(NEXSTAR) – Ever wondered why that amazing video you tried to send to friends or loved ones turned out to be tiny and pixelated? It’s just one of many texting issues that Google blamed Apple in a blunt post on its website Tuesday.
“It’s time for Apple to fix SMS,” Google wrote, calling out the Cupertino, Calif.-based company for a variety of user headaches it says are related to the “outdated” choice of service. Apple Mail, resulting in a “broken experience”.
Texts between Apple device owners using iMessage are encrypted and appear in blue bubbles; they can be sent over cellular data networks or over Wi-Fi. When an Android device, for example, that can’t use iMessage enters the conversation, texts are sent via SMS/MMS and appear in green bubbles , without most of the features offered by iMessage.
SMS, which stands for Short Message Service, refers to basic texts, while messages with pictures or video are sent via MMS, or Multimedia Messaging Service.
Google uses Rich Communication Services (RCS) for messaging on its Android devices and is asking Apple to adopt the same communication protocol to improve the texting experience between Apple and Android devices.
The SMS concept dates back to the 1980s and is the most widely used type of mobile message in the world. On Tuesday, Google called it “deprecated” and to blame for a number of issues when it comes to Android-iPhone text snafus: blurry, tiny photos and videos; lacks encryption, no typing indicators, no read receipts, and inability to leave group texts.
While personal frustrations are one thing, some young Android users said they were ostracized and excluded from group texts because their messages “turned the thread green”, leaving white text on a light green background and eliminating some iMessage features.
Analyst Ben Bajarin told Fast Company that his teenage son explained, “We would start a new group chat, and the group would realize I was the reason he was green, and they would start another group chat. band without me.”
Loathing for green text messages has become fodder for memes and tweets about the social and even romantic stigma some attach to green text bubbles.
“If I give you my number and a green bubble pops up when you text me, I’m (at least) already questioning your level of taste,” one person joked.
“I can’t believe I kissed a boy with green texts I’m so nice it was my charity act for the year,” another tweeted.
Now Google hopes to leverage its “Get The Message” campaign – as well as videos from stars such as Vanessa Hudgens and Madeleine Petsch — to pressure Apple to adopt RCS.
“The bad experience you get when texting Android users is created by Apple,” Google claims.
Judging by the evidence that surfaced during last year’s court battle with ‘Fortnite’ maker Epic Games Inc., it may prove hard to shame the Silicon Valley giant into giving up. SMS/MMS.
Among the thousands of pages of internal documents uncovered during the trial were emails from Apple executives discussing iMessage and Android, according to a January report from The Wall Street Journal.
“Without a strategy to become the primary messaging service for [the] large part of cell phone users, I’m afraid iMessage on Android is just to delete [an] hurdle for iPhone families gifting their kids with Android phones,” Craig Federighi, Apple’s chief software officer, wrote in an email in 2013.
In a 2016 email, then-head of marketing Phil Schiller told CEO Tim Cook that “moving iMessage to Android will hurt us,” with another executive likening iMessage to “a serious lockdown.”
It’s unclear what role the fracturing of the blue-green bubble may have played in Apple’s success in the US market, but when it comes to younger consumers, the iPhone is the clear winner in sales.
In 2021, a study by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners found that more than 70% of people between the ages of 18 and 24 had purchased an iPhone, according to the Journal.
Nexstar contacted Apple for comment on Google’s campaign, but did not receive a response.
