Why is RCS not working between my iPhone running iOS 18 and Android?

KaeBFly wrote:

Works fine on my iPhone 15 Pro Max on both the Verizon line and T-Mobile line. You may need to contact Verizon to make sure there isn’t a provision on their end that needs to be enabled or if you have to have specific plans (sometimes older grandfathered plans may be excluded from some features).

Good to know. I just verified this on my phone. Given that the link VP provided (and I read) about RCS only being available on Samsung phones, I wonder if the part about carrier interoperability is also wrong.

Not working on tracfone/straight talk yet. I received a carrier settings update yesterday which enabled the new RCS setting under settings>apps>messages, however going into settings>general>about>IMS Status shows Voice & SMS. I’ve restarted, turned off the line, turned off/on RCS. Nothing helps, I suppose it’s just a waiting game until someone flips the switch on it.

iPhone 14 pro Max on Verizon (work phone). My settings show only voice and SMS (my personal Pixel 9 Pro is also Verizon and I have RCS working no problem), however, in a test text between my Pixel and iPhone, I did notice that the reaction from the Android showed on the message itself (not "👍 to message") on the iPhone, so that's a step in the right direction.

I been having and issue we’re my friends android doesn’t support rcs and take forever for my phone to convert to sms while if there’s a group chat with more than one iPhone with iOS 18 with rcs turned on one one of the iPhone received the message it won’t convert to sms at all

But when you click on the carrier and click to change it to show RCS messaging etc, once you leave the settings app, it automatically goes right back to saying “Verizon”. At least on my phone is does. I have the iPhone 15 Pro Max.

my husband and I both have Verizon and he has some brand new android and it won’t work when I text him, it just sends as SMS. Yet when I text my mom’s android phone who isn’t through Verizon, it shows RCS as working. Super odd.

I was android and had rcs and was able to use the send later option to anyone. Now I have IPhone and with RCS, only some of my contacts have the option to send later not can I use send later within to a group chat as I was able to with android.

This is misleading. Many carriers support RCS that are not supported on iOS 18. Perhaps the carrier has more to do before the updated "bundle" can be submitted to Apple, and maybe Apple just hasn't updated with the bundle yet.

TMARULES wrote:

Send later only works iPhone to iPhone. Apple for some reason wanted to separate iPhone users from their Android friends.

Send Later only works if the receiving non-iPhone supports the correct version of the Google or Samsung Messaging app.

I've tried several Android phones where RCS is working but no send later option. I only get the send later option for other iPhone users. Someone on another iPhone forum said it's iPhone to iPhone only. So, I don't know, just know it's not working for Android even if rcs is working.

Mine isn’t working. I just switched to tmobile from att along with my husband, got the new 16 pro max. We tested RCS messaging with the same android user. For some reason he can send it via RCS but I cannot. I’ve tried everything suggested here but nothing works, I’m lost

I have ATT and just bought the 16 pro max. For some odd reason, it doesn’t support RCS and still says waiting for activation. When I was using my 15 pro max, it supporters it. I wonder what the issue is

That’s bot my issue. My issue is I am on T-Mobile. My RCS is on, but under Carrier, it only slows for SMS and voice and not RCS. Because of that I cannot send an RCS message. I went back and forth between T-Mobile and Apple about fixing it. They are basically pointing fingers. I did try to have my ESIM deleted and a new installed to see if it would fix the problem and that didn’t work either. So nothing is getting resolved.

In the US RCS works on all Android phones made this decade, even prepaid budget android phones that are under $100 on Amazon. Any android phone running Android 5 or later is capable of RCS messaging according to the Android documentation. The small number of people who may lack access to RCS on their android are restricted by their carrier not the phone, but all major US carriers support RCS now. Some smaller cell carriers were slow to adopt it at first but at this point I cant find anything online regarding a carrier that still doesn't support it .

Same here. Worked fine until yesterday in our group chat and now ‘Text Message - RCS’ went to ‘iMessage’ except if the Android user sends something then it allowed RCS for about two - three texts and went right back to iMessage. We all show RCS on our phones and carriers and have done the rests, turn off/on, etc…..suggestions. Hopefully there is a fix soon.