Google’s Android team is now using digital billboards in New York City to “Get The Message” across to Apple that it needs to “fix its texting problems” by adopting the RCS protocol.
Rich Communication Services (RCS) is a modern standard to offer rich features to text message services like the exchange of audio and video messages, group chats, ‘Read’ receipts, end-to-end encryption, and others available to iMessage, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger users.
Google Messages app on Android supports RCS but Apple does not. And for some time now, Android has been going after Apple by accusing the company of deliberately not supporting the RCS protocol to lock in consumers in its ecosystem.
Recently, the Android team launched a more vocal campaign called “Get The Message” to pressurize the iPhone maker to adopt RCS by highlighting that the gap between the blue and green chat bubbles leads to broken conversation, causes frustration, and more.
Till October 6, Android’s “Get The Message” campaign against Apple will run on 500 billboards in Manhattan and Brooklyn
9to5Google reports that the “Get The Message” RCS campaign has kicked off in NYC and will commence in full throttle from August 25 through October 6 on more than 500 digital billboards in Manhattan and Brooklyn.
As seen on LinkNYC digital billboard, the “Help Apple #GetTheMessage” ad shows text conversations between iOS and Android users to highlight the issues with low-resolution images and incompatible emojis/ stickers because of the MMS standard and the social disparity created by the green and blue chat bubbles division.
Concurrent with the billboard ads in NYC, Android is also running the “Get The Message” campaign on social media sites like Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. The team is also sponsoring celebrity influencers like Vanessa Hudgens, Madelaine Petsch, and others to spread the word against Apple.
Our take on messaging across iOS and Android
In my opinion, Google is missing the point that RCS is not the only way for users on iOS and Android users to have a rich conversation. Messaging apps like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, and others enable rich communication across platforms. So, Apple does not need to abandon its own tech to support Google.
iMessage works very well for Apple users, it supports cross-device support for mobile, laptops, tablets, watches, and desktops and provides a secure platform.
It feels like you’re kind of missing the point. Google isn’t suggesting that Apple does anything to the iMessage protocol, Google just wants them to handle RCS which is an open standard and completely different from WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, etc. Instead, they’re refusing to support it and choosing to use SMS which came out in the early 90’s.
Google’s RCS implementation does not replace SMS. It also uses SMS as a fallback, just like iMessage.