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Iphone Communications Apple

Pressuring Apple to Fix Texting, Google's Android Will Force iPhone Users to Read Descriptions of Reaction Emojis (businessinsider.com) 213

"Google is giving Apple a taste of its own medicine," reports Business Insider, arguing that the latest update to Android's messaging app "is going to make texting between iPhone and Androids even more annoying than it already is." [Alternate URL] The updates are great if you're an Android user. Google Messages' new features include the ability to reply to individual messages, star them, and set reminders on texts. But these features and some other updates to Messages are RCS-enabled, meaning they're not going to be very compatible with SMS, which is the texting standard that iMessage switches to when messaging someone without an iPhone. iPhones exchange messages using iMessage, Apple's proprietary messaging system, but revert to SMS when texting an Android.

One feature that's part of Google's payback to Apple is that now, when Messages users react to an SMS text with an emoji, iPhone users will get a text saying the other person reacted to their text with a description of whatever emoji the person used. It's similar to when iMessage users react to an SMS text, with the recipient getting a "so and so loved" message instead of seeing the heart emoji reaction.... In August, Android launched a page on its website calling Apple out for refusing "to adopt modern texting standards when people with iPhones and Android phones text each other." The page has buttons that take users to Twitter to tweet at Apple to "stop breaking my texting experience. #GetTheMessage" with a link to Android's page urging Apple to "fix texting."

"We would much prefer that everybody adopts RCS which has the capability to support proper reactions," Jan Jedrzejowicz, Google Messages product manager, said in a briefing before the Messages updates were announced. "But in the event that's not possible or hasn't happened yet, this feels like the next best thing." Recently, Apple CEO Tim Cook said he doesn't get a lot of feedback from iPhone users that Apple needs to fix messaging between iPhones and Androids. Apple doesn't have much incentive to do so, either. In legal documents from a 2021 lawsuit between Epic Games and Apple, an Apple executive said "Moving iMessage to Android will hurt us more than help us."

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Pressuring Apple to Fix Texting, Google's Android Will Force iPhone Users to Read Descriptions of Reaction Emojis

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  • It doesn't seem like Google has the best intentions of it's users at heart
  • by seoras ( 147590 ) on Saturday October 22, 2022 @09:53PM (#62989621)

    No one wants to be the kid at school who's messages are lame and annoying.
    There's probably enough peer pressure already among youth to adopt iOS over Android due to the Green/Blue bubble difference.
    This just makes it magnitudes worse because, until now, the different colour wasn't annoying just different. Yeah, I know it's Apple who do the color difference.
    Would you want your messages to look cringe worthy when ready by iPhone users when your world revolves around your image and being cool?

    • I don't know. Families don't choose Android based on the color of the bubbles. Most people who choose Android do so because of price, or because they are actually a fan of Samsung or other specific brand, or because they want anything BUT Apple products. To these Android die-hards, Apple users are either snobs, or ignorant fanbois.

      • School is a popularity contest... It always has been. It's also a place where status and money get rubbed in the faces of the less fortunate on a daily basis. Of course the kids whose parents can afford to buy them a $1200 iPhone will use that to snub and shame the kids whose parents can only afford a $200 Motorola. Even if you CHOOSE an Android phone because of features or Brand Loyalty, the iPhone kids will turn that into "You can't AFFORD an iPhone, thus you're not as good as we are".
        • What about all the kids with $1200 Samsungs, though? In my experience, poor people use iPhones and people with means use expensive Androids.

          • Your experience is different because you've obviously had 0 interaction with anyone under 21 or so.
      • by seoras ( 147590 )

        I've seen a few articles on the blue/green divide that's favouring Apple's iOS. I should have given one as a citation to my original post. Here's one here [wsj.com].
        Headlines like "Never date a green texter" summarise just how much of an issue it has become among the tech purchasing youth.

    • by narcc ( 412956 ) on Saturday October 22, 2022 @11:42PM (#62989861) Journal

      There's probably enough peer pressure already

      I doubt it. Kids use whatever messaging apps their friends also use, and that's going to be what they all have access to. A surprising number of kids also use phones without service, relying on wifi to stay connected. That means things like snapchat and instagram are in, and things like iMessage aren't even a consideration.

      Would you want your messages to look cringe worthy when ready by iPhone users when your world revolves around your image and being cool?

      Kids don't care about that stuff anymore. This latest generation is actually accepting of people's differences, unlike just about every previous generation. They genuinely don't care if you're gay, straight, trans, or whatever and are more than happy to make accommodation. They don't merely tolerate difference, they just accept it as a fact of life. No judgement, honestly. They even have their own rules of etiquette to make sure new friends feel welcome and accepted. I'm sure you'd be horrified.

      Gen X might have been individualistic and materialistic valuing brands and luxury items, but gen Z is realistic (as opposed to idealistic) and community focused and values uniqueness. They aren't going to care about a green bubble on someone else's phone and would probably wonder why the hell you think it's a big deal.

      • This latest generation is actually accepting of people's differences

        You clearly don't know any teenagers. Cliques may be defined differently from when you were that age, but kids are still bullied for not fitting in.

        • by narcc ( 412956 )

          As it happens, I know quite a lot more than most. (As you might already know, I co-founded a nonprofit that, among other things, works with teens in various ways.) Bullying is still a thing, sure, but it's nothing like you imagine it to be. No one is getting bullied for not having an iPhone. Half the kids don't even want one or don't care what kind of phone they have as long as they have a phone. It's a means to an end, not the end itself. (They are not brand obsessed.) It's hardly a status symbol. (Tha

      • by leonbev ( 111395 )

        I wish that this was true, but it isn't.

