Google is kicking off a brand new publicity marketing campaign immediately to stress Apple into adopting RCS, the cross-platform messaging protocol that’s meant to be a successor to the getting older SMS and MMS requirements.

The search big has a brand new “Get The Message” web site that lays out a well-recognized set of arguments for why Apple ought to assist the usual, revolving round smoother messaging between iPhone and Android units. Naturally, there’s additionally a #GetTheMessage hashtag to essentially get these viral juices flowing.

For most individuals, the issues Google describes are most acquainted within the type of the inexperienced bubbles that signify messages to Android customers in Apple’s Messages app. Whereas the iPhone app makes use of Apple’s personal iMessage service to ship texts between iPhones (full with trendy options like encryption, assist for group chats, and high-quality picture and video transfers), they revert to old style SMS and MMS when texting an Android consumer. Not solely are these messages proven in a color-clashing inexperienced bubble but additionally they break lots of the trendy messaging options folks have come to depend on.

To repair this, Google has been dropping a sequence of not-so-subtle hints in current months for Apple to assist RCS, which affords most (although not all) of the options of iMessage in a protocol that’s usable throughout each iOS and Android. The corporate mentioned it hoped “each cell working system… upgrades to RCS” onstage at its annual developer convention this 12 months in addition to in varied tweets over the months.

The iPhone maker has all the things to achieve from the present state of affairs, which has a lock-in impact for patrons. It gives seamless communication (however solely between iMessage customers) and turns Android’s inexperienced bubbles into delicate class markers. It’s why Apple execs admitted in inside emails that bringing iMessage to Android would “damage [Apple] greater than assist us.”

Google’s arguments for RCS haven’t been helped by the usual’s sluggish and piecemeal rollout, which was initially reliant on carriers so as to add assist. However the state of affairs has improved since Google successfully took cost in 2019, which means that RCS is now simply obtainable nearly in all places worldwide. This 12 months even noticed the world’s largest Android producer, Samsung, swap to utilizing Google’s personal RCS-compatible Messages app by default in its flagship Galaxy S22 vary.

RCS has additionally slowly been gaining characteristic parity with iMessage’s encryption. It now helps end-to-end encryption (E2EE) in one-on-one chats, and E2EE in group chats is due later this 12 months.

So, will Google’s new publicity marketing campaign lastly be the factor that pushes Apple to see the sunshine and roll out RCS assist on its telephones? Given the massive incentives Apple has for not taking part in ball, I’ve to say the search big’s probabilities don’t look good. At this level, Apple adopting RCS feels about as seemingly because the US collectively ditching iMessage and shifting to an encrypted cross-platform messaging service like WhatsApp or Sign.