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Google pokes fun at Apple in lighthearted welcome to RCS

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By Abdullah Asim

Published: Sep 21, 2024, 1:47 AM

The world is healing: iPhone now has third party app store support (in the EU), third party NFC payments (also EU) and now RCS texting. To welcome the iPhone to the world of RCS Google released a lighthearted video of a Pixel and an iPhone chatting about Apple’s recent decision. The video is part of Google’s #BestPhonesForever series on YouTube.

In the video the Pixel and iPhone talk about how the two have had “communication issues” in the past. They also acknowledge the iPhone finally deciding to switch to RCS, which the Pixel reiterates is the modern standard for texting that other phones have been using for a while.

The video then mentions the benefits of RCS on iPhone, namely the ability to send much higher quality media between Android and iOS. Google didn’t pass up a chance to have the iPhone admit it had other things to work on and ended the video with directly welcoming the iPhone to a “new era of texting”.

If only real-life online discussions could be this civil. | Video credit — Google

There are, of course, other benefits to Apple finally accepting RCS on the iPhone. These include:

Typing and read receipts
Improved group chats
Reacting to texts
Sending GIFs

Aside from the aforementioned high quality media sharing, end-to-end encryption is also an important one. However, encrypted chats aren’t available on iOS just yet.

The introduction of RCS to iOS mainly benefits regions that don’t primarily use third party apps like WhatsApp for communication. For example, the U.S., where there’s a stigma against Android in schools and certain other places where younger people congregate. People even sometimes blamed low quality media on Android, not realizing that it was Apple that had been refusing to adopt RCS.

A lot of positive changes are happening between Android and iOS communication. However, the blue bubble and green bubble nonsense still remains to distinguish Android users in a chat.

Despite Apple’s best efforts, intervention from the EU has made a lot of the company’s prized traditions crumble. At least in the EU Apple’s walled garden isn’t very walled anymore. Welcome to RCS, iPhone.

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Abdullah loves smartphones, Virtual Reality, and audio gear. Though he covers a wide range of news his favorite is always when he gets to talk about the newest VR venture or when Apple sets the industry ablaze with another phenomenal release.

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