Google is silently blocking RCS on rooted Android phones and custom ROMs (Update)
www.androidauthority.com
Google famously campaigned for Apple to "get the message" and use RCS, but now doesn't let rooted Android users use RCS.

TL;DR

  • Users who have rooted their phone, have their bootloader unlocked or are using some custom ROMs report that their RCS messages are not being sent, even though RCS shows them as connected.
  • The Google Messages app does not show any error messages when blocking RCS messages of these users and does not send the messages out as SMS or MMS either.
  • Google famously campaigned for Apple to include RCS messaging in iMessage but is now blocking it for certain Android users.
  • dunestorm@lemmy.worldEnglish
    89·
    9 months ago

    Google are so needlessly hostile to people that root, what the fuck does sending messages have to do with having elevated permissions on a phone?!

    • Zak@lemmy.worldEnglish
      354·
      9 months ago

      Google is probably trying to get around the cardinal rule of network security: you can’t trust the client.

      Their RCS client probably doesn’t make sending a huge volume of messages (i.e. spam) easy, and more automation is possible with root. Yes, it’s stupid, but it’s not completely without purpose.