Verizon is also switching to Android Messages as default for RCS

Beginning next year, Verizon will join AT&T and T-Mobile in preloading Android Messages as the default texting app on all Android phones it sells. It’s the final step for making RCS Chat — the next-gen standard designed to replace SMS — the default experience for Android. In the US, that only leaves one large cohort that will not use RCS as a default SMS replacement: iPhone users.

Verizon has also said it will fully support interoperability between carriers, so in theory the improved images, video, read receipts, and group chats should just work — assuming everybody you’re texting with is also using Android Messages.

Verizon was the last of the big three US carriers to get on board with Google’s latest strategy to push RCS as the new...

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