Apple has announced a new generation of iPhones with better cameras, longer battery life and “dynamic islands” instead of notches. One thing the new phones lack is support for RCS messaging. Apple CEO Tim Cook was asked at Vox Media’s Code 2022 event if the company would listen to his Google call to adopt his universal messaging standard. “Buy your mother an iPhone.”
The problem lies in the way Apple connects iPhones through the default messaging app. When an iPhone user sends a message to another her iPhone user, Apple intercepts it and presumably routes it through its own system called iMessage. These messages can do more than your average SMS with high-quality media, read receipts, enhanced group chat, and more. When chatting with an Android user, messages revert to the old SMS format with green bubble instead of blue.
Google is conducting an awareness campaign in hopes of putting pressure on Apple to support the RCS standard that Android phones use for enhanced messaging. No dice so far, and it doesn’t even seem to be on Apple’s radar. At the Code conference, Vox Media’s LiQuan Hunt explained to Tim Cook that the lack of RCS was a real problem for him, unable to send high-quality video to his mother. Buy it.” I spit out the line.
It’s no surprise that this is a party line. Apple has no incentive to support RCS and will never allow Android devices to connect to iMessage. This helps reinforce the idea that Android phones don’t take good pictures because sending them as text messages to the iPhone results in blurry pictures. The way messaging works on the iPhone is also a major lock-in factor. People don’t want to lose their iMessage group his chats that they got while talking to a friend who uses an iPhone. RCS has many of the same features, but it’s only useful if you’re talking to other her Android folks.
Due to Apple’s interference, the only viable solution for those frustrated by the green bubble situation is to use another messaging system. WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook Messenger and everything else is just connected via the internet. You can implement whatever functionality you want and it will work equally well on all devices.
