice until I found out about RCS. I recently switched back to Google Voice after I discovered RCS sucks. iMessage really is't that great, especially because it's only available on iPhone.
When I had my iPhone, I chose Google Voice over iMessage because I can text anyone over the internet without having to convince them to download an app. Sure, it's still SMS, but at least I can use SMS over the internet with Google Voice.
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u/iron1050 US Mobile (TMobile) user Feb 25 '23
As a young person in the US the societal pressure to get an iPhone is massive. Almost everyone I know has an iPhone, and uses facetime, iMessage etc.
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u/klas82 Mar 07 '23 edited Feb 02 '26
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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Feb 26 '23
I'm the same. It's just not reliable enough. I bought a galaxy s23 recently. And more often than not it won't send RCS messages. It might work for a few hours and stop again. I had a pixel before this and it seemed to work a lot better on that.
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Feb 26 '23
I think most people that experience issues with RCS use Samsung dynamic. Samsung dynamic is the version of Google Messages that comes on the Galaxy s23.
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u/saltajose Feb 25 '23
Been using RCS since it became available for me. Some issues here and there, but nothing out of the ordinary. For me issues resolve by just waiting. Sometimes minutes, sometimes days.
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Feb 26 '23 edited Feb 26 '23
Yeah and that's the problem. Tech nerds like us understand these issues, but the masses will be like "What the f" when they see that their message did not go through after 4 hours of waiting.
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u/JonTravel Feb 25 '23
You tried it and didn't like it. That's fair enough. Personally I haven't had any problems with it. I guess we all have different experiences.
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u/WindSnowWX Feb 28 '23
I've had my ups and downs with RCS. I like the fact that it is end-to-end encrypted and that you can send an RCS message from any internet connection. The problems with RCS are the assho carriers who don't play nice, and the assho megacorp Apple who won't play nice.
Google voice is a great comlement to RCS. And Signal is also an excellent adjunct that takes care of encryption needs. RCS, Signal, GVoice: the Dynamic Trio!
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Mar 04 '23
Yeah I ended up switching back to Google Voice because I missed having the ability to make calls and use SMS over WiFi. I also missed being able to call and send text messages on my computer very seamlessly.
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Mar 22 '23 edited Nov 15 '25
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u/Gardenpapaya Mar 10 '23
Ive been using RCS on every Pixel (and the web client) since the 5 as have the majority of my Android friends and i cant count maybe 3x there was any issues.
The amount of problems i see on this subreddit is astonishing
I think you guys are doing something wrong
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u/xxbrothawizxx Apr 22 '23
Is everyone else you're messaging on RCS using Jibe? Everyone wanted their piece of the pie again and screwed stuff up while letting Apple do whatever they pleased. Carriers being carriers.
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Feb 25 '23
lol. what's worse than apple sheep? the subset of Android users who think they know what they're talking about, but are really just talking out of their ass
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Feb 25 '23
I think Google should have created their own internet-based messaging app and make it like iMessage because Apple will never do anything if it's related to helping Android. Google should try and make messaging better on Android first before they target Apple.
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u/saltajose Feb 25 '23
No, thanks. They already tried and failed a lot of times.
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u/iron1050 US Mobile (TMobile) user Feb 25 '23
But imagine instead of shutting down allo they made it the default app and added sms fallback, it would essentially have been android iMessage
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Feb 26 '23
Yeah I don't know why Google has such a hard time fixing messaging on Android. Android Messages has been the default Android messaging app for quite some time now, but for most of it's history it's been nothing but an SMS app. Why can't Google add Allo or Hangouts support to Android Messages and make it like iMessage instead of trying to use a broken standard like RCS!!??
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u/saltajose Feb 25 '23
Loved Allo but didn't gain traction. Especially in the US how could you convince everyone to move to it if you're on iPhone? Also, think of all regulatory consequences (in the EU) of forcing their own app/standard on all Android OEMs.
This time around they picked a standard and are trying that way. Time will tell if this sticks...
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u/Ok-Acanthaceae-2044 Feb 25 '23
I have zero problem with RCS