Google has directly hit out at Apple for failing to improve the user experience between Apple and Android users, attacking its “outdated” technology standards and even prompting people to start campaigning with a hashtag.
In a statement on a new Android website, Google lamented the green bubbles of text that appear when Android and Apple users communicate by text, converting them into SMS and MMS messages. “Texting between iPhone and Android is broken. It’s time for Apple to fix green and blue bubbles, and texting for everyone,” they wrote.
And that wasn’t the only criticism: “It’s not about the color of the bubbles—iPhone users get a bad texting experience,” the website said.
Google pointed out that communication between Apple and Android phones also breaks down the quality of videos and doesn’t translate across images, GIFs, or emojis, prompting Google to describe Apple as “outdated” for not instead using Rich Communication Services (RCS), which it says is the “modern industry standard.”
Google slammed other features, including the inability to leave group conversations, the lack of support for end-to-end encryption, read receipts, and typing indicators. While read receipts and typing indicators exist within iMessage, they don’t translate between Android phones and iPhones.
Google blamed Apple directly for these issues: “These problems exist because Apple refuses to adopt modern texting standards when people with iPhones and Android phones text each other.”
Google’s campaign goes further
They have gone a step further still by prompting visitors to the website to share the campaign on social media and “help @Apple #getthemessage.”
This past June, Android’s official Twitter account jumped on the opportunity to attack Apple’s technology with the release of artist Drake’s single “Texts Go Green,” publishing an unofficial lyric explainer video arguing that the singer was complaining about the way that iPhone texts go green when they’re sent to an Android user.
Neither Apple or Google immediately responded to request for comment.
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