After ruining Android messaging, Google says iMessage is too powerful

Google failed to compete with iMessage for years. Now it wants Apple to play nice.

Read the whole story

 

[clackerd]

I actually liked using Google Hangouts. It wasn't *quite* as good as iMessage on an iphone, but it was a close second. And TBH I like a lot about Google Duo for video calls too. No doubt that's already on the chopping block.

 

[anonymouschicken]

Perhaps that blue bubble means a bit more: iPhone users are more likely to be liberal while Android users are more likely to be conservative. Google it, plenty of evidence of that.

Maybe that green bubble ought to be red.

edit: spelling

In the year 2022, it seems that literally no topic is free from democrat vs republican nonsense.

 

[Abhi Beckert]

I may not be a fan of Apple. But I will defend them because…they at the very least know how to develop a product, know how to make it mature, and not have to reinvent the damn thing every 3 years.

I mean, I could name a few if you want. Touchbar, keyboards, Apple TV…

TouchBar and Keyboards are not products they are features. Features should be re-invented to improve them. Sometimes that goes poorly and you have to backtrack.

Not sure why Apple TV is in the list. Never had a complaint about mine.

 

[House of Propane]

Come on Ron, this is silly. Whining or not Apple needs to start enabling RCS.

RCS sucks. Messages should be delivered to a person, not a specific device.

Most people own multiple devices. The message has to go to all of them. iMessage does that, RCS doesn't.

Also, the iMessage encryption is fairly legit in its implementation, which is rare. This is a strong reason on its own for Apple to closely tie software/hardware.

 

[haomiao]

Err... as noted in Apple's explainer (and I just totally checked my own phone anyway), the coloured bubbles are reserved for messages you've sent. Received messages show up as either:

- white on dark grey (dark mode)
- black on silver (light mode)

I feel like this entire debacle is centred on misdirection.

You are technically correct, which as we all know is the best kind of correct. But you are missing the fundamental point that when you are texting with someone with an iPhone you see blue, whereas you see green when you're not. Which creates a very distinctive demarcation that can lead to some adverse consequences.

Now, how big of a problem this is, well that's open to debate. Personally I think it's actually an elegant UI decision which quickly and clearly lets users know that the conversation they're a part of supports all the bells and whistles of iMessage as opposed to wondering why sometimes things show up as a nice heart over the message and sometimes it's a blob of text saying "so and so loved this message"...

 

[50me12]

Perhaps that blue bubble means a bit more: iPhone users are more likely to be liberal while Android users are more likely to be conservative. Google it, plenty of evidence of that.

Maybe that green bubble ought to be red.

edit: spelling

In the year 2022, it seems that literally no topic is free from democrat vs republican nonsense.

Just like what one of THOSE PEOPLE would say!

 

[HeraldOfDawn]

Come on Ron, this is silly. Whining or not Apple needs to start enabling RCS.

RCS sucks. Messages should be delivered to a person, not a specific device.

Most people own multiple devices. The message has to go to all of them. iMessage does that, RCS doesn't.

Agreed. iMessage goes to laptop, iPad, and phone seemlessly. And you can use any internet source with iMessage (cable/airplane/4G/Starlink) while texts only work via the cell network. No nearby cell tower and you’re out of luck.

 

[balthazarr]

Has SMS always been interoperable between carriers in the USA?

In Australia, there was a long period of time when you could not SMS between some carriers.

 

[Abhi Beckert]

imessage is only a thing in the US. Everywhere else is either SMS or whatsapp.

Well in Australia Apples market share has grown to 45.7% according to the Australian Financial Review. I don't know what point your trying to make, let me guess that Android is solely used outside the U.S. Hate to break it to you, but you're wrong.

Annecdotally my network of fam & friends is team blue bubble. Also I tried the green bubble phones and did not like them, so I switched back.

They aren't talking about Android vs. iOS, they are saying people who use iPhones outside the US don't use iMessage. I don't live outside the US so I don't know how true that is, but I've commonly heard this.

