Google argues with Apple about messaging

“Sending a friend on a different phone shouldn’t be a problem, right Apple?” Google and Android have intensified their crackdown on old Apple messages. It’s all about RCS: Rich Communication Services. Here’s what happens between the two technical superpowers.

RCS

RCS has been available in the Netherlands for a few years now. It’s the successor to SMS, but it has more comprehensive options. Google is a big driver for it and hopes Apple will implement it in iMessage as well. When an Android user sends a message to an Apple user, you notice it right away.

In iMessage, everything else works just as we know it from WhatsApp, which means you can send “text messages” as GIFs and stickers, but everything an Android user sends only comes as text. Images are also possible, but they come via the old MMS standard (do we remember that, still, still?) and thus are of appallingly poor quality.

iMessage

Google has been fighting for years to ensure that RCS is also implemented in iMessage, so that people from different phones can still communicate with each other normally. After all, a gif can give a specific message a completely different context.

Now a lot is “lost” because the iPhone can’t read all kinds of things an Android user sends. However, Apple deliberately chooses not to implement RCS in order to keep people within the Apple ecosystem.

Google vs Apple

Google wants the “Real Clear Solution” to come to iMessage. It is also getting more combative. It has now launched an entire campaign called “Get The Message” where Apple is getting pretty straight about its silence around the technology. In New York City, digital billboards will soon appear everywhere with Apple’s Android ‘chat’.

It has also become a little more difficult to do online campaigns. You’ll soon see it on YouTube, Twitter, and TikTok. This says something about how important Google thinks they are: Twitter and TikTok are not Google’s own media. She even enlisted celebrities like Vanessa Hudgens to help get the message across.

modern communication

The advantages of RCS are endless: you can get read notifications, see if someone is writing, and of course send high-quality images (photos and videos). Google says, “Messaging is how we stay connected with our family, and how we make our friendships feel close enough to connect, no matter how far apart we are.

However, conversations between people using the iOS and Android platforms are needlessly awkward and tear us apart emotionally. In Google’s view, a platform that is not designed to bring people together simply does not represent the level of seamless connectivity and modern technology that people deserve and expect.”

Android at work

We might feel a little too real and Dutch for the whole ’emotional disintegration’, but of course it’s ridiculous that Apple doesn’t like technology, so the communication isn’t quite as smooth.

On the other hand, many people (especially outside of the US) still use WhatsApp, so you won’t notice it much in the Netherlands, for example, if all of a sudden your iPhones support RCS. However, Google certainly has a point: the connection could be better, but whether it chooses the right path to make this point remains to be seen.