Google continues to pressure Apple, but it needs to organize its Home and Mail apps first.
Google has been trying for a while force Apple to implement the new RCS messaging standard, which supposedly improves certain functions of traditional SMS, and raises the tone more and more. On this last occasion, Google launched a whole site reproaching Apple for not having introduced this technology which would improve the compatibility of messages sent between iPhone and Android.
With the #GetTheMessage campaign, Google tried publicly shamed apple adopt RCS. But the funny thing is that it comes from Google, a company that has been constantly launching and closing courier services in recent years.
Google, a little command first please
Google Talk, Google Hello, Google Duo, Hangouts, Today email platforms that Google created and shut down in just over 15 years. Switching from one to the other and requiring users to migrate to the new from time to time, the latest attempt is called Google Messages. So, Google is not here to advise on email strategies since his is anything but coherent.
A problem that, really, hardly anyone cares about
Potato iMessage as a messaging platform since its launch in 2011, with a strategy completely opposed to Google’s trial and error. The app has evolved and reached more and more company devices over the years.
So no, Google, Apple don’t “need to fix SMS” no matter how much you insist and less for the sake of iPhone users. First it offers a truly equivalent alternative to iMessage and then we’ll see.
In addition, Google is trying to force Apple to implement a global standard that no one in the world really cares about.. And that’s not too fair.
It’s a problem almost unique to the United States, since in the rest of the world we don’t care about blue or green bubbles. We use other messaging apps like WhatsApp and we don’t communicate with traditional messages.
Google is back in the fray against Apple, the iPhone and iMessage
It should also not be forgotten that even if Apple implemented RCS in iMessage, the various bubbles would still be there. RCS doesn’t mean iMessage will come to Android, it would just add features like read receipts or improved picture sending.
Google’s problem, and the real crux of the problem, is that 80% of teenagers in the United States use an iPhone, and therefore iMessage. And the difference made by the Apple platform with Android does not please Google, which intends to eliminate the green and blue bubbles via the RCS. But as we said, even by adopting RCS, Apple wouldn’t have to eliminate cat colors.
Apple’s reasons for not implementing RCS
Although Google sells us RCS as the future, the truth is that despite years of development, since 2008 it is still a system that has some drawbacks. And for various reasons, Apple might not want to implement it.
On the one hand, RCS only works on mobile phones, which is a shift from iMessage which works the same on an iPhone as it does on an iPad, Mac, or Apple Watch. It is therefore still a technology with too many legacies compared to traditional SMS.
iMessages appear blue and text messages appear green
But it also seems that RCS has become an advertising platform. Many Android users have complained about the excessive advertisements they receive from different companies, to the point of seeing forced to deactivate the RCS. And these ads are from Google-verified businesses, so Google should bear most of the blame.
Keeping all this in mind, it might take a lot of effort for Apple to implement RCS for everything to work properly. A job that does not seem worth it since, for the moment, it would not bring many benefits to Apple users.
However, RCS seems like a solid concept and eventually Apple will implement itbut whenever they want not when Google says so. Also, keep in mind that the next European regulation could make all messaging platforms compatible with each other, even if nothing is said about the RCS.
