RCS Messaging Comes to Windows 10’s Your Phone App

With the launch of the Galaxy Note 10, Microsoft and Samsung announced a major partnership back in 2019. The partnership involved the companies working together to introduce better integration between Microsoft services and Samsung products.

One of the main integrations as part of the partnership was the new Link to Windows feature that allowed Samsung users to quickly connect their phone to a Windows 10 machine and use the Your Phone app. Over the recent months, Microsoft has been pushing a lot of new features on the app for Samsung devices, and it’s expanding that feature set with the launch of the new Galaxy S20 devices.

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Microsoft is now adding support for Rich Communication Services (RCS) messaging to the Your Phone app in Windows 10. Those who have any of Samsung’s new Galaxy S20 devices will be able to be using RCS messaging with the Samsung Messages app, allowing for features like real-time typing indicators, read receipts, etc.

Unfortunately, support for RCS messaging on Your Phone is only limited to the Samsung Messages app and it won’t work with the Android Messages app. As a result, even if you have one of Samsung’s new S20 devices, you will have to be using the Samsung Messages app as the default SMS app on your phone to use RCS messaging via the Your Phone app.

And for those wondering, the feature is only limited to the Galaxy S20 line and won’t work with Samsung’s newest foldable phone, the Galaxy Z Flip — for now, anyway.

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Conversation 19 comments

  • irfaanwahid

    17 February, 2020 - 6:48 am

    <p>Mehedi, in my experience, the sync of Notifications, messages and photos has been really slow. I am using Galaxy S8+. Would be interested to know experiences of the readers here.</p>

    • bart

      Premium Member
      17 February, 2020 - 11:09 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#521124">In reply to irfaanwahid:</a></em></blockquote><p>Normally the notifications are quick. Maybe a router limitation as most notifications sync over WiFi</p>

    • wolters

      Premium Member
      17 February, 2020 - 4:54 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#521124">In reply to irfaanwahid:</a></em></blockquote><p>My notifications have been OK but lately, it sends me 3 notifications over a 1-2 minute period for the same message. For now, I turned off Your Phone and went back to the Google Messages client. </p>

    • bleeman

      Premium Member
      17 February, 2020 - 6:06 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#521124">In reply to irfaanwahid:</a></em></blockquote><p>I have a Galaxy Note 10+ and all of the functions have been working great without issue. Once in awhile I get a notification that it can't connect to the phone, but they are few and far between. I've even been playing with the new phone calling feature a bit.</p>

  • madthinus

    Premium Member
    17 February, 2020 - 7:14 am

    <p>This to me is a fail. Why is it limited to S20? Current Galaxy phones support this and it is a open standard.</p>

    • wright_is

      Premium Member
      17 February, 2020 - 7:44 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#521125">In reply to madthinus:</a></em></blockquote><p>Exactly, this is just a marketing ploy by Samsung to get people to replace perfectly good devices with the latest shiny.</p>

  • bart

    Premium Member
    17 February, 2020 - 8:51 am

    <p>I think the RCS limitation is more a Your Phone problem than a Samsung one. MS has been slow to roll out the Phone Screen feature to more phone models as well. Understandable with the Android hardware ecosystem being so diverse. </p>

  • mj

    17 February, 2020 - 9:39 am

    <p>They should add this feature into SMS Organizer App as well. Also Your Phone should port sms message grouping from SMS Organizer. Message grouping works really well in SMS Organizer. </p>

  • Cdorf

    Premium Member
    17 February, 2020 - 12:34 pm

    <p>The first thing I have done with my last 3 Samsungs is install the android message app over samsung because its better. There is no reason this should be a Samsung Messages exclusive feature. Its not enough to tip the scales for me</p>

  • petteri

    17 February, 2020 - 2:47 pm

    <p>The title of the article should be changed to: RCS Messaging Comes (sort of, really almost not at all) to Windows 10’s Your Phone App. That said I hope they do expand this out. It's comical that they've implemented this to such a small subset of devices. </p>

  • derekaw

    17 February, 2020 - 3:04 pm

    <p>This is a minefield. It’s been working on Mac with an iPhone for years and it is life changing to just sit at your desk to send and receive messages instead of picking up your phone. Also, if you have two factor set up with SMS the Mac will auto populate the code field in Safari on Mac when the code arrives on your phone/in iMessage on the Mac, oh, works on the iPad too, very convenient. </p>

  • wolters

    Premium Member
    17 February, 2020 - 4:53 pm

    <p>This is disappointing. RCS is a feature I want on Your Phone and for this to be limited to the S20 initially and Samsung Messages hurts. I guess I'll continue using the Google Messages Web Client. And I truly got excited when I saw the headline. </p>

  • nbplopes

    18 February, 2020 - 5:33 am

    <p>There should be no phone app. Instead just pair the phone with the PC/MS Cloud and have the all thing transparently integrated in a Windows 10 Microsoft Messages and Microsoft Voice/Video Chat consoles (apps). Both SMS/ RCS and Call relay. Probably 8 years ago already.</p>

  • ivarh

    Premium Member
    19 February, 2020 - 9:31 am

    <p>And they expect RCS to become the new standard for SMS. All I see is limitations. Only works in the US. Only works inside a carrier and only works on some phones with some carriers..</p><p><br></p><p>Just what end users need to standardize on a messaging app. On top of this there is no end to end encryption… </p>

