Google Exec Pushing RCS Adoption Says He's 'Not Asking Apple to Make iMessage Available on Android'

Rich Communication Services, or RCS, is a new communications protocol that is designed to replace the current SMS standard. Higher resolution photos and videos, audio messages, bigger file size, improved encryption, and more are supported by RCS.

Over the last few months, Hiroshi Lockheimer, a senior vice president of the company, has been publicly trying to convince Apple to support RCS, and over the weekend, he took to the internet to speak out on the issue.

On Saturday, The Wall Street Journal published an article about teens with iPhones ostracizing peers with "green bubble" chat messages. Lockheimer accused Apple of using peer pressure and bully to sell products, and stated that Apple could implement RCS to solve some of the messaging issues that exist between iPhone and Android users.

The lock-in is a documented strategy. It is disingenuous for a company that has humanity and equity to use peer pressure and bully to sell products. The standards exist to fix this.

The statement had sparked quite a bit of discussion on the internet, and Lockheimer offered some clarification on the statement today. According to Lockheimer, the company is not asking Apple to make iMessage available on the phone, it is simply asking for support of the industry standard for modern messaging.

We are not asking Apple to make it available on the phone. We want Apple to support the industry standard for modern messaging in iMessage, just as they support the older standards.

There are a number of reasons why Apple should adopt RCS, such as cross-platform read receipts and typing indicators, and improved group texting.

It is better than before, and it has evolved. You can see read receipts, typing indicators, better groups, secure 1:1 messages, and other things with the new standard called RCS.

Lockheimer said that supporting RCS would improve the experience for both users. The experience and privacy of users of the mobile device operating system will be improved. Apple is holding back the industry by not adopting RCS, which will prevent both customers of both phones from having the best possible messaging interactions.

He said that he was happy to work with Apple to make RCS interoperability a reality, which is something he has said before.

Apple is the last major holdout, as carriers in the U.S. have begun to support RCS. Apple has not commented on whether or not it will add RCS support in the future, so the company's position is still unknown.