The person you're replying to is from Australia, and so am I.

If anything Apple's dominance is even stronger here. I almost don't know anybody who uses Android or a PC. I mean there are a few, but they are extremely rare.

And if you ask why they use Android, it's normally one of two reasons:

1. they don't really want a smartphone at all, but that's the only phone you can get so they picked a $100 Android phone
2. they think of their phone as a fashion item and want something more unique than just a case

 

[wayloncovil]

It would be interesting if Apple released iMessage for Android.
1. They could charge for it.
2. They would have their app on (basically) a competitor's device, forwhich, they could advertise their products and tell Android users how much better their life would be if they used an iPhone.

 

[toxman]

Perhaps that blue bubble means a bit more: iPhone users are more likely to be liberal while Android users are more likely to be conservative. Google it, plenty of evidence of that.

Maybe that green bubble ought to be red.

edit: spelling

Since you seem to like spurious correlations, here is a site full of them. https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations

A lot of things can be "proven" by bad analysis of data and this is one of them.

Google deserves every bit of mockery over their messaging fiasco and their complaining about iMessage but you managed to make this political AND sort of prove their point about bullying. Good job.

 

[anon_coward]

I may not be a fan of Apple. But I will defend them because…they at the very least know how to develop a product, know how to make it mature, and not have to reinvent the damn thing every 3 years.

I mean, I could name a few if you want. Touchbar, keyboards, Apple TV+…

apple tv is still around, gets updated every few years and the latest one you can exercise at home with an apple watch to track your movement like the Wii did years ago

 

[Legatum_of_Kain]

This is interesting considering that all my friends use signal and only fall back to texting when signal is down, and no one gives a crap as to the color, but then again we just wanna chat.

Perhaps Google should set that as their goal for software and stop making excuses.

 

[CraigJ ✅]

Having used iMessage for 12+ years and having also used SMS for many years, I can say unequivocally that iMessage is superior in pretty much every way and the fact that it works seamlessly with my Macs, iPads and iPhone is awesome.

Apple will NEVER change how it functions in this regard unless they are ordered to do so by a court.

 

[azazel1024]

Back in my online dating days, I did genuinely (more than once!) have women say "ew no thank you" when I texted them and a green bubble popped up on their screen. It's something that even non-tech people will notice and care about, so I'm not surprised to hear that it's causing stress for teens. I'd love to see the broader tech industry coalesce on a modern messaging standard that's device and carrier agnostic, but I'm not holding my breath, especially given Google's history.

Sounds like you dodged a bullet. If a woman is so shallow they'll reject someone because of the brand phone they have then they're not worth dating,

But now the car they drive…that’s a good reason.

I agree with you, but men and women are often shallow. Especially when getting started dating a new person. First impressions and all that.

I personally wouldn’t give a FF. I’d probably just ask political and religious beliefs and “did Han shoot first?” And that would tell me all I needed to know.

 

[beachwalker]

the only time I've seen things get weird is when an iphone sends a hi-res video via imessage. the codec ends up super grainy on google voice.

 

[DJ_Natural]

"RCS is a poor standard to build a messaging platform on because it is dependent on a carrier phone bill. It's anti-internet and can't natively work on webpages, PCs, smartwatches, and tablets, because those things don't have SIM cards. The carriers designed RCS, so RCS puts your carrier bill at the center of your online identity, even when free identification methods like e-mail exist and work on more devices."

I agree with the thrust of this article, but how many messaging services can you name that *don't* depend on SMS for account creation and login? I only know of Skype and FB Messenger (and Whatsapp?) which is why I prefer them. (Hangouts also before it died.)

The following all requie a unique SMS number to create an account and log in: Signal, Telergram, MS Teams, LINE (ubiquitous in Japan), Viber. Not only that, but you can only have one account per device.

RCS is not the ultimate messaging solution, but it's a welcome upgrade to SMS, especially if it the carriers don't charge per message. My family all switched back to Skype and so all our bubbles are blue (or the color you aet them)!