  • ontariopundit

    19 February, 2020 - 4:15 pm

    <p>How is this news?</p><p><br></p><p>Desktop integration for a standard that almost no one uses and no one asked for and is for an almost dead technology (SMS is on its way out and RCS won't revive it)?</p><p><br></p><p>We've already got WhatsApp. iMessage. And Messenger.</p><p><br></p><p>Combined these services cover more users than bother with SMS anymore. Text messaging is a technology that's on life support. RCS is little more than a last ditch effort to keep SMS relevant.</p><p><br></p><p>RCS provides regular users no benefit (hardly anything over SMS and definitely not over iMessage or WhatsApp) so why would regular users voluntarily pay extra to implement the technology?</p><p><br></p><p>Yes, RCS provides telcos the opportunity to market rich messages to marketers who want to send them to customers but the problem with that is that text messaging is a dieing communication tool and marketers are already destroying SMS in the same way advertisers destroyed Adobe Flash.</p><p><br></p><p>A quarter of the SMS messages I receive are spam. Half of the SMS messages my mother receives are fraudulent. SMS and its successor RCS are fast becoming the Adobe Flash of the instant messaging world!</p><p><br></p><p>WhatsApp and iMessage are much cleaner ways to communicate than SMS/RCS because I never receive spam with them.</p><p><br></p><p>RCS is one of those too little, too late technologies. Thirteen years ago it would have made a difference when iMessage was brand new. Ten years ago it might have fought off WhatsApp. Now it's way too late.</p><p><br></p><p>Microsoft and Google are pushing RCS hard because they missed the boat on creating instant messaging services that are compelling. This is their attempt and it's not compelling.</p><p><br></p><p>It's the same as PWAs.</p><p><br></p><p>Google and Microsoft are pushing (crappy) PWAs because they find it hard to compete with Apple's native iOS apps (sure Android has more users in absolute numbers but make no mistake, Apple's users are many times more valuable than are all of Android's users put together).</p><p><br></p><p>Sure PWAs make it easier to run the same app on any platform but they also make it easy to run any app badly on any platform.</p><p><br></p><p>Great apps are never PWAs. Look at the crap that is eBay's Android app or Google's own Maps Go.</p><p><br></p><p>Anyway, I've been around the block enough times to recognize a dud when I see one and RCS is the same kind of dud UWP was.</p><p><br></p><p>Flash. UWP. PWA. Now RCS.</p><p><br></p><p>These are not bad technologies but they're no better and quite likely worse than what they're trying to replace.</p><p><br></p><p>They all share one thing in common: they are meant to give their proponents (Microsoft and/or Google as the case may be) the possibility to re-litigate a technology battle that each company lost.</p><p><br></p><p>These technologies don't benefit the end user which is why they've all failed.</p><p><br></p><p>Microsoft pushed UWP in an attempt to copy the success of Apple's iOS after Windows Phone failed. Unfortunately Microsoft placed too many restrictions on UWP which made consumers hostile to. For example, no competing browsers are allowed on the Windows Store.</p><p><br></p><p>Look at Microsoft's browser market share. It's now in the single digits and had Microsoft not tied the fortunes of the Windows app Store perhaps UWP would have taken off.</p><p><br></p><p>Or PWAs. Only small development houses benefit</p><p>from the portability of code. Big developers simply make high quality native apps for each profitable platform. Cheap developers use PWAs and it shows.</p><p><br></p><p>Google and Microsoft push PWAs because iOS receives the lion's share of r&amp;d money. Again, not the end user benefiting but Microsoft and Google.</p><p><br></p><p>Same story with RCS. WhatsApp and iMessage are the world's largest platforms. Google failed to launch and Microsoft allowed Skype to give up its MASSIVE lead to iMessage and WhatsApp. RCS is a cynical attempt by those two to regain marketshare from Apple and Facebook without offering much to end users (no end to end encryption, no protection from spam, etc).</p>

    • Paul Thurrott

      Premium Member
      20 February, 2020 - 8:08 am

      Maybe you need to take a short walk or listen to a meditation app. This is clearly news.

      • ontariopundit

        26 February, 2020 - 9:06 am

        <blockquote><em><a href="#521975">In reply to paul-thurrott:</a></em></blockquote><p>Granted in the strictest sense it is news but the point of my response was to point out that RCS is a dead technology.</p><p><br></p><p>Too little, too late.</p><p><br></p><p>Thus, as far as news goes it's in the same category as news about Microsoft Edge in 2016. By that point it was obvious that Edge was a dead browser yet Microsoft and an awful lot of the popular press and punditry kept beating a dead horse.</p><p><br></p><p>Or the oft announced imminent death of Apple's iPhone at the hands of Android competitors.</p><p><br></p><p>Or the UWP obsession that gripped Windows pundits a few years ago. Yet another technology that was obviously DOA yet kept the hearts of certain 'aficionados' beating quickly.</p><p><br></p><p>Or the never ending stream of articles proclaiming a rich future first for Microsoft Silverlight (when it was obvious that Flash was far too dominant), and later for Flash (after Flash had become the very reason ad blockers had been invented in the first place).</p><p><br></p><p>Or, Windows Phone having a bright future when it had plummeted to single digit marketshare in its home market.</p><p><br></p><p>I would add BlackBerry to that list but I never really paid attention to the punditry back then so I can't make a fair judgement of whether people were still proclaiming a bright future for BlackBerry before the writing was completely on the wall.</p>

  • johnsmith2226

    20 February, 2020 - 5:36 am

    <p>Thanks for sharing this information. This would allow owners of Samsung devices to send RCS messages to other devices that support the protocol.</p><p><br></p><p>John Smith || gamivo.com</p>

  • coeus89

    20 February, 2020 - 3:00 pm

    <p>I'd turn RCS back on for my Note 9 if this gets enabled for the Note 9.</p>

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