They could have supported it until SMS was dead and buried. Also, RCS looks to have an upcoming third-party API, so it was absolutely a choice.

RCS has been around since 2013 and the only alternative client to Google Messages was your device maker's app that was allowed to tie into Google Messages via a device vendor only API (but essentially these were just a skin for Google Messages).

Google has not provided any public API for RCS, and they control the ecosystem fully. If Google wanted other clients to use RCS as a platform, there would be public APIs that Signal, iMessage, Textra, Facebook Messenger and other SMS clients could integrate with.

Alright, thanks for the clarification. It looks like they opened it up for particular apps in the last few years but haven't yet gone beyond that.

How can there be no RCS API? Eww.

>How can there be no RCS API? Eww.

Actually, there is an RCS API.

However, Google restricts its use to themselves and specific OEMS only. IIUC, that's currently only Samsung[0].

[0] https://www.xda-developers.com/google-messages-rcs-api-third...

Could LineageOS flip a switchand turn it into a free for all? That would be fun and interesting. Not that RCS is a remotely good messaging protocol.

>Could LineageOS flip a switchand turn it into a free for all? That would be fun and interesting. Not that RCS is a remotely good messaging protocol.

IIUC, the RCS API is not part of AOSP[0], and as such, not part of LineageOS. As such, I believe the answer is "no."

[0] https://source.android.com/