After having fun with the Messages app on Android, Google said iMessage was too powerful to, Google took to Twitter over the weekend to complain that iMessage is too influential among kids today. The company was responding to a Wall Street Journal report that reported on the closure and peer pressure created by Apple's Wall Street among American teens. iMessage underlines the text of iPhone users with a blue background and gives them increased functionality, while the texts of Android phones are displayed in green with only basic SMS functionality set. According to the article, teenagers and university students said they fear exclusion that accompanies green text. Peer pressure is obvious and some say they have been ostracized or branded after leaving the iPhone. Google thinks this is a problem.

After having fun with the Messages app on Android, Google said iMessage was too powerful to


"IMessage should not benefit from bullying," the official Android account wrote on Twitter. "SMS needs to unite and the solution is there. Let's fix this as one industry." As Hiroshi Lockheimer, Google's Vice President, put it: "Blocking Apple's iMessage is a documented policy. Using peer pressure and threats as a way to sell products is a betrayal of a company that has humanity as an essential part of its marketing. ”Standards exist today to fix this.


The "solution" that Google is introducing here is the RCS, or Rich Communication Services, 2008 GSMA standard that is slowly gaining popularity as an SMS update. RCS improves input indicators, user presence and better image sharing in player messages. This is a 14-year network operator standard, so it lacks many of the features you'd like to get from a modern messaging service, such as end-to-end encryption and support for non-phone devices. Google tries to meet old standards with its Google Messaging client, but the result is a bunch of outdated solutions that just do not work with good modern messaging services.


Since RCS replaced SMS, Google has been campaigning to modernize the industry. After years of protest, all US airlines are on board and there is some recognition among international airlines. The biggest problem is Apple, which only supports SMS via iMessage.


Apple has not officially rejected the idea of ​​adding RCS to iMessage, but thanks to documents published in Epic v. In the case of Apple, we know that the company views the iMessage lock as a valuable weapon. Bringing RCS to iMessage and making it easier to communicate with Android users will only help weaken Apple's wall, and the company said it didn't want to.


In the United States, iPhones are more popular with young people than ever. According to The Wall Street Journal, "40 percent of U.S. consumers use the iPhone, while more than 70 percent of those aged 18-24 use the iPhone." He thanked Apple's deposits with applications such as iMessage for this achievement.


To reap as you sow

Google clearly sees the popularity of iMessage as a problem, and the company hopes that this public outrage will cause Apple to change its mind about RCS. But Google advises other companies on messaging policies is a silly idea, because Google probably has the least trust in any technology company when it comes to messaging services. If the company really wants to do something in iMessage, it should try to compete with it.


As we recently described in a 25,000-word article, Google Message History is one of the constant product launches and shutdowns. Due to the lack of focus on the product or any kind of authorization from the CEO of Google, there is actually no "responsible" communications department. As a result, the company has launched 13 icy messaging products since iMessage hit the market in 2011. If Google wants to find someone to blame for the dominance of iMessage, it must start on its own, as it is constantly sabotaging and abandoning its own. your plans to create a contestant in iMessage.


Detailed reading

A decade and a half of instability: the history of Google messaging

Communications are important and even if they are not a direct source of revenue, the main communications application has real and tangible benefits for ecosystems. The rest of the industry realized this years ago. Facebook paid $ 22 billion to buy WhatsApp in 2014 and moved the app from 450 million users to 2 billion users. In addition to Facebook Messenger, Facebook has two dominant messaging platforms today, especially internationally. Salesforce paid $ 27 billion for Slack in 2020, and WeChat, Tencent's Chinese messaging app, earned $ 1.2 billion in consumer revenue and $ 5.5 billion in annual revenue. Snapchat has a market capitalization of $ 67 billion, and Telegram is valued at $ 40 billion by investors. Google continues to experiment with ideas in this market, but never makes an investment close to the competition.


Google had a competitor working on iMessage, Google Hangouts. Around 2015, Hangouts was the messaging tool; In addition to the original Hangouts messages, it also supports SMS and Google Voice messages. Hangouts made group video calls five years before Zoom exploded and had clients on Android, iOS, the Internet, Gmail, and all desktop operating systems through a Chrome extension.


However, as usual, Google didn't have a long-term plan or opportunity to stick to its one-message strategy, and Hangouts has been alive for a year as the "everything" mission. In 2016, Google moved to the next smart messaging app and left Hangouts disabled.


Even though Google miraculously offers RCS everywhere, building a messaging platform is a bad benchmark because it relies on phone bills. It is anti-internet and does not work on websites, computers, phones and tablets because these things do not have a SIM card. RCS providers are designed to put your provider account at the center of your online identity, although there are free verification methods, such as email, and work on many devices. Google is only promoting the lock as a lock solution from Apple.


Despite Google's complaints about iMessage, the company doesn't seem to have learned anything from its failures over its years of messaging. Today, Google Message is the worst and most divisive of all. During the press conference, the company operates eight separate non-interactive messaging platforms: There's Google Messages/RCS, which is available today, but there's also Google Chat/Hangouts, Google Voice, Google Photos Messages, Google Pay Messages, and Google Maps Messages for business. Google Stadia messages and Google Assistant messages. The last few apps are not primarily messaging apps, but every app has developed a strong messaging platform, as no significant Google platform allows them to communicate.


The situation is unbelievably messy, and no Google product is quite as good as it was in Hangouts 2015. So when Google backed down, I asked other tech companies to play it nice while it was still chaotic in between. Inconsistent message. strategy.