Much like the early days of Twitter, texting on some of the first cellphones limited you to the number of characters you can use. It’s easy to forget this with videos, images and texts flying through the internet at any given moment these days.
The demands of modern users necessitated the creation of Rich Communication Services or RCS from Google. RCS is a standard that support’s GSMA’s Universal Profile for interoperability across operator networks and devices. Essentially, it allows for functionality that you’ve seen in the likes of WhatsApp to be added to your SMS/Messaging app. However, in order for this interoperability to be possible, manufacturers need to adopt RCS.
Enter Apple which doesn’t support RCS and seemingly never will if an interview with Tim Cook is anything to go by.
Following Apple’s event on Wednesday evening, the firm’s CEO appeared in an interview at Vox Media’s Code 2022 event. There Cook was quizzed about RCS support in iMessage.
“I don’t hear our users asking that we put a lot of energy on that, on this point,” Cook was quoted as saying by CNBC.
For the most part this lack of support between Apple’s iMessage and RCS is seen as “green bubbles versus blue bubbles” within the messaging app.
However, the problems extend beyond colours to a lack of support for basic functionality. This includes blurry videos, lack of read receipts, no typing indicators and no texting over a data connection. It’s terrible and serves only to draw a line separating Apple from Android when it comes to messaging.
When these issued were raised by Vox Media’s LiQuan Hunt during an interview asking why his mother can’t see the videos he sends her, Cook simply responded with “Buy your mom an iPhone”.
That, Tim Apple, is not a solution especially when your company only shipped 16 percent of the world’s smartphones in the second quarter of 2022. Apple doesn’t get to set the standard here because 84 percent of the the world isn’t using its smartphone operating system.
Counterpoint Research’s data for Q2 2022 reveals that Samsung is top of the pops with 21 percent of global smartphone shipments. While Apple comes in second, Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo are the next most popular brands by shipments. Those three brands do offer premium devices but they are perhaps best known for their affordable smartphones loaded with features and improvements.
By contrast, Apple just released the iPhone 14 which is running the same processor we saw in the iPhone 13 and a few minor improvements. And the firm wants to charge us $799 for that?
It’s little wonder then that outside of the US, iPhones aren’t the first choice for many. Especially when the Apple CEO believes the only way to solve the problem is by putting an iPhone in everybody’s hand. At their own cost of course.
