RCS support in /e/OS

/e/OS Foundation & Community /e/OS experience
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Hello there!

Is there any ongoing plan or roadmap for implementing RCS support in /e/OS?

Thanks :folded_hands:

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Hello drew

The RCS protocol is only supported in Googleā€™s messaging app, Google Messages.
Therefore, adding RCS support to e/OS Android, which aims to be a privacy-friendly, Google-free version of Android, seems complicated to me.

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No chance Mate! Itā€™s google through and throughā€¦ forget it.

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There has been an app called Replify in App Lounge or Aurora. This app has been able to receive and send SMS and RCS messages if the provider did support this. This means that thereā€™s generally not only the Google Messages app.

Note: today there are several apps under the name Replify in App Lounge but the interesting one isnā€™t there anymore, so it has probably been deleted.

Update: It seems to be dead. Repo was here.

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That is good to know and people put pressure on for example Graphene OS to support RCS but my problem is that all the RCS traffic goes via google servers as far as I know! And it is a big ā€˜No, No!ā€™ to me.

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Sure, no question at all.

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There was a bounty of $15000 set on this issue about a year ago.
Hopefully someone will be able to solve this, but I wouldnā€™t get my hopes up.

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The problem is: the need for such messages is rather small since messengers are available and widely accepted in the public. Itā€™s the same as with other notification systems, remember pagers (which also still exist).

There are some special use cases, mostly technical, where typically a rather open standard is used, for instance for sending status and emergency notifications from machines and facilities to maintainers and emergency services which should also happen when no internet access or even no power supply is available.

I know also another funny thing (Iā€™m a sponsor of that): here in Switzerland we have a number of vultures flying around ( ā† nice pictures there) carrying a rucksack with a small solar powered sender on their back, sending SMS from time to time about their position and some other data. (No, calling a vulture is not supported, the vultures have no headset for aerodynamical reasons ā€¦)

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rcs is an open standard and many providers have their own infrastructure.

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At least in Germany, all mobile network operators rely on the Google Jibe infrastructure (essentially the equivalent of the ā€œSMSCā€ for SMS).

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I feel this is important to keep in the discussion there is a RCS ticket for in the e/os gitlab

Please follow there for updates. I recall it was discussed but it would be good to hear from the team if there are any updates

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Those who opt so strongly for RCS implementation should read this article:

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the bounty-rcs thread is horrible to read (800 posts - due to the bounty it invited sloptrolls) so I missed it myself: thereā€™s a working PR since march:

Iā€™m not excited though, less pressue to convert people to messengers that arenā€™t carrier controlled.

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RCS - cannot get connected
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I wonder if anyone can help me. I needed RCS due to my job requirements. I was told to download Google Play Services and Google Messages, and that it would be safe in the Sandbox of Graphene. Well, I was unable to get the RCS to work, decided to uninstall it as fast as possible, because I want nothing to do with Google, I was simply trying to comply with work. Google messages uninstalled just fine, but the only all that must be the Google Services I installed ā€œCarrier Servicesā€ will not uninstall. Am I wrong? Is that not what I installed? Is there a way to remove it? I have been trying to get here, with a Graphene phone and no google for so long, and Iā€™m very afraid that in trying to not make waves at work, that I messed it all up. Help..?

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The GrapheneOS forum is over here ā€¦ https://discuss.grapheneos.org
Is there nothing helpful there regarding your issues? Thereā€™s seemingly a lot of RCS discussion ā€¦ https://discuss.grapheneos.org/?q=rcs%20

A work phone supplied by work will do this for you easily.

You installed Google Play Services yourself. In which way exactly did you do that?
If you canā€™t simply run this backwards and if you donā€™t exactly know what you are doing, I would advise you make a backup of all your important stuff on the phone and then first try a factory reset, and if that isnā€™t enough to get your phone in order again, then reinstall the OS (because an Android factory reset doesnā€™t touch the installed OS, it just resets user stuff, which canā€™t remedy every possible issue).

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It probably installed as a System app. It (com.google.android.ims) is (also) included as part of a SIM manager.

If a system app (is it?) and if you use an adb uninstall method you will likely just hide it. Factory reset also unlikely to remove a System app.

I would first check whether it survives a system update (or alternatively sideload the existing version).

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What OS is on your phone?

At the moment neither Murena OS nor Graphene OS support using RCS messages.

You need a stock android for RCS to work as far as I know.

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