I criticized Google Messages over RCS, but it isn't the only one at fault here

The GSMA published RCS Universal Profile 4.1 on July 28, and Google Messages still hasn't shipped the Universal Profile 4.0 from back in March. I wrote earlier this week that sitting two versions behind is a bad look for the company that pushed RCS hardest. However, there's a case for the delay that I didn't make, and it matters whether you text from a Galaxy S26 Ultra or an iPhone 17 Pro Max.

What I said, and what the GSMA actually shipped

Universal Profile 4.1 is a maintenance release, and the GSMA is fairly open about that. You get profile sharing with toggles for who sees your name and picture, refined end-to-end encryption (E2EE) rules so encrypted messages behave the same way across different apps. There's also a lighter way of moving messages between networks that should mean faster delivery, less battery drain and steadier group chats.

However, Universal Profile 4.0, published back in March with video calls and rich text formatting, and that still hasn't reached a stable Google Messages release. We covered that announcement at the time and expected quick adoption since Google usually moves fast on RCS. That hasn't happened, so 4.1 is now stacked behind a version nobody can use yet.



That said, despite my initial reaction to this delay,  I realized that I brushed past this significant caveat: the GSMA is telling us this release is supposed to be invisible, and invisible work tends to take longer than the kind you can put in a keynote.

Apple's stumble is the part I skipped

Apple only got encrypted RCS into a stable release in May 2026, after pulling it from several betas first. We had been following that timeline since 2025, and it slipped more than once before it was ready.

Apple builds for a handful of iPhone models on one operating system, and it still hasn't committed to anything past spec version 2.4. If that setup produced pulled betas, then Google doing the same work across thousands of Android models and dozens of carriers is a harder job than I made it sound.



If you're texting from an iPhone, none of this reaches you either way, since Apple stopped at 2.4 and hasn't said what comes after it. If you're on a Galaxy, you're in the same queue as every other Android user, because these features arrive through Google Messages rather than anything Samsung ships on its own.

Google isn't the only one holding the timeline

RCS was never a client-only standard. Carriers have to implement their side of it too, which is why the rollout has been uneven from one network to the next for years now.

Google Messages tends to absorb the blame for the whole standard's pace, and it appears the app controls less of that pace than the criticism assumes. That doesn't excuse the wait, but it does spread it around.

What all of this means if you text every day

Nothing in 4.1 will look different on your screen, and that is the point. What you would notice is an encrypted message behaving the same way when the person on the other end uses a different app, a group chat that stops stalling and a battery that drains a little slower on a heavy texting day.

That's less exciting than video calls, but it's also the layer everything else sits on. Whichever of the best Android phones you're carrying, this is the infrastructure you use every single time you send a text.

These upgrades arrive through updates to the Google Messages app rather than a full system update, so the app is where to watch for them.

Behind schedule and wrong priorities aren't the same thing

I'm not walking the original piece back. The pace is slow, and reader patience is thin, since close to 45% of you told us the real fix for texting is everyone being on the same app.

Still, shipping video calls on top of infrastructure that isn't finished is how RCS ended up inconsistent in the first place. A clean baseline that works everywhere is worth more than a feature list that works sometimes, and I'm guessing that's the tradeoff Google is making on purpose.

Personally, I'd rather have a boring texting app that never surprises me, and I'm hoping 4.0 shows up before 4.2 does. I'd love to know whether you see it that way or think Google has had more than enough time.

• Our Galaxy S26 Ultra review, privacy display and all
• Our iPhone 17 Pro Max review, aluminum chassis and all
• Come hang out with me on X and Threads at @jojothetechie for hot takes and behind-the-scenes coverage.

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