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How's the iPhone experience on Google Fi in late 2024?
I've been a long time Fi user on the Pixel line of phones, so I've always gotten the gold standard of service from Fi. My wife is an adamant iPhone user. We want to port her over to my plan, but I was hoping to get some recent feedback from anyone using a modern iPhone (just bought her a 16) -- All the things I find on Google are months to years old. If this is you, how well do the iPhone features (Visual voicemail, iMessage, RCS, FaceTime, 5G, etc) work for you on Fi?
I don't have Fi, but I've talked with someone who uses them not too long ago and they said that RCS did not yet work with it. To my understanding RCS only works on iPhone if you're using one of the big carriers and maybe a handful of MVNOs.
Though there was a recent iOS update, so maybe it's working for more of them now?
FaceTime should work just fine because it's an iPhone thing, and I would find it hard to believe if Visual Voicemail didn't work either. RCS is pretty much the only thing I would worry about.
It seems to only be activated on MVNOs that are owned by network operators. For example, RCS is working on Visible, which is an MVNO owned by Verizon.
I came across this website, which gives you a good breakdown of who supports RCS.
T-Mobile owns both Mint and Sprint (which doesn't really exist anymore since the merger), and neither of them support RCS. Who knows, maybe T-Mobile just sucks here?
It’s getting deployed beyond just network-owned MVNOs, mine (on Verizon but not owned by them) just recently got support for it in the past week or so.
Likely requires a bit of engineering effort to integrate into the parent network’s existing RCS systems.
So I have a Fi account, and while I'm currently on an android, I have 3 family members on iPhones. For the most part things have been working just fine for them. One member had some issues getting the sim set up initially but it was determined it was because Verizon had messed something up originally and when they tried switching the e-sim it wasn't working properly. We did get that resolved. There's some settings you need to change on iPhone to get it working properly, but they send you a packet about how to do it and it's pretty straight forward. I think the only thing that maybe sometimes is an issue is an issue with voicemail syncing properly, but that could be an apple thing and not necessarily fi (I've noticed weird voicemail shenanigans on my work iPhone as well which is unrelated to fi).
Overall my family members have had a mostly smooth experience with iPhones on fi once we got things set up.
Edit: as to your last part, iMessage, FaceTime, etc. all work as expected when messaging other iPhones.
I tested Google Fi for a week on an iPhone 11 last year. T-Mobile connectivity in my area is poor so my Google Fi experience was a bit degraded. Whenever I did go to an area with strong T-Mo coverage, it was great. This was pre-RCS on iPhone so can't help you there but iMessage and FaceTime worked as expected. It felt like using any other carrier. You might have to do some fiddling to get their eSIM working but the Google Fi app walks you through it and it's relatively straightforward. Would recommend if you're in an area with great coverage on Google Fi's main networks
My coverage has been solid with Fi, so I expect hers would be too.
If I may ask, how was your experience with VVM and 5G?
Didn't try visual voicemail as I was just testing out the iPhone to see if I'd like it and Fi was the quickest option I had to try iMessage. The iPhone I tested Fi on didn't have 5G support but I did try it for a month on my Pixel 7 Pro, which does have 5G and it's just as good as the two carriers that make up Fi's network. You are technically on the same lower priority level for data as other MVNOs but it's still great.
My family and I have had Google Fi on iPhones for several years now. Setup can be a small headache, but beyond that everything runs pretty smoothly. iMessage, FaceTime, 5G, etc. all work flawlessly. Visual Voicemail in the native app is a little hit-or-miss, but Google provides their Fi app that provides good visual voicemail support. iOS did bring improvements in SMS chat (no more emoji response messages that read like [👍 to "lol omg wtf"], but I don't see Google Fi support for RCS in Settings.
Was there some way to try and force voicemail to one app or the other? I could forsee complaints from my wife about not knowing which one voice mail could be going to.
Not really. They're both looking at the same inbox though. Checking your voicemail in either place clears the notification from the other.
I don't know if this is helpful at all, but I got a message in my Google Messages app today (on Fi) saying that RCS was just activated on my phone. I don't know what this means for iPhones or if it's any different from what has been available on the iPhone side.
It was mostly fine in my experience, though it was a bit weird with how some voicemails would go to the Fi app inbox while others would get caught by iOS call screening and show up in the native inbox.
I switched back to Verizon though, because as of a couple of models ago, when a new iPhone is released Apple requires proof of a Verizon/AT&T/T-mobile account to order one for some arbitrary period of time before removing that requirement, depending on demand. This is really annoying if one needs a new phone in short notice at the same time as a new release (as was my case).
I was a longtime Fi user with an iPhone partner as well. I realized Fi will get axed at some point so I switched to Tello. It's cheaper, has the same coverage, and they don't sell/use my data AFAIK
Why do you think Fi is going to get axed? It's been around since 2015, and while the Google Graveyard has its fair share of products, the ones they partner with outside companies for service/hardware for (Fi, YTTV) have seen pretty stable product life.
In short, because they're inept and only seem to care about their flagship stuff. Fi has been on the back burner for a long while now, and being a vertical integration with their phones also makes it a target for criticism regarding anticompetitive behavior