Google's RCS pressure campaign, directed at Apple, hits the media center of the world

Last week, we told you that Google had published a website making a case for Apple to start supporting Rich Communication Service (RCS) on the iPhone. RCS is the successor to SMS and MMS on Android and allows users to compose and send longer messages, send longer and better-looking video clips, deliver read receipts and typing indicators, provide end-to-end encryption, and more.

RCS is similar to Apple's iMessage and here's the thing. If someone not using RCS joins a group chat, all of these wonderful features disappear and the text bubble for the entire group turns from blue to green. Sound familiar? Yes, it is the same thing that affects iOS users when an Android user joins an otherwise all-iOS group chat. The difference is that Android users don't go apeshit when an iOS user joins what has been an all-Android chat.

As you know, iPhone users have been quick to bully Android users who join a chat made up of only iPhone users since it forces the latter to use old school SMS and MMS to communicate and drops all of the modern conveniences offered with iMessage. Ah, the horror of it all. The iPhone users will even make comments attacking the parents of an Android user for not having enough money to buy their kids an iPhone. Did it ever occur to these bullies that someone just might prefer an Android phone over an iPhone as many find iOS to be boring?

And before you use the excuse that Android turns iOS users' text bubbles green too, remember it is Google that is willing to share RCS with iOS users and not the other way around.

Google's website includes pre-written tweets addressed to Apple asking it to support RCS and end the green bubble bullying. And today, Google took its message of unity and healing to the Big Apple. Spotted by 9to5Google, ads have been placed on the LinkNYC kiosks in the City that replaced pay phones (if you don't know what a pay phone is, Google it!). The kiosks offer free Wi-Fi, a tablet-sized display to access city services, maps and directions, a phone for free calls to anywhere in the U.S., and a charging port to replenish the battery on a user's mobile device.

Of course, such services cost money and LinkNYC plasters its booths with advertisements including one from Google designed to look like a text message from Android to Apple. The conversation goes like this:

Android: hey Apple, it's Android.

Android: you really have to fix your texting problems.

Android: do it for your fans!

Android: (posts a photo of a man and woman)

Android: that's a photo of your fans btw.

Apple starts to reply as we see a green typing indicator.

On the bottom of one ad is the Android logo with the words "Help Apple #GetTheMessage. Also included is the address to Google's website for this campaign at android.com/GetTheMessage.

9to5Google notes that Google will officially kick off this campaign on August 25th on 500 digital billboards in Manhattan and Brooklyn that will run through October 6th. While Google's request isn't ridiculous at all, it will probably be a cold day in hell before Apple gives in to a pressure campaign like this. There are reasons why they should, but from a business standpoint, Apple has no reason to give in even though it would improve the messaging experience of its users.

While the New York City campaign will begin soon, Google continues to run ads on YouTube, TikTok, and Twitter.  As Google says on the GetTheMessage website, "It’s not about the color of the bubbles. It’s the blurry videos, broken group chats, missing read receipts and typing indicators, no texting over Wi-Fi, and more. These problems exist because Apple refuses to adopt modern texting standards when people with iPhones and Android phones text each other."