Google Messages could soon let you send higher-quality images over RCS
An RCS upgrade
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Googlehas been championingRCS(Rich Communication Services) for a long time, but the company hasn’t actually been making the most of this SMS alternative.
RCS – which is supported by Google Messages – is a more modern alternative to SMS, allowing users to send high-quality images, videos, and GIFS, along with various other file types. It also allows for read receipts, typing indicators, and end-to-end encryption. You can think of it as functionally being similar to iMessage orWhatsApp, except that it works across standard messaging apps.
That’s all great, but despite RCS technically supporting all these things, the current implementation in Google Messages won’t actually send high-quality images – it will heavily compress them instead.
That could be changing though, as in a teardown of the latest version of Google Messages,Android Authorityhas found code strings that suggest you’ll soon be able to send images measuring up to 8,192 pixels tall or wide. That’s still a restriction then, but it’s a lot less limiting than the current version, which seems to top out at 2,400 pixels.
Never necessary
It’s odd that such a restrictive resolution was ever in place, as it’s not a requirement of RCS –SamsungMessages, for example, also uses RCS and has no such restrictions.
Google may have decided to make this change now becauseApple is finally bringing RCS support to the iPhonewithiOS 18, and also doesn’t appear to be compressing images (based on the implementation in iOS 18 betas).
That means that currently iPhone users with access to RCS in the iOS 18 beta can send their Android friends uncompressed images, but anyone using Google Messages won’t be able to send uncompressed images in return.
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So it’s not a good look for Google thatApple’s day-one implementation of RCS is superior, especially after Google has spent years calling for Apple to support RCS.
Whether or not this is the reason for the rumored change to a 8,192-pixel limit, this will undoubtedly be good news for users. It remains to be seen how soon this change will roll out though – assuming it does at all.
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James is a freelance phones, tablets and wearables writer and sub-editor at TechRadar. He has a love for everything ‘smart’, from watches to lights, and can often be found arguing with AI assistants or drowning in the latest apps. James also contributes to 3G.co.uk, 4G.co.uk and 5G.co.uk and has written for T3, Digital Camera World, Clarity Media and others, with work on the web, in print and on TV.
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