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

Also check your Cellular settings. Make sure Roaming is on in settings.

It is happening to me as well. I am using an iPhone 13 Pro Max on T-Mobile. As soon as I have updated to iOS 18 the RCS toggle is on but I am only allowed to send SMS messages to Android devices. The culprit for this issue is under carrier in thee settings, it is not showing that RCS messages are allowed.

The solutions of restarting my device has not fixed it. I may try to do a reset of network settings but before I did that I contacted T-Mobile to see if there is another solution. So far they were not helpful at all and the customer care rep was not knowledgeable about RCS. it is possibly the time of day I called.

I'm short, Incould be a sim issue or it is a bug on the software.

I'm running iOS 18 (was using public beta and RCS was working). Now just on mastered iOS 18 and RCS is still working.

If you are switching from Android to iPhone and still have your android phone, you might want to make sure you disabled RCS on that Android before switching to the iPhone — you may need to put your Sim back in the Android to do this.

Side note, sending texts via Satellite works too. Great for sending updates on status during remote hikes or anywhere you don't have signal.

T-Mobile (US)

iPhone 15 Pro Max

I am with T-Mobile. My wife has a Fold 6 with RCS enabled. I enabled RCS and it worked for a while. And then it stopped working. Per instructions in this thread, I reset my network and it started working again. And it worked fine for two days and stopped working again. General > About > IMS status did show Voice, SMS, and RCS and now it just shows Voice and SMS. I could reset the network again to get it back but that’s a pain in the *** workflow that shouldn’t be happening. It was working and then it stopped. Twice.

I think the fact that this thread is 6 pages long speaks to the fact that RCS is far from a perfect solution.

Android users have far fewer problems with RCS because the Android Messages app uses Google's RCS server and Android communications is centralized in the way that iMessage is (assuming the carrier allows it). But Apple uses the carriers' RCS servers and not Google's.

My RCS experience has been mixed. Some contacts I can use RCS with. Some still do SMS, even on the same carrier. Some group chats are RCS. Some are SMS.

The biggest problem I have not is chats getting recreated. I have an RCS group chat going to with a bunch of coworkers. One coworkers posted a video and that video post made a new group chat for everyone, Android and iOS with all the same users in it, but with only the video. At one point, we had 3 different chats all created by people adding some kind of multimedia posts.

The next day, all the chats were consolidated down to one chat.

Other times, the chats will split on the Android side, but stay as one chat on the iOS side.

Some of my Android using friends claim it's because Apple isn't using the Universal Profile feature of RCS. I don't know enough about RCS to know how true that is.

But I do know that Apple needs to use each carriers individual RCS server.

I think that there's a lot of different things going on here. Mine works fine when it shows that my phone is using RCS. It worked fine for me for five days and then all of my android friends switched back to SMS. When I looked, it no longer showed RCS in Settings > General > Carrier. I rebooted my phone and it came back on and has been working for about a day.

Same. It’s 10/24/24 and it’s been weeks. https://community.verizon.com/t5/Apple/10-2024-iPhone-14-Pro-Max-Can-t-send-MMS-RCS-text-messages-to/m-p/1780311

At the bottom of the forum for my phone (linked above), the gentleman states he believes it’s a Verizon network issue because he’s noticed t-mobile users aren’t experiencing this but iPhone and non-iPhone users are having these issues.

oh and resetting your network settings or factory resets are NOT working.

I am on T-Mobile as Well and I will say that T-Mobile has dropped the ball. I previously had an iPhone 13 Pro Max that I dearly miss. That phone after the update to iOS 18, the RCS messages didn’t work.

After I have upgraded to the iPhone 16 Pro Max, the same thing is happening, with no trouble shooting recommendations resolving the problem. Right out the box I was told after their protocol trouble shooing they tried to tell me to do a warranty exchange. I told them that “if this problem occurred on my previous device and now it is happening on my new device, then it isn’t the device but the account or the line.”

My other lines that family members use iPhones have their RCS Messages work flawlessly. My line is the one with the problem and even under eSIM it shows only Voice and SMS is provided for service and not RCS.

This thread is a total mess. There are different things going on and they appear to be the same because the results are the same.

There are those that can only send RCS to certain recipients.

There are those who keep losing the ability to send RCS to anyone. I am one of those people.

I have T-Mobile. On my phone, I go into Settings > General > About, and tap on Carrier. When RCS is available, it shows Voice, SMS & RCS. When RCS is not available, it shows Voice & SMS. This has nothing to do with the people I'm sending messages to. The problem is on my end.

If I turn off and restart my phone, RCS comes back for a while, usually less than a day, and then it is no longer available again. If I go into Settings > Cellular and turn off my line and turn it back on using the Turn On This Line switch, it comes back for a while and then it is no longer available again. These are the only two methods I've found to fix this issue. Turning RCS off and on again using the setting in Settings > Messages does nothing because it has nothing to do with the Messages app. It has to do with my phone's connection.

My question is, what is causing the issue? Is it T-Mobile? Is it something to do with Apple? I have no idea how this all works under the hood.

It has been a never ending source of frustration for me since Apple made this available. I usually wait to update my phone to the latest iOS to let them iron out all of the inevitable bugs but I made an exception for iOS 18 because I was so excited about RCS being available and at least for me it has largely been unavailable without BS workarounds that never work for more than a day.

I have finally identified this as a wifi issue for me. I noticed yesterday that if I shut off wifi, then RCS would reconnect within a minute or two and when I turned it on, it would drop within an hour or two. Some online research suggested that I needed IPV6 enabled on my router, so I went ahead and turned it on. It hung on to RCS for over a day, which is definitely a record for me so I thought I had the problem fixed. But I went to the store today and when I got back and it connected to my wifi, it dropped RCS and would not reconnect without turning off wifi. So while I have identified the issue I’m having, I’m really no closer to having a solution other than not using wifi. 🤷

Well, lucky you.

Turning off Wi-FI works for me, as does stepping away from the router. Of the thousand or so others for whom it's not working either, this may help others as well. If you can tell us what setting is "wrong", then by all means share your genius, or otherwise show that YOU know what you're talking about.

Note also that even if your carrier supports RCS in iPhones, it may take a day or two for the update to your provisioning to be pushed out to your phone.

Has anyone tried iOS 18.1? It says it has bug fixes and being put out so fast seems to indicate an urgent fix.

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.

Understand that Android phones have to support RCS as well. Do all Android phones support RCS. Absolutely no, they do not. “Selected models” of Samsung phones support RCS for example. For RCS to work everything in the chain must support it, the phones at both ends, and the carriers in between.