gMessage is coming for iMessage

Get ready for the revival of the age-old debate that’s divided friend groups, torn apart families, and sown division throughout the world: green bubble vs. blue bubble. Late last week, Google announced upcoming changes to its Android Messages app.

💬📱 Here’s what’s changing… Over the coming weeks, Android users will be able to watch YouTube videos without leaving the Messages app, star, as well as reply to, individual messages, and react to messages with emojis (which will appear as intended for Android users, but iPhone users will receive a text saying the other person reacted with a description of the emoji used).

• Most of these features require RCS messaging to be turned on… and that’s kind of the point.

📸 The big picture: 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 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.

• Just one problem with this plan, though. Apple isn’t exactly incentivized to cooperate – so it probably won’t “Get the Message.”