Samsung today joined Google in attempting to convince Apple to adopt the Rich Communication Services or RCS messaging standard that Google has been pushing.
In a short ad that's a riff on Romeo and Juliet, Samsung features two smartphone interfaces texting each other. "Juliet" is the iPhone in the metaphor and her parents (aka Apple) won't allow for the adoption of RCS. "What did green ever do to them? We're bubbles too," laments the "Romeo" Android smartphone. "And literally everyone wants us to be together. Ugh," writes Juliet.
It's ultimately a bit of a confusing ad, but Samsung makes it clear with the title of the video: "Green bubbles and blue bubbles want to be together." Samsung also includes the "Help Apple #GetTheMessage" tagline and hashtag that Google has been using for its RCS campaign.
Google has been hounding Apple about adopting RCS for several years now using ads, billboards, websites, social media campaigns, and more, but Apple has refused.
RCS, or Rich Communication Services, is a communication protocol designed by and adopted by Google. Google has been pushing Apple to implement support for RCS, but Apple devices continue to support the older SMS protocol. Google claims that Apple is responsible for all the issues that Android and iPhone users have texting one another, including lack of encryption, broken group chats, pixelated pictures and videos, and the green bubbles.
Apple CEO Tim Cook in September 2022 said that RCS is not a priority for Apple and that it is not a feature that iPhone users are asking for.
Top Rated Comments
Not that I think this ad campaign will have any effect on Apple at all, but that doesn't mean that Apple should do nothing on improving communication standards on iPhone
* Interoperability between carriers and Android phones is still problematic.
* Google Messages probably has the best overall implementation of RCS, but many phones are preloaded with alternate RCS client. And most don't bother to change the client. It doesn't help that Google has a confusing messaging client strategy.
* RCS should use IP (data), not SMS or carrier's backhaul. I should be able to send RCS to anyone on the planet without fear of additional charge (other than data).
* Depending on the implementation, end-to-end encryption is either missing or only partially implemented (e.g., group chats).