At the 2022 Code Conference, Tim Cook responded to a reporter’s question about RCS texting by suggesting they buy an iPhone, the edge reports. When asked how Apple could improve communication between iPhone and Android users, he said, “I don’t hear our users asking us to put a lot of energy into that.” When the reporter responded that he couldn’t send certain videos to his mother who uses Android, Cook joked, “Buy your mom an iPhone.”
That’s sure to add fuel to the debate over a common messaging format for smartphones. Google has long promoted RCS (Rich Communications Service) as a way to enable better interoperability between iOS and Android users, even embarrass Apple about it last month. Doing so might help remove the feared “green bubble” that iPhone users see when they receive a text message from an Android phone.
Apple considered offering iMessage to Android users, but quickly scrapped the idea, as internal documents revealed during the epic trial. Former chief marketing officer Phil Schiller said migrating iMessage to Android “would hurt us more than help us,” and another former Apple executive said in an email that “iMessage equates to a serious crash.”
Cook said Apple isn’t addressing RCS “at this time,” which doesn’t seem to rule the idea out entirely. In any case, the green bubble problem is largely focused on the US, as users in other countries tend to favor non-SMS apps like Telegram, WhatsApp, and Signal.
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