Google is promoting and using RCS in its messaging app.
As a consequence, it would be good (mandatory ?) for third party SMS apps to support RCS.
I have developed an SMS app in which I sometimes 'encounter' RCS messages.
My app cannot receive RCS messages, but sometimes, a previous app did receive some of these (eg: Google Message App), so my app 'find' these 'old RCS messages in Android SMS DB.
My app is based on android-smsmms library and I found some information (2020) about this RCS issue:
To summarize:
- Third party apps cannot support RCS at this time.
- Until Google provides APIs or builds RCS support into Android, third party apps will not be able to use it.
- You can simply disable RCS (or "Advanced Messaging")
src: https://web.archive.org/web/20201111221326/https://github.com/maplemedia/pulse-sms-issues/issues/143
Searching for an RCS library, I found nothing but an old unmaintained library rcsjta
Questions:
- Is RCS open to third party app as of now? Or will soon be? (It was not in 2021: see https://www.xda-developers.com/google-messages-rcs-api-third-party-apps/ )
- Where can I find accurate information about RCS API current status and roadmap?
Notes:
Here are some SO questions I've already looked at regarding this: