Google has pressured Apple to adopt RCS for years and even when Cupertino gave in (perhaps when that became clear). the EU would get involved), Google still had the guts to do that having fun at Apple. But maybe Google should focus on its own garden instead of trying to be humorous.
Did you know that Wear OS smartwatches with LTE cannot send RCS messages? Well, they can’t – RCS messages from the watch only work when it’s connected to a phone. That will change with an upcoming update to the Messages app.
In a teardown of the Google Messages beta version v20240926, the Android Authority team discovered a number of flags that lay the foundation for RCS messages to work independently on Wear OS watches.
bugle.enable_wear_standalone_rcs
bugle.enable_wear_standalone_rcs_settings
bugle.enable_wear_standalone_voice_message
Note: Bugle is the internal name for Google Messages.
It appears that the watches will be able to handle not only standard text messages, but also voice messages sent via RCS. This means you can continue to receive rich messages if you leave your phone at home (assuming you have an LTE-enabled watch, of course).
It’s not clear if this update will help non-LTE watches – it could make a difference in cases where the watch loses connection to your phone but is still connected to Wi-Fi. We’ll have to wait and see.