How Google Can Make iPhone Users Jealous of Green Bubbles

For years, iPhone users have teased Android users about their green bubbles. Now that Android phones have almost universally switched to RCS, and Apple has finally adopted it, Google could change the narrative and make iPhone owners green with envy.

I used to be ashamed of my green bladder

I love using Androidbut for a long time I hated texting on it. And can you blame me? Sending text messages on Android used to be pretty rough. It mostly ran on the old SMS and MMS technology, so you had to deal with things like no end-to-end encryption and small media file sizes. It also lacked modern features such as read receipts or typing indicators.

Even when RCS eventually launched, deployment was a mess. Some carriers had their own versions of RCS that didn’t work well with others, and some didn’t support it at all.

Meanwhile, iPhone users had iMessage that was seamless and packed with all the coolest features, and when those features collided with Android outdated SMS standard, it was chaos.

I haven’t felt the worst because people where I live alternate between default and third-party messaging apps. I could easily switch to WhatsApp when I needed to chat with a friend who was using an iPhone.

But in the US, where almost everyone uses standard programs, it was a nightmare. Photos were compressed into oblivion, reactions appeared as separate messages, and group chats were unmanageable.

It’s been so bad for so long that it’s become ingrained in our collective psyche: blue bubble, okay; green bubble, bad.

RCS changed the game

However, now that the universal RCS profile has appeared, Apple has taken it upon itself adding support for him, texting on Android is no longer the nightmare it used to be.

Now you can send photos and videos without looking like they were taken on a flip phone in the 90s. Reactions work without sending a separate message, and you can see input indicators and read notifications.

The infamy of the Green Bubble still exists, but Google can fix it

But though exchange text messages between iPhone and Android now leagues better, Apple still tethers us to the same old green bubble. They didn’t even give it a different shade to show it’s RCS (and knowing Apple, I’m willing to bet that’s on purpose).

This means that my iPhone friends are still looking down at my green bubbles, and to be honest, I’m a little embarrassed too. Maybe it’s the years of training, but something about that green bubble still makes me cringe.

Fortunately, Google is on a mission to improve the reputation of green bubbles, and I’m all for it. They position Google Messages as the future of RCSand they’re making some great improvements to the app that might make iPhone users jealous of the green bubble. In my opinion, here are some things that can give them an edge.

Exclusive features can make Green Bubble Cool

Google Messages already has some exclusive features that make texting on it a unique experience. There’s Voice Moods, which lets you add animated emojis to your voice notes for added context, Smart Suggestions, which lets you quickly reply to messages, and Custom Bubbles, which lets you change the color of your text bubbles.

With these features, Android users don’t always feel like they’re missing out compared to their iPhone friends.

However, the exclusive features don’t end there, they can get even better. First, I’m still hoping Google adds its own version of iMessage and Animoji games. I’m also looking forward to disappearing messages, browsing media, and maybe even text message bars.

Google Messages can provide you with compatibility that iMessage never will

Imagine being able to send a message in Google Messages and have it appear in your friend’s favorite messaging app, be it WhatsApp, Messenger or Telegram, without having to download or sign up.

This is the kind of holistic interaction that Google is counting on. They already are announced plans implement Message Layer Security (MLS), which allows you to securely send messages to people using other applications, and developers can even observed code related to MLS in Google Messages.

It’s not just GoogleWhatsApp is also thinking about cross-platform messaging, so it may soon become the norm for all messaging apps.

But not iMessage. Apple is known for keeping everything in its walled garden. Just look at how long they resisted the adoption of RCS. If that’s the case, chances are they won’t be jumping to MLS anytime soon.

This could mean that while the rest of us enjoy cross-platform messaging, iPhone users may be left out for a change.

Google Messages needs to stop being just an SMS app

If Google Messages is going to compete with iMessage, it needs to shed its image as just an SMS app.

Android has a history of using SMS to send messages. When Google Messages became the default texting app on Android, it inherited that perception. Now, many people think of Google Messages as a simple texting tool rather than a full-fledged messaging app, and that distinction matters.

In fact, most people I know only use SMS to receive verification codes, bank alerts, or messages from their carriers. Real conversations via SMS? This only happens when the person they are messaging is somewhere without Wi-Fi.

This connection to SMS is particularly strong outside the US, where people often skip Google Messages altogether in favor of third-party apps like WhatsApp, Telegram or Signal.

Take my parents for example: even though I explained that they can send me messages on Google Messages, they still prefer WhatsApp. For them, Google Messages is purely a utility for SMS banking and one-time passwords.

If Google Messages is going to surpass iMessage, it needs to move away from that “SMS-only” image.

Then there is the problem with iPhone users. To make Google Messages more appealing to everyone, Apple users must adopt RCS. But there’s a problem: many iPhone users still haven’t updated iOS to the latest version or simply haven’t enabled the feature. Google Messages needs a strategy to attract iPhone users or it will always lag behind the competition.

---

The green bubble vs. blue bubble debate has been raging for the better part of a decade, and Android is losing. However, with the introduction of RCS, the dynamic has changed, and if Google plays its cards right, green could become the new blue.