Sorry, Android customers. Inexperienced textual content bubbles aren’t going away anytime quickly.

• Apple’s iOS 18 will assist RCS this fall, bettering texting between iPhone and Android customers.

• However Android customers will nonetheless present up as inexperienced textual content bubbles when messaging iPhones.

• Inexperienced textual content bubbles have lengthy been a contentious level amongst non-iPhone customers.

Android and iPhone house owners have loads to have a good time after Apple’s big WWDC keynote, which revealed modifications to how messaging between the 2 rivals will enhance in iOS 18.

However Apple continues to be holding out on eliminating the much-hated inexperienced textual content bubbles, in response to a primary glimpse from Apple.

Apple beforehand introduced that it could assist the Wealthy Communication Providers, or RCS, protocol in its Messages app, however now we all know extra about the way it will work and when it is launching. It is a large enchancment over SMS, and the modifications will roll out within the fall with iOS 18.

Should you’re an iPhone proprietor, Apple’s RCS adoption means your Android buddy will not obtain a grainy compressed video or photograph the subsequent time you ship one over. It’ll additionally introduce learn receipts between the 2 units.

RCS additionally makes it doable for emoji reactions to be extra according to the iMessage expertise, ditching the written-out descriptions of an emoji response (“John beloved your message” fairly than the literal coronary heart emoji response) and including typing indicators. Apple did not particularly spotlight if these options might be accessible within the fall, but it surely’s doable they may very well be.

Google spent years pressuring Apple to undertake RCS.

Apple lastly caving is definitely a victory for Android customers, however there’s only one catch: Android bubbles are staying inexperienced.

Whereas it could be straightforward to write down off inexperienced bubbles as a superficial differentiator, the seen divide between Android and iPhone textual content bubbles has confronted criticism from smartphone customers. In August 2022, Google launched the #GetTheMessage campaign, which particularly highlighted the blue-green bubble problem.

“Texting between iPhone and Android is damaged. It is time for Apple to repair inexperienced and blue bubbles, and texting for everybody,” the social textual content mentioned.

Apple, for its half, has said it is essential to indicate when somebody is texting with another person on the iMessage protocol as a result of there’s added safety through end-to-end encryption that is not current in SMS texts between iPhones and Androids (inexperienced textual content).

However the inexperienced bubbles are additionally one thing that may persuade individuals to leap ship from Android to Apple — and preserve iPhone customers in its ecosystem. If an iPhone person switches to Android, they will should get used to inexperienced textual content bubbles when messaging with iPhones.

In 2021, legal documents revealed that Apple determined in opposition to growing an Android model of iMessage.

“The#1 most troublesome [reason] to depart the Apple universe app is iMessage . . . iMessage quantities to critical lock-in” mentioned a former Apple worker in 2016.

Phil Schiller, an Apple govt in command of the App Retailer, later mentioned, “Shifting iMessage to Android will damage us greater than assist us.”

The Department of Justice’s antitrust lawsuit in opposition to Apple particularly calls out the inexperienced messages. The filing claims that it “indicators to customers that rival smartphones are decrease high quality” and causes “social stigma, exclusion, and blame for ‘breaking’ chats the place different individuals personal iPhones.”

Neither Apple nor Google instantly responded to Enterprise Insider’s request for remark forward of publication.

The inexperienced bubble stigma could be very actual, particularly for youthful customers. The Wall Road Journal reported in 2022 the expertise of a number of school college students as non-iPhone customers, with one even saying that “individuals do not appear to love inexperienced textual content bubbles that a lot and appear to have this visceral damaging response to it.”

It is a sentiment that continues to be loudly expressed, like this tweet that obtained over 70,000 likes.

And there are indicators Apple’s technique is working. A 2021 survey performed by Piper Sandler discovered that 87% of teenagers personal an iPhone.

So whereas RCS will certainly carry some enhancements come fall when iOS 18 launches, it is going to nonetheless be obviously apparent for iPhone customers after they’re messaging with Android customers.

For Apple, that is good for enterprise.

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