At Google I/O 2023, the company snuck in a dig at Apple.
"We hope every mobile operating system gets the message and adopts RCS, so we can all hang out in the group chat together no matter what device we're using," said VP of Product Management Sameer Samat, to raucous applause. Samat is referring of course to the difference in messaging channels used by Android and Apple.
At Wednesday's event, Samat announced(opens in a new tab) that Google has updated its technology from SMS (short message service) and MMS (multimedia messaging service) to RCS (rich communication service) which is considered the industry standard for secure messaging. Apple uses its proprietary iMessage technology which is only supported by Apple devices. That's why texts from Android users are green bubbles on a iPhone and messages between iPhone users are blue, amongst other frustrating issues when texting across the different 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're using? Hopefully Apple was watching, and will do its part to end the madness.
