iPhone users on Koodo report losing RCS messaging after iOS 18.1

Several Koodo customers are reporting issues with Rich Communication Services (RCS) messaging on their iPhones following the iOS 18.1 update.

A Reddit thread about the issue garnered several comments, though it seems not everyone is impacted — some people on the iOS 18.2 beta, for example, still have RCS. Those impacted claim the RCS settings are totally absent from their phone, and they no longer have the ability to send RCS messages, even if RCS was previously enabled.

Koodo owner Telus told iPhone in Canada that it was aware of the issue and investigating, which hopefully means a fix will arrive shortly. Until then, iPhone users on Koodo will be stuck without RCS.

Apple added RCS to iPhones with the iOS 18 release, finally giving users another option for messaging friends and family who use Android phones. For years, iPhones have defaulted to SMS and MMS for messaging with non-iPhones, while messages sent to other iPhone users became iMessages.

While RCS brings several modern messaging features like support for higher quality images, typing indicates, read receipts and more, the rollout, unfortunately, hasn’t been very smooth for some. I haven’t had many issues yet using RCS to message my wife, who uses an iPhone. However, I’ve also received several reports from readers about problems they’re experiencing with RCS, with some having so many issues they ultimately decided to turn the feature off.

Here’s hoping these issues are just initial bugs and Apple and carriers get the problems sorted out quickly.

Source: Reddit Via: iPhone in Canada