Hey, would you mind doing me a favor real quick? If you’re on an iPhone, can you double check that you’ve got RCS chat enabled for me? Thanks, I appreciate it. See, as an Android user, I don’t get to use all the fun iMessage features, but RCS lets us share some of them. The only problem is, iPhones seem to sometimes disable RCS for some chats after an update. Or for no reason at all.
RCS has been around for a while, but since it needs to be supported on both the carrier and device level, it’s taken some time to reach ubiquity. Understandably, you might have seen some chat conversations between iOS and Android users that still default to the older SMS-style texting, and just gone about your day. However, these days, if you’re chatting with your Android friends and you don’t see read receipts, or your pictures and videos are coming through in potato quality, there’s probably an easy fix.
To check if RCS is enabled on your phone:
-
Open the Settings app on your iOS device, then go to Apps.
-
Go to Messages > RCS Messaging
-
Enable the RCS Messaging toggle.
And that’s it! If you text your contacts from multiple devices, it’s also worth checking for RCS support on each of them. It might be a little annoying, but trust me, your Android friends will thank you.
What do you think so far?
If you’re the one using an Android phone, it can also be worth double-checking that RCS support is enabled, although it’s less likely to be a problem. While iOS devices support both iMessage and RCS as robust texting options, Android only has RCS. Both platforms can fall back to SMS, but your Android phone probably reaches for RCS as a default.
Still, it can’t hurt to check. The specific directions will differ based on manufacturer, but generally you can go to your default messaging app’s settings and look for an “RCS Chats” section to make sure the protocol is enabled on your end as well.