Google officials accused Apple of deliberately using bullying and peer pressure in iMessage as a strategy to attract Android users to switch to iPhone.
As is known, iMessage has several features that are exclusive to iOS users. One of them, messages received in iMessage from Android users appear with green bubbles instead of blue like the default iOS message display.
This creates a blue bubble in iMessage as a status symbol for its teenage users. Since showing up with a green bubble in an iMessage group is considered embarrassing, many Android users, especially those in their teens, feel isolated and turn to iPhone.
A recent report from The New York Times highlighted this dynamic and prompted Head of Android Hiroshi Lockheimer to comment.
"Apple iMessage lock-in is a known strategy," Lockheimer said in a tweet on Twitter.
"Using peer pressure and bullying as a way to sell products is dishonest for a company that has humanity and equality at the core of its marketing. Standards already exist today to resolve this," he added.
Apple's strategy has been known for a long time, but an internal email sent by Apple officials that was revealed during a legal case with Epic Games reinforces how crucial this strategy is for Apple.
From the document it was revealed that Apple plans to bring iMessage on Android to attract more users. But the plan was canceled because it was considered to be more detrimental to Apple.
This criticism from Google also has other purposes. If Apple provides iMessage for Android, Google will also benefit greatly.
In recent years, Google has also invited the iPhone manufacturer to support a new messaging standard called RCS which will replace SMS. Lockheimer emphasized this in a later tweet.
"We're not asking Apple to make iMessage available on Android. We're asking Apple to support industry standards for modern messaging (RCS) in iMessage, just as they support the SMS/MMS standard," he wrote.
