RCS Hits 1 Billion Messages A Day—Thanks For Finally Showing Up, Apple

Google is also announcing today that there are over a billion RCS messages sent every day in the United States. A big reason for this number being so large is, Apple has added support for RCS with iOS 18. Don’t forget that the most popular phone in the US is indeed the iPhone.

RCS has been a struggle for Google, Apple, and even the carriers. With many phones launching without RCS being turned on, and some carriers not working with RCS at all. But now, it seems to be working seamlessly across every device on every carrier. With Apple adding support last year, it greatly increased the awareness of RCS and its adoption of it too.

It appears that Apple, and many other Americans, did “Get the Message”, Google.

Why is RCS so important?

RCS or Rich Communication Services, is the next evolution in texting. While the majority of the world has moved past SMS to things like WhatsApp, Telegram and Signal, the US is still mostly using SMS for communications.

With RCS, you’re able to send out high-quality photos and videos, without them getting compressed and looking like hot garbage. You also get a slew of other features, like read receipts and reactions.

Perhaps, most importantly now, with RCS on the iPhone, you won’t break those group chats. But you will still appear as a green bubble on an iPhone. Though that’s not necessarily true. The iPhone user will appear as a green bubble on their iPhone sending messages to you on an Android device.

RCS is the future, and it’s good to see more and more people using it daily, as opposed to the old and very outdated SMS. Keep in mind that SMS launched way back in 1992 and hasn’t really been updated since.