        Apple has probably sold billions of dollars worth of iPhones at this point to people who aren't Apple fans but didn't want to be the lone "green bubble" in an iMessage group text with their friends. It's peer pressure at its absolute lamest, but it works.

    • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      I don't think SMS has been cool at school since the early 2000s, regardless of the colour of the bubble.

      • SMS isnt popular among school students? I'll get right on telling my 13 year old so she can text her entire class. Wouldn't want literally all of them being unpopular!

  • Apple iDouches can fucking SUCK IT!

    The thing is, Apple didn't have to be assholes -- they didn't HAVE to repeat the entire text back to you with the "Liked" suffix. They know it's annoying, and they just don't care. I've mansplained to my iBuddies that it's obnoxious when they heart my texts, causing me to get a new message notification, and some of them do me the courtesy of not. But, others just don't seem to care. It will be nice to spew the same shit back at them... my friends... that just goddam
  • by rlwinm ( 6158720 ) on Saturday October 22, 2022 @10:44PM (#62989743)
    For some reason Apple thinks I have an iPhone. I've had the same number for over 20 years and have never owned an Apple device. Yet for some reason every now and then iPhone users text me and the message is lost. After much time spent on the phone with cell carriers, looking over logs, and Apple support it seems that for some reason Apple thought I had an iPhone, was trying to use their proprietary protocol and was not sending the message via normal SMS.

    The person at Apple support had said that they couldn't figure out why they were still sending messages to my iPhone.... the one that I never had.

    I would prefer if SMS went back to being SMS.
    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Sunday October 23, 2022 @05:13AM (#62990201) Homepage Journal

      This is a known issue. Once your phone number is in Apple's database, even if it's a mistake, they will try to send messages from iPhone users to an iMessage account instead of SMS. It will either fail, or go to the wrong person.

      It happened to me some years ago. The carrier screwed up and swapped my phone number with someone else's when that other person replaced their SIM card. I started getting their text messages. Sorted it out fairly quickly, but SMS from iPhone users were being redirected. In the end I used a GDPR request to delete all my personal data, and that fixed it. Sent Apple an invoice, never paid it and I couldn't be bothered to pursue through Small Claims Court.

  • by mveloso ( 325617 ) on Saturday October 22, 2022 @10:59PM (#62989769)

    Google cares about rcs becuase it would allow google to send rich media ads to ios users. That's about it.

    • What? I'm on Android and I've never seen Google injecting ads into texts.

      In fact, with end-to-end encryption enabled, how would they even be able to?

    • by DewDude ( 537374 )

      Right. Most of the carriers in the world adopted a standard developed by several in the industry all so google could force ads on iphone users.

      I mean if you want to play that game...it's not like Apple has been any better. I mean hijacking a users number and preventing them from getting texts because they no longer have an iphone? Sounds like punishment.

    • LOL. Shitting on Google is fun and all, but Google has never once sent an advert using RCS, SMS or any Messaging system and doing so would probably be illegal in some places.

  • It was always an Android problem. A simple regex of the sms and handle to display as such on the UI. And then no problem for android users. Watch, it will never be an iPhone issue since apple will do the same.
  • To see emoji or not ? I don't care ! If it translates to a text version, that's fine, I will understand what other person meant. Not getting upset or caught up in a pissing contest between Google and Apple ! I'm more worried about how much my groceries are costing.
    • What's incredible is how adults get so worked up over emojis/animojis/memojis/etc.; superficial caricturized renditions of faces or objects that for all intents and purposes should be something only children would use. Like those stars the teacher stuck in your exercise book in kindergarden or grade one when you did good work.

      • What's incredible is how adults get so worked up over emojis

        They didn't pay attention even in kiddie-level history classes, where we learned that pictographs were an inefficient way to communicate. They also have shit language skills so they really can't express themselves more flexibly than one can achieve with emoji in any case.

  • I would like to enable this emoji to text feature, well over half of the emojis I get, I have no clue what they mean. So please add an emoji to text translation.
  • Why not remove reactions from all forms of texting? It adds nothing except additional notification-checking for information of vanishing import

  • Who cares what those green texters do, anyway?

  • The majority of the world‘s population has already switched to cross-platform messengers years ago. Apple has had the chance of dominating the messaging market 10+ years ago, before whatsapp became popular around the world, but they rather chose it as a lever to lock people into their ecosystem. Google is way too late to the party. Most people around me use signal, and that‘s what we also use at work. Even people who you‘ve never met (annoyingly) assume that you got whatsapp, tin-foil hat
  • Remember Textra? The most widely used and highly regarded SMS app for Android in 2018? Well, they've never stopped developing, and due to inertia, I never stopped using it, dutifully installing it on new phone after new phone because it was reliable and had more options than stock.

    First they added the conversion of the incoming "Julie Loves your message" turds into the actual emojis, and they displayed the right emoji on the right message. Then later, they allowed us to SEND the same reactions.

    Up until iOS 16, all iOS users saw the same "reaction turds" we used to. But now iOS 16 converts the turds just like Textra did and does.

    In other words, Textra and iOS 16 seem to have full "reaction emoji" compatibility. Google can't do the same?

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