Ryan Haines / Android Authority
TL;DR
- It turns out that RCS isn’t available to iPhone users on Google Fi.
- Google has claimed that Apple has to enable RCS for iPhone-toting Google Fi users.
- Google Fi users with Android devices can still use this texting standard with iPhone owners, though.
Apple has finally released iOS 18 on iPhones, and one of the most important additions is the RCS texting standard. This allows for a more modern texting experience between iPhones and Android devices. Unfortunately, RCS isn’t available to iPhone users on Google Fi just yet.
Google told 9to5Google that Apple is effectively to blame for iPhone users not getting RCS on its network:
Only Apple has the ability to enable RCS interoperability for iPhone users on Fi, and our hope is that they will do so in the near future.
In other words, it sounds like Google Fi has taken all the necessary steps to enable RCS for iPhone users, but it’s now up to Apple to flick the proverbial switch on its end. So, our fingers are crossed that Apple enables RCS sooner rather than later. If there’s any consolation, it’s that Google Fi subscribers with Android phones can indeed use RCS messaging to chat with iPhone users.
Either way, we tried out RCS between Android and iOS a few months back and thought it was a good start. This modern texting standard still lacks features seen on the likes of WhatsApp and Signal, but it nevertheless beats old-fashioned SMS.
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