 

[autostop]

imessage is only a thing in the US. Everywhere else is either SMS or whatsapp.

While it's the largest messaging app overall Whatsapp isn't the biggest messenger everywhere. There are countries such as Japan, China, Korea, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Greece, and others where Whatsapp isn't the top messaging platform.

On a related note it's always surprising so many seem so positive on Whatsapp being a such dominant player given who owns it.

Anyone who holds up Whatsapp as a bastion of freedom and interoperability should have their head examined.

For that matter, I'm always surprised at how expensive and/or neutered MMS is on many non-US carriers. US carriers charge out the wazoo for data, but at least MMS works, for free, for everyone. In my experience, group chats and picture messages just work, even in mixed Android-iOS company. (Sending movies doesn't, but that's not such a bad thing.)

Carriers created the iMessage monster way back when by charging by the message for SMS and MMS. Apple did an end run around them because it had to. (Remember, iMessage didn't come out until iOS 5).

 

[Deleted member 174040]

However, Apple is just as bad, with alternative leverage and monetization practices. When Apple saw how much they could make from iPhone repair, they downgraded the glass on their devices, and let everyone think it was Gorilla Glass or similar, and while making the glass less flexible and more shatter prone.

???

 

[Thomas Harte]

Bullying aside, it seems pretty obvious that Apple intentionally futzed with the colors to make it harder to read messages that come in as green bubbles. I wonder if it's enough for there to be a regulatory angle on that alone?

On the contrary, your paranoid delusion is trivially easy to disprove.

iMessage launched with iOS 5. Prior to its launch, all the way back to the original iPhone, all messages were via SMS and were the same colour: green.

Check out this Ars video for evidence.

 

[Deleted member 174040]

Bullying aside, it seems pretty obvious that Apple intentionally futzed with the colors to make it harder to read messages that come in as green bubbles. I wonder if it's enough for there to be a regulatory angle on that alone?

On the contrary, your paranoid delusion is trivially easy to disprove.

iMessage launched with iOS 5. Prior to its launch, all the way back to the original iPhone, all messages were via SMS and were the same colour: green.

Check out this Ars video for evidence.

Why didn’t Google complain back then?

 

[Hexaemeron]

Was Hangouts the one that used people's Google+ profile to supply their name and picture if available? I think it was, and I hated it. I think that was the only time I ever used a third party SMS app, because I hated not being able to override what they picked for their image.

In a way, I feel for these kids though. I have had the same types of beefs with people over the years, like using an email program that used 'RE: ' instead of 'Re: ' or a newsreader that couldn't be configured to properly snip signatures at a delimiter. I learned long ago to silence the voice in my head that yells out, "Learn to use your fucking software!" when I see an email that ends with, "sent from my iPhone." instead of a proper signature.

 

[phuul]

"RCS is a poor standard to build a messaging platform on because it is dependent on a carrier phone bill. It's anti-internet and can't natively work on webpages, PCs, smartwatches, and tablets, because those things don't have SIM cards. The carriers designed RCS, so RCS puts your carrier bill at the center of your online identity, even when free identification methods like e-mail exist and work on more devices."

I agree with the thrust of this article, but how many messaging services can you name that *don't* depend on SMS for account creation and login? I only know of Skype and FB Messenger (and Whatsapp?) which is why I prefer them. (Hangouts also before it died.)

The following all requie a unique SMS number to create an account and log in: Signal, Telergram, MS Teams, LINE (ubiquitous in Japan), Viber. Not only that, but you can only have one account per device.

RCS is not the ultimate messaging solution, but it's a welcome upgrade to SMS, especially if it the carriers don't charge per message. My family all switched back to Skype and so all our bubbles are blue (or the color you aet them)!

I'll add Apple's iMessage to the list of messaging services that don't require a phone number. You can use iMessage on Macs with an Apple Id, no phone required. The other big thing that iMessage brings is end to end encryption. The lack of both these things is the biggest shortcoming of SMS, RCS and all other carrier based messaging systems in my opinion.

