The long controversy over Apple iPhone iMessaging vs Standard Text Messaging services, has become a widely known issue. Especially in the US.

People have complained for over a decade that they cannot send high resolution videos or images to one another through their smartphone’s messaging services. Many users have turned to third party apps such as WhatsApp or Telegram. These messaging services have become a key point for the two tech giants, because if a user’s all use the same service, then the user is less likely to switch to another platform or app.

This is huge when it comes to compatibility standards, and what users expect from a messaging service. Facebook’s parent company Meta owns WhatsApp, and says it competes directly with Apple because of how widely used iMessage is in the United States. Messaging has also drawn attention from some policymakers who are pushing to force competing services to work with each other under fair competition rules.

This is clearly a US issue, and as you may or may not be aware, as iMessage holds no importance to the rest of the world. It’s only become a problem within the US, because US carriers included SMS for free, while other countries continued to charge additional fees, creating an increase in popularity for internet based third party messaging apps such as WhatsApp or Signal, while remaining less as popular stateside.

Unfortunately, for those of us that live in the US, we struggle to see read message alerts, high resolution images or videos, that never do them justice. For the fellow US-based readers, Android and iPhone users alike, it is time to join the rest of the world’s lead and have an industry standard in messaging.

Rich Communication Services (RCS), the New Modern Industry Standard in Texting

Last summer, Google, the developer of the Android, has increased the pressure on Apple to adopt Rich Communication Services) RCS, a next-generation standard for text messaging. Google took a blatant jab at Apple on its website over what it says is Apple’s failure to improve the user experience of messaging between iPhone and Android devices.

It argues that Apple’s support of RCS would help prevent some of the problems that arise when iPhone users text with Android owners. Currently, images and video don’t show as clearly as they could, for example, and texts can’t be sent over Wi-Fi networks.

Short messaging service (SMS) has now been replaced with the industry standard of RCS for texting capabilities and messaging services. As a user, this just means your text messaging services have been improved, so that you can see when someone is responding, read receipts, high-quality video and no more compressed videos that look blotchy, support for any data connection, and better group chats (no broken group messages.

RCS also happens to be more secure than SMS, and allows encrypted one-on-one conversations, meaning you can feel more secure about sending messages to someone without it being intercepted by someone else. This is a big enhancement on customer privacy and security.

Some users have long lamented the green message bubbles that come with cross-device messaging, as well as poor-quality compressed videos, the lack of read receipts, and other headaches.

The Blame Game: Who’s Fault is it That Your Not Getting Quality Messaging Services?

Google blames Apple, as the company converts texts sent between iPhones and Androids into what’s called SMS and MMS, both of which are decades-old methods of sending text-only messages from device to device.

Instead, Google says, Apple should use Rich Communication Services (RCS), which it says is the “modern industry standard” meant to improve how people can send not only texts but also media, such as emojis, videos, and photos. Apple is in fact, part to blame for creating a substandard experience when iPhones text Android phones or vice versa.

“These problems exist because Apple refuses to adopt modern texting standards when people with iPhones and Android phones text each other,” as stated on the Android website, during a publicity campaign.

The page prompts visitors to share the campaign on social media and “help @Apple #getthemessage.”

“Texting between iPhone and Android is broken. It’s time for Apple to fix green and blue bubbles, and texting for everyone,” the social text said.

Google Executives suggest that Apple refuses to support RCS because its own messaging system, iMessage, helps retain iPhone users by locking them Apple’s own ecosystem. Everything Apple has to connect together or be compatible with only Apple products.

“We’re hoping that Android users stop being blamed for ruining chats,” Google global vice president for integrated marketing for platforms, Adrienne Lofton, said. “This is Apple that is responsible, and it’s time to own the responsibility.”

The campaign is a notable escalation in an ongoing compatibility spat between the two companies that dominate software for smartphones. Nearly all smartphones in the world either run Android or Apple’s iOS, and Apple’s iPhone has over 55% of the U.S. market, according to StatCounter.

Google wants Apple to support the RCS “standard,” or specifications that allow many different companies such as carriers or phone makers to develop apps that can send and receive RCS messages. Many Android phones already have built-in messaging apps that support RCS.

iMessage You This, but You Only Get That

While Apple’s iMessage may seem similar to other texting/messaging services, it only has some slight differences, because it is the default text messaging app on the iPhone.

Apple uses it’s own systems to detect when an iPhone texts another iPhone, and instead of sending the message through the SMS system, it uses Apple’s own iMessage network. Users will see a blue bubble, instead of a green color seen on SMS texts, like those on Android users.

iMessage chats will provide a better user experience only for iPhone users. Many of Apple’s features, like adding a reaction to a text, barely work on SMS chats, and will often spell out the emoji to a regular SMS user, and send a message to that user saying, “liked” or “exclaimed”, or “loved”. With RCS, people are now beginning to get a majority of iMessage reactions, but not all.

iMessage chats feel faster to iPhone users because of Apple’s animations and include features like bubbles that indicate when a user is typing or has read a message. RCS has now implicated these features as well, however an RCS user will not be able to tell if an iMessage user has read a message or is typing to you, due to the discrepancy in technologies, again making it difficult for a universal texting application.

Apple does however continue to distinguish iMessage from SMS by adding new features such as the ability to unsend or edit messages, which has been released in the latest iOS 16 update.

It appears that Google does not want Apple to bring iMessage to Android, but instead, is clearly pushing for Apple to support RCS, which was developed by a group of wireless carriers and other tech companies to improve the SMS and MMS systems that have been in place for decades.

Apple CEO, Tim Cook stated, “I don’t hear our users asking that we put a lot of energy in on that at this point,” about implementing the RCS standard on iPhones, during Vox Media’s Code 2022 event.

Apple uses its own iMessage service. When Vox Media’s LiQuan Hunt complained to Cook that his mother couldn’t see the videos he sent her because they had different phones, the Apple chief replied: “Buy your mom an iPhone.”

The Future Remains Silent for Text Messaging Compatibilities

As of right now, you’re stuck with the same issues that have been going on for a decade, which include broken group chats, and a lack of modern messaging features. Without some kind of forceful intervention, by governments or wireless carriers, Apple is clear on their stance, with their silence, they do not plan to add RCS support to iMessage in the foreseeable future.

The inferiority of “green bubble” texts has become a meme and inspired a song by the musician Drake.

Google’s social team posted an “unofficial lyric explainer video” that praised the song and interpreted the lyrics as complaints against iPhone turning Android users’ texts green.

#TextsGoGreen hit us different, that’s why we had to drop this unofficial lyric explainer video #GetTheMessage 💚😏 pic.twitter.com/dPxt9yZjCG

— Android (@Android) June 18, 2022

“If only some super talented engineering team at Apple would fix this,” Google’s June video said.

Even though we don’t have compatibility between the two phones, there are countless messaging apps widely available on both app stores that provide all the features you may want in a messaging service.

If you don’t mind using Meta products, Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram are right there. Everyone, including your mom is on Facebook now, so persuading them to use Messenger might not take much effort.

Don’t want to give Meta access to your life? Sign up for Signal. I’ve been using it for a couple of my group chats for the last few months, and it’s great. It’s basic enough that anyone can learn how to use it, even those who haven’t used anything but iMessage. Get your friends to jump on Discord or Telegram. All of these platforms are accessible on iOS and Android and can sync with web-based or desktop clients too.

What messaging app do you use? Do you think Apple will eventually cave, or will be forced to comply?