Last month, Google released a video ridiculing the outdated messaging experience on Apple's iPhone. Titled "Meet iPager," the ad mocks that iPhones still rely on SMS and MMS instead of RCS (Rich Communication Services) to chat with Android users. And now Samsung is joining Google in pressuring Apple to support it.
The company recently shared an ad depicting a Romeo and Juliet-style relationship between green and blue message bubbles longing to be together. The ad calls on Apple to "get the message" and support RCS for a more universal messaging experience.
The ad positions the iPhone user as Juliet and the Android user as Romeo. However, Juliet's parents - represented by Apple - won't allow the two lovebirds to communicate using modern chat features like RCS. Instead, they are relegated to the old "green bubble" SMS experience.
Google has been pushing to adopt RCS as the next evolution of SMS. RCS gives many iMessage-like capabilities, bringing higher quality images, read receipts, typing indicators and larger file sharing to Android users.
Google also blamed Apple's lack of RCS support for ongoing issues like lack of encryption, broken group chats, and low-quality media sharing between iOS and Android users.
However, Apple has resisted adopting RCS, preferring to keep iMessage exclusive to iPhone users. Apple CEO Tim Cook said in September 2022 that RCS is not a priority for the company. Cook explained that "our users are not asking us to expend a lot of energy at this point."
Meanwhile, the EU is considering designating Apple a gatekeeper, which could force integration of competitive standards like RCS if Apple captures too large of a share of the messaging market in Europe. While iMessage currently does not dominate the European market enough to trigger regulatory action, mounting public pressure and ads targeting Apple could influence the company.
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