The green bubble stigma faced by Android users who use their iPhones to message friends is real, and even the U.S. government admits it.
“Many non-iPhone users…experience social stigma, ostracism, and blame when using iPhones to send messages to people,” Ministry of Justice stated In its Landmark antitrust lawsuit against Apple Thursday. However, the problem isn’t just the color of the text messages. In the complaint, the Justice Department highlights the friction and frustrations associated with “broken” chat, which refers to iPhone and Android users’ poor group texting experiences in individual or group chats.
Any Android user who sends text messages to iPhone users (and vice versa) has undoubtedly experienced these issues.exist mixed chat grouppictures and videos become pixelated, messages may take longer to send or not be sent at all, reactions are written instead of showing up as reaction icons, and many other annoying issues.
“This signals to users that competing smartphones are of lower quality because the experience of messaging friends and family who don’t have an iPhone is worse, even though the user experience is caused by Apple, not Apple,” the Justice Department said. rival smartphones.” He added that Apple’s decision would particularly impact teenagers.
While the Justice Department’s focus on iMessage is justified — the agency believes Apple uses its proprietary messaging system to slow down rival smartphones and apps to protect itself from competition — its focus on green bubbles The acknowledgment of the cultural shame caused is surprising. It does make the issue all the more important, since the issue is both serious (the degraded experience) and absurd (the color of the message).
After the lawsuit was announced, some Android users celebrated the DOJ’s lawsuit, likening it to the agency taking up arms for their cause.
“[T]Those of us in the mixed family group chat want to see parity between the blue and green bubbles 😊🙏,” said Jeff Richards, venture capitalist at GGV Capital. Said in X’s postformerly known as Twitter.
Others, however, scoff at the green bubble and the problems it faces, arguing that the Justice Department is essentially calling Android users a “green bubble.” “Protected Class” or illustrate “People with green bubbles should be avoided.”
“If they allow iMessage on Android, how do we tell who the losers are?” Podcast Josh Barrow says.
Ultimately, the government may finally end the green-blue bubble war. If successful, people might ask themselves whether they would prefer an iPhone or an Android phone in the absence of social pressure.