As a part of today’s “The Android Show” announcements, Google shared that there are now more than a billion RCS messages sent every day in just the US. That’s a massive number that was certainly boosted by Apple’s adoption of RCS at the end of last year with iOS 18.
You may recall that Google spent years poking at Apple to try and get them to adopt RCS on the iPhone. With the launch of iOS 18 last year, Apple did indeed bring RCS to the iPhone, leading to better cross-platform messaging for so many people, especially those in groups or who share media back and forth between an Android device and iPhone.
Google said today that the billion+ messages number comes from an average of the last 28 days, so it is likely to increase going forward. And in my own experience, I do think it has really helped in improving the experience of messaging from my Pixel 9 Pro to someone with an iPhone. I can see the read receipts, the pictures I get from them are higher quality, reactions are mostly there, and group chats do seem to, well, just work now.
How has your RCS experience been between Android and iOS?
