Apple vs. Google: The battle behind the green bubble

Google began its “Get the Message” PR campaign yesterday, taking aim at Apple and reviving the age-old debate that’s divided friend groups, torn apart families, and sowed division throughout the world: green bubble vs. blue bubble.

🤔 What’s going on?… For time travelers from the past, iMessage is only available to people with an iPhone. Apple reverts any non-iMessage to SMS or MMS, resulting in the green bubbles 47% of smartphone-owning America knows and secretly (or openly) loathes.

But this debate goes beyond just green bubbles. Google is pushing Apple to adopt what’s known as RCS, a next-gen text messaging standard that would allow for several new features when an iPhone user texts an Android user, including higher-resolution photos, the ability to send texts over Wi-Fi, and the ability to display read receipts. RCS messages are also encrypted, while SMS/MMS messages are not.

The issue with this whole pitch – and what Google’s trying to change – is that Apple isn’t exactly incentivized to switch. In fact, it’s the direct opposite.

• Internal emails made public during a lawsuit last year showed senior Apple execs shooting down proposals to bring an iMessage app to Android, due to its ecosystem lock-in.
• “I am concerned iMessage on Android would simply serve to remove an obstacle to iPhone families giving their kids Android phones,” current Apple senior vice president in charge of software Craig Federighi wrote in 2013.
• 87% of all smartphone-owning teens currently have an iPhone, according to the latest Piper Sandler survey… and 87% say their next phone will be an iPhone.

📱 Bottom line: This isn’t the first time Google’s made the RCS pitch (or tried to foray into messaging), and it probably won’t be the last. And while one can dream for a more secure, unified cross-platform messaging standard in the near future… it’ll probably remain just that.

+Dive deeper: With iMessage, Apple has created a phenomenon referred to in the investment world as a “network effect.” Learn more.