[23773] in Privacy_Forum
[ PRIVACY Forum ] Android vs. text messaging -- SMS, MMS, RCS,
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Lauren Weinstein)
Thu Jun 11 21:45:42 2026
Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2026 18:35:04 -0700
From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren@vortex.com>
To: privacy-dist@vortex.com
Message-ID: <20260612013504.GA24070@vortex.com>
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Android vs. text messaging -- SMS, MMS, RCS, and good luck
I've been looking into complaints I've heard about the Google Messages
RCS app. RCS of course is the fancy encrypted media-rich blah blah
blah alternative to standard RCS text messages. It took years for
interoperability between iOS and Android for RCS.
But SMS isn't going away anytime in the foreseeable future. RCS needs
a data connection to do anything, while SMS will work on virtually
every cell network on the planet without a data connection being
required. But still there's the big push for RCS, because marketers
really, really want to send you masses of enormous media content that
way. Oh goodie! In fact, Samsung announced their own SMS app will go
away next month and pushes you to Android Messages instead.
You won't be surprised to learn that Google's Android Messages app is
full of fancy features but currently lacks crucial basic functionality
that (for example) Samsung's Messages app has. For example, Android
Messages can't tell you WHICH line (which SIM) of a dual-SIM phone any
given text message came in on. This is critical information for many
users -- the whole point of having dual SIMs is to be able to
compartment two lines. That's just a single example -- the app is
seriously brain dead in multiple ways when dealing with dual SIM
devices.
RCS will refuse to work at all if it isn't set to be THE text messages
handler on an Android phone. Basically, Android doesn't want more
than one app in control of text messaging at a time. The upshot of all
this is that many users are foregoing RCS entirely, just not using it,
and instead installing apps like Textra which provides highly
customizable and advanced handling of conventional SMS and MMS
messages, and yeah, users report it even tells ya' which SIM a text
message came in on.
It's so Google to skip crucial foundational features and concentrate
on the fancy stuff instead. That's Google through and through.
L
- - -
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
lauren@vortex.com (https://www.vortex.com/lauren)
Lauren's Blog: https://lauren.vortex.com
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Founder: Network Neutrality Squad: https://www.nnsquad.org
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Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility
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