Green Text Bubbles Are Cool, Actually
Android phone users are beginning to embrace their outsider status on Apple’s iMessage.
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.