RCS eventually reverts back to SMS.

[usmaak]

I was really happy with RCS and it allowed me to communicate with my Android friends better. Video and pictures were better and even tapbacks work. I have noticed that if I don't get a message from an Android user for a little while (undetermined amount of time), that it seems to revert back to SMS. In the box where you type the message, it will say "Text Message - RCS" when sending a message over RCS and "Text Message - SMS" when sending it by SMS.

Any fix for that, or just wait for Apple to get it together and fix it?

 

[jedimasterkyle]

I've been noticing that too when texting my wife via RCS. I think a lot of the RCS issues are bugs on Apple's end but it could also be on the carriers too. Millions of iPhones just suddenly started using RCS so its reasonable to expect a number of slowdowns, issues, bugs and overall weirdness to happen for the first few weeks.

 

[usmaak]

Yeah. One of my friends tried to send me a message and had to switch over to SMS to send it. She got a message saying something to the effect that it would be sent when I was online. It let her switch to SMS and the message came through immediately.

 

[usmaak]

Nine days later and I still can't get RCS to stay turned on my phone. If I reset network settings it will come back for a few hours. And a few nights ago it turned on all by itself and lasted for most of the day before shutting off again. I've also noticed that restarting the phone seems to temporarily fix it.

 

[DukeSilver79]

Please explain this to me, but RCS is really for one on one with Android users? But if it's a group of iPhones with an android user, it reverts to SMS?

 

[usmaak]

Please explain this to me, but RCS is really for one on one with Android users? But if it's a group of iPhones with an android user, it reverts to SMS?

No. This was me and my iPhone 14 PM communicating with one person who has a Galaxy Fold 6. It works fine and then eventually RCS shuts off on my phone and I have to reset network to get it back, though sometimes restarting the phone works too.

 

[DakotaGuy]

Please explain this to me, but RCS is really for one on one with Android users? But if it's a group of iPhones with an android user, it reverts to SMS?

My brother and I both have Android phones. My sister has an iPhone. Once she updated to iOS 18 our group chat is now RCS. It's been working great. We are all on Verizon though so maybe that has something to do with it.

It's Apple's first go at incorporating this messaging protocol not to mention the RCS servers probably getting slammed with levels of traffic they've never seen before so it'll take some time to be highly reliable. I'd give it a few months as Apple fixes bugs and the carriers and servers adjust to the high level of network traffic.

 

[TimFL1]

My brother and I both have Android phones. My sister has an iPhone. Once she updated to iOS 18 our group chat is now RCS. It's been working great. We are all on Verizon though so maybe that has something to do with it.

It's Apple's first go at incorporating this messaging protocol not to mention the RCS servers probably getting slammed with levels of traffic they've never seen before so it'll take some time to be highly reliable. I'd give it a few months as Apple fixes bugs and the carriers and servers adjust to the high level of network traffic.

This is nothing Apple and carriers can fix as they do not run the infrastructure. Google is the one who seems to exclusively provide RCS services for all carriers (and it seems to be common that RCS ***** the bed on a hot summer night).

 

[DakotaGuy]

This is nothing Apple and carriers can fix as they do not run the infrastructure. Google is the one who seems to exclusively provide RCS services for all carriers (and it seems to be common that RCS ***** the bed on a hot summer night).

No, however Apple can make bug fixes at the device level to improve connection jumping, however I haven't had much issue with the people I've been messaging. So far it's been working fine for me messaging back and forth to iPhone users. Maybe it works better in the US versus other parts of the world.

 

[TimFL1]

No, however Apple can make bug fixes at the device level to improve connection jumping, however I haven't had much issue with the people I've been messaging. So far it's been working fine for me messaging back and forth to iPhone users. Maybe it works better in the US versus other parts of the world.

I feel like RCS is pretty okay now if your wifi network is supported (doesn‘t work on some of my frequent networks).

Nevertheless, RCS peaked with Beta 4 for me. That was when it was the most stable and reliable. That‘s the last build where it worked on my work wifi networks and the last build without the annoying SMS/RCS connection jitter you experience when anything in your connection stack changes (e.g. when you go on/off wifi, it flicks to SMS for a few seconds before RCS pops up again). Back then I could jump between wifi / cellular and I NEVER saw SMS (and RCS also worked, like during connection changes it still sent RCS so it wasn‘t a visual bug either). Hope we eventually return to that.

I also hope they sooner or later decouple it from being heavily linked to SMS. I don‘t want it to auto-send as SMS when RCS has trouble connecting, I also don‘t want chats to downgrade to SMS without good connection quality (just like iMessage is way more aggressive at staying active).