6/18/24 Bloomberg : Apple Crapple / green or blue text bubbles ...............................
Bloomberg
Businessweek
June 18, 2024
Green Text Bubbles Are Cool, Actually
Android phone users are beginning to embrace their outsider status on Apple’s iMessage.
By Shirin Ghaffary
When Apple Inc. launched its iMessage, it reserved the use of even some basic features for iPhone users. When communicating with iPhone users, people who use devices powered by Alphabet Inc.’s Android software still can’t view photos at their highest quality level, see the three dots meaning the other person is typing or display receipts showing that someone’s read a text. IMessage also indicates non-iPhone users by showing their messages in green, a decision many people interpret as an attempt to shame them in front of their blue-bubble peers.
Because the iPhone has been the prototypical high-end smartphone for almost two decades, the green bubble carries a certain down-market stigma. Many Android users have complained that their dating lives and relationships with family and friends have suffered because people don’t want to talk as much to someone whose texts come in green. The US Department of Justice even cited Apple’s two-tiered texting system in its antitrust lawsuit against the company, arguing that it’s harming competition by undermining the texting experience on rival phones.
But in some tech circles, green bubbles are a badge of honor. “I’m proud to be a green bubbler,” says Brendan Schachle, a 30-year-old product manager at a biotechnology company. He switched from iPhone to Android more than a decade ago because Android gave him more ways to customize his phone. “As everyone was leaning more into Apple, I decided to take a different route,” he says.
Android is open source -- anyone can download, customize and distribute its source code for free -- making it cheaper and easier for many developers to build on it. That also gives it more cachet to many in the coding community, which has the potential to be quite valuable. The founder of one tech startup recounts texting with a venture investor from an Android device and being told that seeing the green bubbles was a good sign. (The person asked not to be named because they didn’t want to reveal private discussions.)
It can also just be a sign of contrarianism, a way to show you haven’t been taken in by Apple’s marketing machine. Alexandru Voica, head of corporate affairs for generative AI startup Synthesia, has been involved in tech for more than 15 years. Since the dawn of the Android-versus-iPhone debate, Voica says, “there was always this perception that Android was the open platform, and therefore there was a certain level of coolness attached to it.”
This phenomenon is largely absent in countries outside the US, where the dominant texting platform is WhatsApp, which functions (and looks) basically the same for Android and iOS users. Pranay Baid, founder of startup LibGem Analytics, says he got used to Android phones because he’s from India, where “it does not make any financial sense to buy an iPhone” and the only reason to have one is “showing off status.” He enjoys using his Nothing Phone 2, which runs on Android, saying he likes the cool lights on the back. When he moved to the US, Baid refused to switch. That “makes it difficult for a group text,” he writes in a message, “but things are now improving pretty quickly.”
Apple has promised to make life easier for green bubblers sometime this year by supporting rich communication services (RCS), a new messaging standard, which will give Android users access to features such as group chats, location sharing, typing indicators and high-quality photo sharing.
Still, Apple hasn’t promised to change its social signaling: Android texts will still be green. This means iMessage users will still know who’s using an Android phone. It’s easy to see how this could stoke hostility from green bubblers. But many of them seem to harbor no resentment. “A lot of people I know are Apple enthusiasts,” Voica says, “and we’re still friends.” -- With Anne VanderMey
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