Earlier this month, Apple CEO Tim Cook said that Android green bubbles will remain as it continues to ignore Google’s lightly-used RCS messaging mess. Cook said that Apple doesn’t spend a lot of effort improving the texting experience between iPhones and Android devices because its users haven’t been asking for it. Instead, he said, “I would love to convert you to iPhone.”
Michael Allison for Digital trends:
Let’s do a quick recap of what RCS is. It’s an update to the SMS standard that’s powered by a mixture of Google and a handful of global carriers. It brings modern features like typing indicators, read receipts, and high res image support to regular texting. It has been pointedly ignored by Apple, killing its utility as an SMS replacement between iPhones and Android phones.
Although Google has pushed for RCS to come to the iPhone and replace SMS time after time, Apple’s response has simply been a flat-out “seen.” The benefits are clear for Google. Being a “green bubble” wouldn’t necessarily be a source of shame if RCS were to land. Apple’s refusal here seems remarkably reticent until you read the fine print.
Only 20% of Android users have been estimated to have access to RCS… Secondly, RCS is not necessarily a less confusing experience. Although it is nominally a carrier initiative, it is almost wholly run through Google’s servers. Some carriers like AT&T do have their own implementations. It’s an unstable mess resulting in a broken experience where two users on the same phone but with different carriers could end up with different versions of RCS. Even Google’s touted end-to-end encryption is only a feature of Google’s Messages app, not RCS itself.
MacDailyNews Take: Yup.
Why should Apple do anything whatsoever to improve the messaging experience for those who settle for a stolen product, knockoff iPhones?
Apple should support RCS in Messages right after they make Windows the default operating system for Macintosh. — MacDailyNews, August 11, 2022
Those who saddle themselves with knockoff iPhones deserve to wallow in the green-bubbled swamp of inferiority forever. – MacDailyNews, September 8, 2022
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At least iPhone users can finally mark messages as unread in iOS 16. Been a long time coming.
I guess Apple should’ve also ignored MMS… I mean, other options existed for sending pictures and video… why support a standard that other devices also support, right?
RCS isn’t encrypted, but neither is SMS, although RCS is immensely better overall… so why wouldn’t a company support the standard implementation of it?
It’s amazing how people can be so against something just because their favorite multi-trillion dollar corporation is also against it.
It’s not that anybody, is necessarily “against” RCS, it’s rather that there is ZERO compelling reasons for Apple to waste time, resources, and personnel to support it.
RCS was, is, and will be a mess for the foreseeable future. (Read the article!)
Explain exactly why Apple should make life easier for Android, Google, Samsung, or their users. They aren’t Apple customers, they often rage against Apple for being “closed,” proudly proclaim their allegiance to “openness,” then they get all all torqued off when they’re not allowed to taste the fruits of a “walled garden.”
If an “open ecosystem” is so AWESOME, build your own frickin’ Messages alternative and make iPhone users jealous, instead of complaining about green bubbles. Geez. (And just FYI, Google Android ain’t that open.)
There are PLENTY OF OPTIONS to message between Android and iPhone without using RCS or Messages—Signal or WhatsApp, for example.
The reason why Google is pushing RCS is because it has utterly botched their own dozen or so proprietary messaging solutions: From the article, “Although Google may paint its RCS goals as one of equity, the company is simply making a transparent ‘hail Mary’ play. RCS has been available for so long that my defunct Windows Phone can support it, provided it’s equipped with an RCS-compatible SIM. Notably, Google didn’t implement RCS then. Rather, only after the company failed in pushing proprietary messaging app after proprietary messaging app did it finally switch to RCS as the new best thing.”
I don’t mind green… it’s a nice colour!