As promised earlier this year, Google is bringing RCS – Rich Communications Service, an upgrade to the SMS standard – to Android devices. Its first carrier partner on the initiative is Sprint, which is rolling out RCS messaging to its customers with Android devices, starting today. Once enabled, RCS will offer Android users an enhanced messaging experience over SMS, with features like better group chats, high-resolution photo sharing, read receipts and typing indicators.
Google announced its plans to move in this direction when it acquired RCS provider Jibe Mobile back in September 2015. The Jibe cloud platform will power the new service on Sprint, says Google.
Sprint subscribers will have their standard SMS experience upgraded through Google’s redesigned Messenger app on their Android devices, provided they are on Android KitKat or higher, and have set Messenger as their default SMS application.
Those using select LG and Nexus phones from Sprint will be automatically upgraded to RCS through an app update, while others can manually update their devices by downloading the Messenger app from the Play Store.
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