Google has criticized Apple on the weekend for profiting by “peer pressure” and “bullying” regarding iMessage’s blue bubble feature and blue bubble. Google and senior vice president Hiroshi Lockheimer both acknowledged when they made their comments that there was a solution and that the company’s executive has since elaborated on the issue.
“We’re not soliciting Apple to allow iMessage accessible on Android. We’re soliciting Apple to adopt an industry-standard for contemporary messaging (RCS) within iMessage, in the same way, that they have supported the earlier SMS/MMS standard,” Lockheimer noted in a tweet on Monday.
Apple’s messaging platform labels iPhone users with blue bubbles. However, it changes in line with SMS features for Android users and displays these as green bubbles. Reverting to the old SMS standards means a lot of traditional IM features are either not present or are a bit sluggish. This has led to numerous college students and teens in the US experiencing peer pressure to move to iPhones according to the Wall Street Journal recently revealed.
Lockheimer states that the more advanced RCS protocol which replaces SMS includes features such as reading receipts, typing indicators better groups, as well as secure one-on-one chats. There are many other options that are supported by the standard, since it also supports higher quality video sharing, sharing of locations as well as video calls. There are a few not available options (e.g. secure group chats that are end-to-end encrypted or quoting) However, the experience is nearly the same as an IM application on paper. And gmail cross 10 billion installations in mobile devices.
“By not integrating RCS, Apple is holding back the industry and putting back the experience of not just Android users, but also for their users,” the Google executive stated, adding that Google was delighted to partner together with iPhone maker to introduce RCS.
