RCS offers many improvements over SMS texting, such as typing indicators, reading receipts, and the ability to share higher resolution photos and larger files, but adoption in the US has taken years. Google has largely led the charge and even rolled out end-to-end encryption to its messaging app in June. But the big carriers have dragged their feet — while they agreed to replace SMS with RCS in 2019, we had to wait until 2021 for T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon to commit to making Google Messages the default messaging app for their Android phones.
Samsung phones make up a significant amount of the Android phones sold in the US, so the switch to Google Messages should be a boon for RCS adoption.
