Why is RCS not working between my iPhone running iOS 18 and Android?

I have the 15 pro max

Downloaded the ios update and no options for RCS in message settings

I was previous on Android and my carrier O2 supported RCS

But since this update nothing at all

It's one of the reasons that made me chose this phone over another android becuase with the promice of RCS I could message my friends and family

No idea what's gone wrong but I'm very disappointed

I have Verizon. RCS reports on in settings. So I tried everyone in my contacts list to send a text. All the iPhone users, it said "iMessage." Almost all Android users it said "SMS." BUT I did find two contacts where it said "RCS" so Verizon must not support it for all Android users.

I will say that this was working for me fine yesterday and not at all today. I’m on t-mobile with an iPhone 14PM updated to iOS 18 and I have a friend also on t-mobile with a Samsung Fold 6, using Google Messages with RCS on. When I sent her messages yesterday, they went through RCS. I could see the typing indicator. I sent a nice video that wasn’t all garbled. I even sent a tapback and it worked. At the bottom of my messenger in the area where I type, it said “Text Message - RCS”. Today it wasn’t working and it said “Text Message - SMS”. When she tried to send something to me, it said that I was offline and it wouldn’t send until I was back online (paraphrasing). She sent it SMS and it went through immediately. I checked my phone and RCS is turned on. Seems like something on Apple’s end.

Jayp72 wrote:

I have the 15 pro max

Downloaded the ios update and no options for RCS in message settings

I was previous on Android and my carrier O2 supported RCS

But since this update nothing at all

It's one of the reasons that made me chose this phone over another android becuase with the promice of RCS I could message my friends and family

No idea what's gone wrong but I'm very disappointed

1. Open Settings
2. Tap General
3. Tap About
4. Tap Carrier
5. When you tap Carrier, it will change to IMS Status and show messaging support details to the right

• • If your carrier supports RCS, you’ll see Voice, SMS & RCS
  • If your carrier doesn’t support RCS, you’ll see Voice & SMS

And if your carrier doesn't support RCS, you need to contact them to inquire why or when they will.

I'm on AT&T in the US, and my phone does show RCS as enabled on my iPhone.

I’m running iOS 18 on an iPhone 15 Pro Max on T-Mobile.

What worked for me was going to Settings > Transfer or Reset IPhone > Reset > Reset Network Settings.

WiFi Calling was disabled for about 5 minutes, but then activated on its own. After that, I checked my carrier settings under Settings > General > About > Carrier > tap the Carrier button > it’ll change and show “Voice, SMS & RCS”.

I was able to send messages using RCS to my Android friends.

Hope this helps.

I am having the exact same issue with my iPhone 13 Pro on Verizon. I spent a few hours trying to trouble shoot it using all the different suggestions in this thread and it still give me the same “Not delivered” error instantly every time. So frustrating!!

If you respond in an existing thread that was originally SMS then all added messages in that thread will be SMS. You need to start a new thread with the contact for it to be RCS.

So I I am on T-Mobile. T-Mobile Does support RCS however my ims status only has voice and sms. So it’s either a plan issue or something else is wrong.

I’m having the exact same problem. What makes this even more bizarre is that other VzW customers have it. Same for my Tmobile line on the same device.

[Edited by Moderator]

RCS was working fine on my iPhone 14 Pro. When I upgraded to the 16 Pro, RCS stopped working. The text field says “Text Message - RCS” but when I hit send it immediately says “Not Delivered” with a red symbol.

I’ve tried:

Rebooting my phone

Turning on and off RCS

Turning on and off iMessage and RCS

Resetting all network settings

Even after all of that, sending messages keeps failing over RCS. It’s not the recipient, as sending RCS to them worked fine on my iPhone 14 using iOS 18.

I've been on three different phone calls with Verizon with them trying to push the settings to my phone, over a dozen power cycles and still no RCS. iPhone Xr, Verizon, and obviously iOS 18.

I have the 15 Pro Max. I updated to iOS 18 within an hour of it being available. My [RCS] messaging worked between my iPhone and an Android until this morning. I checked Settings > General > About > Carrier and only saw “Voice & SMS”. I attempted to resolve the issue by doing a Force Restart. Once my iPhone was back up (after the force restart), my RCS was working again.

My assumption is that my carrier (T-Mobile) must have done some network updates overnight. By doing the force restart, my iPhone was forced to speak with T-Mobile again and update settings.

If you have this issue, before calling your carrier, try a force restart to see if that resolves it. All of the major carriers should support RCS.

i have the same issue. What I have learned under the about screen in settings, under sim the IMS only allows for sms and voice. While for some a simple restart fixed the problem apparently, in my case it hasn’t fixed it. I have tried network resets, restarting the phone, called between T-Mobile and Apple which one referred me to the other. Ultimately I even had tried deleting my eSIM and downloading a new one while trouble shooting with T-Mobile and that didn’t fix the issue. Only I haven’t done was factory reset the phone and I won’t do it to then find out that doesn’t work too.

I have come down to it that this has to be a software bug and not the carriers.

The RCS chat option was turned off on my wife's phone. After I enabled the option on her device, it now works perfectly. It may take a while for the issues to be resolved, but I’m so glad it’s here.

[Edited by Moderator]

Allen wrote:

I have Verizon. RCS reports on in settings. So I tried everyone in my contacts list to send a text. All the iPhone users, it said "iMessage." Almost all Android users it said "SMS." BUT I did find two contacts where it said "RCS" so Verizon must not support it for all Android users.

What carriers do the people have who you're seeing SMS? And what carrier do the two contacts have where it does say RCS?

The article linked to earlier (which was wrong about some things) says that there is no carrier interoperability. But I don't trust it.