Why Google Messages by default on the Samsung Galaxy S22 lineup is very important

Here in the USA, there’s a particular conundrum we find ourselves in, and it revolves around text messages. Text messages. In 2022. Sure, it’s borderline ridiculous and silly, but the rise of Apple and the iPhone as the de facto smartphone for the majority of users in the States means Apple’s own, proprietary messaging platform – iMessage – has created a real rift in the once-universal cellphone messaging paradigm. If you are reading this in another country, please don’t laugh too hard at us.

Once upon a time, every mobile phone user out there used the MMS/SMS standard if they were sending a message from their device. It is an old, outdated, under-powered solution here in 2022, but back in the late 90’s and early 2000’s, it was all we had. Instant messengers were around, sure, but they weren’t really ready for cellphones since the wireless internet infrastructure wasn’t in place for everyone to use them even if they were ready for prime time. So, as we tend to do, humanity simply used what was there and most convenient.

This meant that years and years went by with one mobile messaging standard across all cellphone users. As internet-enabled messaging platforms began getting better and seeing more adoption, it was always inevitable that our mobile data would eventually enable us to start using these newer, more-capable messaging platforms on the go. The issue, however, always came back to simplicity, convenience, and availability. It didn’t matter which messaging service was better; it only mattered which one was there, ready to use, and had all my contacts on board.

How Apple won with iMessage

Into this landscape came Apple’s iPhone and a few years later, iMessage. At first, it wasn’t a huge deal. iMessage was just the name of Apples messaging app that came with their phone. Simple, right? But it wasn’t that simple. From the get-go, iMessage was actually an internet-driven instant messenger service that just so happened to accept text messages, too. We collectively didn’t think much about it at first, and then Apple began to introduce feature after feature that would only work inside the Apple ecosystem, and things got messy.

As an instant messenger, iMessage could do things that text messages simply couldn’t. Better images, better videos, GIF support, read receipts, etc. Sure, these were becoming the norm for other IM services, but those services didn’t enjoy the benefit of being bundled in the box with the most popular phone available. As the years progressed, the separation only got wider and we now find ourselves in a spot where the iPhone is the phone the majority of US users rely on and out of sheer convenience, that means iMessage is the messaging platform they all use.

Now we have drama about ‘green bubbles’ in iMessage communications since text messaging is still the fall-back standard many people rely on in this country. With so many IMs out there and no real standard, you can’t expect all your contact to be on one service. You CAN, however, expect them to have a phone number and have the ability to send/receive text messages. Because of this, we keep holding on to this old standard and because iMessage is the app that iPhone users access to take part in all of this, iMessage becomes the absolute go-to messaging platform for the majority of US citizens. But all its fancy tricks don’t work across platforms (no surprise, there: this is Apple we’re talking about) and we’re left with this ridiculous issue of still messing with SMS/MMS to communicate on a fundamental level between iPhone and Android users. It is very, very broken.

Google’s RCS/Chat solution needs a boost

Sorry, I know that was a lot of setup, but that groundwork is important to understand why this latest move by Samsung is a very big deal for us here in the US. You see, Google has put all their eggs in the RCS/Chat messaging basket, and though the road has been slow, I think it is the right thing to do. RCS offers all the modern niceties of instant messengers and like SMS/MMS, it is a standard that the cellphone carriers also agree on. That means it’s a technology that can simply be on all devices with ease.

The problem? Apple hasn’t added it to iMessage and hasn’t confirmed it ever will. If Apple were to add it, however, most of the issues of Android/iPhone interaction would cease to exist. RCS offers all the same abilities you get in IMs like iMessage, so users would feel far less frustrated when their Android friend enters the conversation with their outdated SMS/MMS message. So far, however, Apple’s felt little need to bend to this pressure as the adoption and use of RCS has been generally light.

Enter Samsung

On the Android side of things, the Apple equivalent is clearly Samsung. As a company, Samsung is an absolute giant. As a mobile phone maker, they are equally important and clearly command the Android landscape in every way, shape and form. No phone maker in the US is anywhere close to Samsung in terms of sheer volume and reach, and that won’t change for a very long time. Here in the US, for most users, the choice isn’t so much between Android and iOS: it’s between Apple and Samsung.

With their latest phones, Samsung is making a huge move in ditching their own, built-in messaging app and instead shipping their phones with Google Messages instead. While their prior messages app did support RCS/Chat on some level, I know some non-tech friends who never show up as eligible for Chat and that means all those IM niceties we just talked about aren’t part of our conversations. I’ve never investigated why that is, but I don’t really need to. If RCS/Chat isn’t there and working out of the box for those that frankly don’t care to figure it out, it isn’t working well enough.

With Samsung shipping Google Messages out of the box, the number of RCS/Chat users is about to skyrocket. Not only will there be tons more users, there will be more pressure now on Apple to include RCS in iMessage just like they do with SMS/MMS. It’s one thing for Google to have a capable messenger available for anyone to user, but it’s an entirely different thing for them to have that same service now in the hands of every Galaxy S22, S22+ and S22 Ultra owner right out of the box.

That means more people see Google Messages as a standard and that means more people using RCS/Chat as a standard, too. Messaging people via their phone number will likely never go away, so we need standards that embrace it and enable better communication for everyone. RCS has the potential to be that standard, but it needs help to get there. Companies like Samsung not only including RCS in their messaging apps, but going as far as installing Google Messages right out of the box will be a big step towards normalizing RCS. And, in doing so, maybe we’ll see the end of the silly rift that divides iOS and Android for no good reason.