During Google I/O 2023, the company snuck into Apple.
“We hope that every mobile operating system will get the message and adopt RCS, so that we can all spend time together in the group chat, regardless of the device we use,” said Sameer Samat, vice- president of product management, to thunderous applause. Samat of course refers to the difference between the messaging channels used by Android and Apple.
This got major lols from the crowd.
At Wednesday’s event, Samat announced that Google has upgraded its technology from SMS (short message service) and MMS (multimedia messaging service) to RCS (rich communication service) which is considered the standard of industry for secure messaging. Apple uses its proprietary iMessage technology which is only supported by Apple devices. This is why texts from Android users are green bubbles on an iPhone and messages between iPhone users are blue, among other frustrating issues when texting through the various messaging apps.
Samat’s plea was simple: our lives are complicated enough, why shouldn’t secure messages look and act the same no matter what device we use? Hopefully Apple was watching and doing its part to end the madness.
