Google Exec Slams Apple iMessage Green Text For Peer Pressure, Bullying And Breaking Group Chat

It's no secret that Google wants its own messaging standard to become just that across all mobile operating systems. The maker of the Android operating system has been trying to get Apple to buy into its Rich Communications System (RCS) for years. Now it’s accusing Apple of using peer pressure and bullying tactics to keep people locked in on iPhone and iMessages.

The shade comes in response to an editorial from The WSJ that found teens much prefer Apple’s blue messaging bubbles, when texting a friend on an iPhone over the green message bubbles when someone texts to an iPhone from Android. Of course, it’s the features offered by iMessages, like the indicator to let people know when someone is typing a message and the ease of sending group chats that others can opt in and out off with ease that the younger generation loves.

Those features, Google points out, can also be had in its RCS messaging. Any Android user, regardless of the make and model of their phone, can easily switch over to RCS. Google’s senior vice president of platforms and ecosystems, Hiroshi Lockheimer, took to Twitter to bash Apple’s resistance to making iMessages more compatible with RCS.

According to the *WSJ* survey, young Android users often feel left out and ostracized when messaging with iOS users. Lockheimer believes that’s Apple’s intent, and statements from Apple executives can support that, to a degree. After all, Phil Schiller did say in 2016 that moving iMessage to Android would “hurt us more than help us”. Furthermore, Craig Federighi pointed out that allowing iMessages to run on Android devices would remove an obstacle preventing iPhone-using parents from buying their kids Android phones.

Lockheimer thinks Apple is deliberately fostering peer pressure to keep people on iPhones. Even though RCS brings many of the features offered by iMessages, including typing/replying indicators with read receipts, higher-quality photos and videos, sending over Wi-Fi or mobile data, and Business Messaging, the Cupertino-based company has proven very reluctant to change over, or at the very least support better iMessages interoperability with RCS.

According to the Google chief, RCS is still ready and willing to embrace iMessages aficionados, if Apple decides to join the standard.