I’m trying to talk to someone over text who has an android, but every text i send is being sent as SMS and all of theirs are being sent as RCS. It keeps flipping back and forth and it’s annoying.
[Re-Titled by Moderator]
iPhone 11, iOS 18
This is happening to me as well since the ios 18.1.1 update last friday. Sometimes I send a msg and it goes by RCS but mostly its going by sms. My boyfriend's msg are coming to me as rcs but when i reply it sends as sms. Prior to the ios update everything was by RCS both ways with zero issues. I wish I hadn't updated the ios...Apple needs to fix this crap
I upgraded to the new iOS that was released today. The issue still persists.
I’ve been having this very issue with a single contact. I can use RCS perfectly fine with my mum (we both use the same network), but with my boyfriend, it’ll show up as RCS in the message, but then it’ll change to SMS once sent.
I’m not sure whether that’s bc of being on different networks, his phone not supporting RCS, or whether it’s simply bc the data in our area is so bad since they got rid of 3G and Huawei cell towers. I even struggle with iMessage when I’m on data nowadays, every iMessage I try to send when out (and sometimes in the house) sends as a text bc the data is so bad at 4 bars
Updated to 18.2 this morning. It didn’t fix the problem
This is happening to my girlfriend and I right now and it's infuriating. We tried disabling RCS on both ends and then re-enabling but that didn't work. I hope to God Apple fixes this ASAP
And other weirdness-my daughter (iphone 11) is receiving some of my texts as emails. Also, I sent a pic to a friend (iphone 12 mini) last night. She saw it, then it disappeared from her messages, then it reappeared.
Apple, get this fixed NOW!!
Notice how, on this site hosted by Apple, no help or suggestions are given by anyone from Apple. I think that's pretty lame. Just like their half-hearted support of RCS -- which is probably only out of fear that the EU was about to make them adopt it. I'm here because I can't tell who is sending via SMS and who is sending via RCS on the macOS Messages 'app.' Why is that?
I can confirm that after following the steps from Bikergofast, my issue has resolved. I now see only RCS!
I have only one contact that RCS was working just fine with until 1/3/25 and all of my messages to that person go over as SMS. I have cut on/off RCS in messages and restarted the phone multiple times. Does anyone know how to fix this.
monist wrote:
Notice how, on this site hosted by Apple, no help or suggestions are given by anyone from Apple. I think that's pretty lame.
I hope this is enlightening:
Like just about every large company Apple has both formal technical support and an area where users can discuss technical issues with other users. And, like all of those other companies, Apple does not participate in any significant way in the user-to-user discussions, as that might inhibit the free flow of ideas. The formal name of this area is Apple Support Communities. The “Communities” should be a giveaway that this isn’t a formal support site. And if that doesn’t, the site itself is https://discussions.apple.com. The “discussions” is another giveaway.
Apple’s formal support can be reached several ways
For personalized support
Best way:
Other options:
(Note that both of the above have options to receive a callback or chat)
About the only communications methods not used by Apple support is inbound email or text, probably because the volume would be overwhelming, and separating the wheat from the chaff (or, to us engineers, a poor signal to noise ratio) would be almost impossible.
"I can tell with each message; right
below each message in the reply box it will say how it was delivered:
iMessage, SMS, MMS or RCS. For example:"
If it's not iMessage, mine just says Text message, which doesn't tell me if it's RCS or SMS.
I tried this (in regards to turning RCS business messages off) and it is still showing messages being sent Text-SMS instead, but messages till coming in as Text-RCS.
monist wrote:
Just like their half-hearted support of RCS -- which is probably only out of fear that the EU was about to make them adopt it. I'm here because I can't tell who is sending via SMS and who is sending via RCS on the macOS Messages 'app.' Why is that?
What is half-hearted? iPhones fully support RCS. Any time you send a message to another device that supports RCS it will use RCS for delivery. Any time someone sends an RCS message to you it will be delivered to an iPhone using RCS. There are FOUR players in RCS messaging: The sending device, the receiving device, and the sending cellular network carrier and the receiving network carrier. For RCS to work all 4 need to support RCS.
I can tell with each message; right below each message in the reply box it will say how it was delivered: iMessage, SMS, MMS or RCS. For example, see these screenshots from the Messages app on my MBP (the same on an iPhone or iPad):
[UPDATE from 3 to 4 players]
I now have a group text chat with my coworkers (who I am their team lead) that doesn't function properly on iOS 18.2 unless RCS is on, whereas before iOS 18 that same group chat with the same people worked fine.
Problem is RCS uses more battery and is unreliable in it's current state in iOS.
Same here. My daughter and I are on the same billing plan. She has an 11, I have a 13 mini, she’s the only one that I have difficulty with, and possibly a second person who has a 12, I believe. That person was having an issue too. On New Year’s Eve my messages went through just fine. However, my daughter can text me with no problem, the issue is with my phone sending to hers. I just now tested it and the message went through just fine. Hopefully this is it. It’s so infuriating, I’ve resorted to WhatsApp.
It's half hearted in that so many of us had (and still have) issues getting it working with contacts that previously worked fine in iOS. That Apple chose to not make it encrypted when the option was there. That discussion forums like this and other online communities are the only place customers can get real world help from other users with fixes like what so many of us have posted already.
We've been submitting feedback through the link that keeps getting posted here and after each major ios 18 update nothing seems to improve with RCS, so this is why we are discouraged that our feedback and requests have gone ignored.
Why do my texts keep switching between RCS and SMS on iPhone?