 

[ilidd]

Well there's a typical Ars anti-Google article.
Fact is that RCS is a standard and Apple who purportedly cares about users' privacy, won't link to RCS which would provide encrypted texting outside of Apple's ecosystem, because Apple wants to make more profit for business reasons.

The more appropriate headline is "Apple refuses to care about customer's privacy as they refuse to adopt the RCS standard".

And for those who would downvote this, what is factually incorrect about this comment?

RCS has no E2E encryption. I’m not sure how you thought it did.

 

[andy o]

Even if Apple and had the best of altruistic intentions and weren't looking for their own interests, why in the whole wide universe would they trust:

1) Google to do ANYTHING competently by "working with them" in messaging.

2) Fuckin CARRIERS to play nice.

Seriously, I don't know why people have any faith in RCS as long as carriers have any kind of involvement with it, and Google bending over backwards for them. Why would any company trust this unholy satanic alliance? The iPhone itself arguably is successful because Apple didn't give in to carriers and went their own way with a carrier that will accept their terms.

Some will point out that Google finally said FU to carriers and enabled RCS with their own backend, but how is that half-baked attempt anything substantial? They should have done that with Hangouts in 2013. Even now, carriers can still block Google Messages RCS implementation through Google. Why do carriers have any say at all?

Google doesn't even need to bitch publicly about it. Just do what everyone's been telling you to do since Hangouts, and implement rich messaging in Google Messages with SMS fallback without ANY carrier involvement. And put out your app on iOS even if it doesn't support SMS. But by now they've lost all confidence from people who have been paying attention all these years.

 

[koolraap]

Kids really need to change to unlocked platforms. I prefer Discord personally.

Discord's UX is just The Worst.

For kids it won't be green vs blue or apple vs android, it'd be rich vs poor. "Green? Billy's poor! I've got an iPhone I'm rich".

 

[tigas]

I think apple should reply with a news story about google ripping out XMPP support from gChat/google talk.

i.e. Google Abandons Open Standards for Instant Messaging

So did Facebook Messenger, and Apple never had it on iOS.
Silos and lock-in beat open standards every time. But for a while, in 2011/12, my Nokia N9 had SMS/FBMessenger/Skype/gTalk fully integrated in the Messaging app because it was just a XMPP client.

 

[andy o]

Well there's a typical Ars anti-Google article.
Fact is that RCS is a standard and Apple who purportedly cares about users' privacy, won't link to RCS which would provide encrypted texting outside of Apple's ecosystem, because Apple wants to make more profit for business reasons.

The more appropriate headline is "Apple refuses to care about customer's privacy as they refuse to adopt the RCS standard".

And for those who would downvote this, what is factually incorrect about this comment?

RCS has no E2E encryption. I’m not sure how you thought it did.

Google has added it for Messages, but in typical Google fashion, it's half baked, only works for 1 to 1 conversations. Not to mention the other problems with RCS I mention above.

 

[dumah]

Kids really need to change to unlocked platforms. I prefer Discord personally.

So, are you advocating replacing peer pressure with disagreement, or an unpleasant combination of musical notes?

har har :facepalm:

 

[phuul]

Bullying aside, it seems pretty obvious that Apple intentionally futzed with the colors to make it harder to read messages that come in as green bubbles. I wonder if it's enough for there to be a regulatory angle on that alone?

On the contrary, your paranoid delusion is trivially easy to disprove.

iMessage launched with iOS 5. Prior to its launch, all the way back to the original iPhone, all messages were via SMS and were the same colour: green.

Check out this Ars video for evidence.

Additionally the only colored bubbles are the ones the USER writes. Who cares if those are harder to read? Incoming messages have always been black text with a grey background.

Edit: Note to say I'm agreeing with the previous poster just adding more detail.

 

[SubWoofer2]

Came here to say I admire Ron's restrained approach to word choice and selection when narrating Google's history of messaging apps.

 

[jonfr]

Google RCS is a failure. I've tried to use it and it is based on registering your phone number with Google so that you can use RCS. I rather just use SMS even if it is an old system.