Apple has its own messaging service called iMessage but it’s only for Apple users. iMessages appear in blue bubbles on Apple devices whereas messages sent by Android users appear in green text bubbles and are treated like SMS/MMS messages. That’s why, messaging between Android phones and iPhones is broken. Google’s Senior Vice President of Platforms and Ecosystems Hiroshi Lockheimer believes this can create problems for iPhone users.
Our research shows that the typical person uses 3 to 4 messaging apps, whether that’s WhatsApp or Snap. That’s great. We’re not trying to build RCS into the one app to rule them all.” – Hiroshi Lockheimer
Apple is free to pick and choose the elements of RCS that it wants, such as improved security. This way, the fancier features would still remain exclusive to Apple devices. But the company has made it clear that it won’t do that.
If an Apple user uses the Messages app to talk to an Android user, the messages will be sent as traditional SMS messages and won’t be secure. So, at the end of the day, Apple is doing a disservice to its users, and this makes Lockheimer feel bad for iPhone owners.
Since you mentioned Apple, I’ll just mention, they talk about how privacy is a human right and how important that is to them. I feel like, “look here’s a technology that’s available now…” Now I just feel bad for the iPhone users who are going to experience the degraded features, it would be great if they could bring that to them. And better security for them as well. You know Android users are fine, they’re texting each other with total security and all that stuff, and now it’s kind of bizarre because now when they interact with iPhone’s we’re going to have to deal with a degraded security experience.” – Hiroshi Lockheimer
