Google’s Android head, Hiroshi Lockheimer, says he won’t want Apple to bring iMessage to Android but has stepped up calls for iMessage to aid the Rich Conversation Providers (RCS) messaging common utilised on Android.
RCS is the contemporary just take on the SMS typical that is supported on Android but is not supported by Apple iMessage (which does aid SMS).
This technical hole was highlighted in a Wall Avenue Journal short article on the weekend detailing how US teenagers are working with iMessage to socially isolate Android consumers from team chats. Messages from Android consumers are displayed in iMessage in green bubbles vs . blue bubbles for messages gained from fellow Iphone end users.
Lockheimer’s response was that Apple’s “iMessage lock-in” confirmed it was “employing peer force and bullying as a way to market items” and advised iMessage aid for RCS would take care of this challenge.
Apple’s iMessage lock-in is a documented system. Employing peer pressure and bullying as a way to sell items is disingenuous for a company that has humanity and equity as a core section of its advertising. The specifications exist these days to repair this. https://t.co/MiQqMUOrgn
— Hiroshi Lockheimer (@lockheimer) January 8, 2022
Lockheimer, who final calendar year available Apple Google’s assist to help RCS guidance on iMessage, on Monday added a clarification to his initial reaction to the WSJ short article.
“We are not asking Apple to make iMessage accessible on Android. We’re inquiring Apple to help the field common for modern-day messaging (RCS) in iMessage, just as they assistance the more mature SMS / MMS specifications,” Lockheimer wrote on Twitter.
Confidential e-mail from Apple execs disclosed via its courtroom scenario with Epic Online games confirmed the Apple iphone maker thinks bringing iMessage to Android would “eliminate an obstacle to Iphone people providing their kids Android telephones”, as mentioned by The Verge.
Google is the main proponent of RCS many thanks to various arrangements with important carriers, but RCS is nevertheless to come to be a conventional like SMS, in part for the reason that Apple so significantly has declined to guidance it in iMessage as it does for SMS.
Lockheimer added additional causes why it would be great for anyone if Apple supported RCS in iMessage.
“Why is this important? Cell phone selection-centered messaging is the fallback that we all know will function,” he wrote.
“If you want to access somebody and you really don’t know whether they use application x y or z, you have large assurance that sending them a textual content (SMS) will function. That is because it really is a normal and supported by primarily all cellular devices. Which is probably why Apple supported SMS to start off with.”
Apple supporting RCS would boost the expertise for iOS and Android customers, he argues, including that “RCS will also boost the encounter and privateness for iOS end users.”
“By not incorporating RCS, Apple is keeping back again the market and holding back the user knowledge for not only Android buyers but also their possess buyers,” Lockheimer writes.
