Ryan Haines / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Users found references to Satellite Messaging in the Samsung Messages app.
- However, the checked version of the app is old. The relevant code was actually added back in December 2024 and hasn’t changed since.
- There’s no indication that active feature development is underway, so don’t get your hopes up for satellite messaging.
A recent Reddit thread analyzed Samsung Messages 16.1.02.2 and found these two strings related to Satellite Messaging:
- 0x7f130e3b: satellite_network_mode_title: Limited support in Satellite mode
- 0x7f130e37: samsung_message_only_support_sms_when_satellite_network_mode: When in Satellite mode, Samsung Messages only supports sending and receiving text messages. RCS messaging is unavailable and multimedia files like pictures and videos can’t be attached.
Indeed, these strings exist in the stated version. But before you get your hopes up, this version of Samsung Messages is not the most recent one around, even if it was recently uploaded to third-party app hosting websites. You can see that newer versions like v16.1.10.13 also exist on these app hosting sites.
We checked older versions of Samsung Messages, and these strings were added with v15.5.31.9 sometime in December 2024.
Code
<string name="satellite_network_mode_title">Limited support in Satellite mode</string>
<string name="samsung_message_only_support_sms_when_satellite_network_mode">When in Satellite mode, Samsung Messages only supports sending and receiving text messages. RCS messaging is unavailable and multimedia files like pictures and videos can't be attached.</string>Since then, no new strings have been added for Satellite mode support. If Samsung had been actively developing the feature, we would have seen more strings added in the last eight months.
There’s still a chance that Samsung is indeed working to bring the feature to light, developing it away from public eyes. But it’s not fair to conclude that the feature is in active development based on these old strings alone. We need more corroborative evidence in new app versions to indicate that the feature is coming soon.
⚠️ An APK teardown helps predict features that may arrive on a service in the future based on work-in-progress code. However, it is possible that such predicted features may not make it to a public release.
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