Do you regularly use RCS for messaging?

Is Google’s latest attempt good enough for you?

The struggle between blue and green bubbles continues to wage in the world of smartphones, with Google dealing a fresh blow late last week. With RCS live and ready on any Android device — as long as you download a specific app from the Play Store — the company wants its biggest rival to bring compatibility to iPhone users everywhere. It would certainly expand the reach and scope of RCS, especially in North America, but it begs the question: how many people are already using it?

We’ve written a lot about RCS in the past week, explaining what it is, how to use it, and what exactly all of this drama with Apple is even about. As a modern messaging standard, it’s built from the ground up as a replacement for SMS — though it didn’t find much success on Android devices until Google snatched it from the hands of carriers. These days, all you need to use RCS is the Google Messages app. It’s the company’s latest — and likely last — attempt at a messaging platform, but it seems like a winner so far.

Of course, Apple adding RCS to its phones would truly put it over the top. Although Google is using a specific implementation of the standard called “Chat” — it’s complicated — all Apple would need to implement for its own client to communicate with Android devices is support for “Universal Profile.” The company certainly has reasons to avoid RCS, but it would improve the lives of Android and iOS users alike, especially in regions like North America, where iMessage reigns supreme.

However, all of this raises an interesting question. RCS made messaging on Android better, though only between Android devices. If you have a friend group that contains a high percentage of iPhone owners, RCS won’t do much good for you — and unlike Google’s now-defunct attempts at messaging services, there’s no third-party app offered in the App Store for your friends or family to download. Factor in how long Google took to get RCS out of the control of carriers, and it’s enough to make you wonder if it’s too little too late.

There’s no doubt limiting RCS to a single mobile OS, no matter how popular, has pushed some users towards third-party apps, and that’s to say nothing of the domination of WhatsApp throughout much of the world. So, are you actually using RCS on a daily basis — even with just one or two people — or did you make the switch to Facebook Messenger, Telegram, or WhatsApp a long time ago?

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