Over the past few years, Google has been promoting a new communication protocol RCS to replace the current SMS standard. RCS supports higher resolution pictures and videos, audio messages, larger files, improved encryption, and more.
Last week, Hiroshi Lockheimer, Google’s senior vice president of Android, said iMessage’s dominance among texting users is causing younger Android users to feel excluded from communicating with iOS users. The official Android Twitter also retweeted the news.
Relevant remarks caused heated discussions on Twitter and were also interpreted by some users as Google’s hope that Apple would provide iMessage on the Android platform. Today, Lockheimer clarified this, saying that Google does not require Apple to provide iMessage on Android, but only hopes that Apple supports the industry standard for modern messaging, namely RCS.
Tons of great discussion following my tweet over the weekend. Thank you for that. I wanted to follow up with some thoughts and clarifications:
— Hiroshi Lockheimer (@lockheimer) January 10, 2022
Lockheimer listed a series of reasons why Apple should adopt RCS, including cross-platform read receipts and typing indicators, improved group texting, and more. Supporting RCS will improve the experience for both iOS and Android users, Lockheimer said. RCS will also improve the experience and privacy of iOS users. Lockheimer concluded that Google is happy to work with Apple to make RCS interoperability a reality.
Previously, Google Messages specially adapted the response message of iMessage. When the response message of iMessage is received, Google Messages will correctly display the symbol and indicate translated from iPhone.