Google calls on Apple to 'fix texting' and adopt RCS messaging
The "green bubble" problem regarding communication between Android devices and iPhones has been a problem for years, but the subject is getting more attention recently with accusations that Apple's messaging strategy isn't just arguably classist, it's also infringing on its customer's security and violating the company's
own accessibility guidelines. Even more frustrating, Apple could fix this if it adopted the industry and carrier standard for RCS messaging to replace SMS on its devices. Now Google is stepping up the pressure on Apple with a new "Get The Message" website and marketing campaign meant to highlight the issue.
Most readers should be familiar with RCS messaging and its related standards. In short, it's not even a Google product, just a set of agreed-upon technical standards that were meant to replace the aging SMS format. RCS provides features like typing indicators, end-to-end encryption (for 1:1 conversations), reactions, and higher-quality media sharing, among other features. Basically, it delivers all the functionality you expect from a modern messaging standard.
There are different ways of implementing RCS, and carriers spent years messing things up by creating their own bad and dumb systems that didn't talk to anyone else's, fixing precisely nothing. Back in 2019, Google took the situation into its own hands, starting a rollout of its own universally interoperable RCS system to everyone through the Messages app, and this was the kick in the pants that RCS needed to succeed. Google's system could serve as a backup to plug the gap between the selfish and shortsighted carriers, simultaneously encouraging them to do things the correct way and providing customers with the feature even if the carriers didn't. It was the best of both worlds.
RCS has had its bugs since then, but essentially everyone should now have access to the messaging standard — at least, everyone on Android.
Although there were rumblings that the GSMA would make it a requirement for 5G, that never panned out, and Apple has silently but stubbornly refused to adopt the standard. Of course, Apple likely values iMessage's lock-in effect on its customers, and adopting any other standards (even universal ones not tied to a specific company) could serve as an off-ramp for the iPhone. But it's not just about making sure green and blue bubbles can play together. Apple, as an ostensibly privacy-centric company, would be enhancing customer privacy and security if it picked up the standard — RCS supports end-to-end encryption and SMS doesn't, but Apple forces its customers to use the latter as a fallback.
There are a lot of reasons why Apple should adopt RCS, but only a single pretty selfish one for why it shouldn't, and the company's obstinacy is doing objective harm to its customers and eroding at the very values Apple claims to champion — or, at least, spends millions of dollars marketing. In the face of all this, it's no surprise that folks on the Android side of the fence are pissed off, and Google is fighting back.
Google's marketing hasn't always been the most effective, historically, but this new Get The Message initiative could be different — I may be imagining it, but I see the hand of ex-Verge Dieter Bohn in some details the company has presented today. As part of the initiative, Google put together a whole website explaining how and why iPhone users experience a substandard messaging experience when talking across the aisle to Android customers and how adopting RCS would fix basically all of these issues.
You can call it propaganda, or you can call it honesty, but as I said back in 2020, Apple's the one that's holding back progress now, and Google sounds like it's finally going to push back for the good of everyone, including Apple's own customers.
( Details and picture courtesy from Source, the content is auto-generated from RSS feed.)
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