Android's Answer to iMessage
Techquickie
·Techquickie
·2019-05-06
·
886 words · ~4 min read
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If you're an iPhone fan,
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one advantage you've had for a long time
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in your fanboy battles with Android users
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is the existence of iMessage.
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It's not only faster than traditional SMS,
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but it also allows you to add tons of effects
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and options to your texts
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if your chat partner is also on iOS.
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Android's default Messenger app is, by contrast,
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your basic SMS client.
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And if you've ever received so much as a small photo over it,
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you know that it can make 56K motives
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from the ancient 1990s feel fast.
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But all of this is about to change
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now that Google is set to push an SMS alternative
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to the masses.
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It's called Rich Communication Services, or chat.
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Not to be confused with the instant messaging components
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of Hangouts that people often call Google Chat,
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or any of the other galactically confusing
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brand names that Google has been using
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for text-based communication services over the years.
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The main idea behind chat is to add functionality
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that SMS doesn't currently support.
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Not only will it remove the annoying 160-character limit,
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but it'll come with plenty of other iMessage-like features.
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You'll be able to chat with multiple people in one session,
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share videos and GIFs,
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see when the other party is typing
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and has read your message, share files, and more.
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And it'll work over a data connection
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instead of the much slower SMS.
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Unlike iMessage, though, which is a supplementary service
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provided by Apple's servers,
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remember your iPhone can still send normal SMS
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to your scrub green bubble friends,
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chat is meant to be a replacement for SMS
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and therefore has to be supported by your wireless carrier.
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And although Google appears quite serious
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about building its base of partners,
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adoption by mobile networks has been relatively slow.
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But like, why is Google getting involved with this
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in the first place?
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They have their own database communications apps already,
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so why aren't they focusing on those instead?
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Well, quite simply, they did.
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But whatever the issues were,
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branding, bugs, a lack of enticing features,
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Google's various chat apps
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haven't become hits with mobile users.
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In fact, Hangouts is going to become more enterprise-focused
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in the near future,
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with Google conceding that competing alternatives
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like Facebook Messenger have simply become more popular
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with smartphone users.
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I guess they just couldn't block Zuckerberg's store.
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Oh.
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So by backing chat instead,
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Google can make rich messaging an integral part
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of the Android experience for its billions of users.
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Even the ones who aren't tech savvy
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or don't think that they should have to
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install a third-party app for that,
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as long as the carrier supports it.
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And just like iMessage,
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if you send a message to a phone
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or through a network that doesn't support chat,
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the message will simply send as SMS,
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similar to the popular iOS experience.
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Sounds good then, right?
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So when can we expect to start chatting?
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Well, Sprint and T-Mobile in the United States
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already support it,
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with carriers in the EU and Latin America
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expect it to follow relatively soon.
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And Google says it's going to aggressively roll it out
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to the rest of the world over the next couple of years.
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But exact timelines will depend on the effectiveness
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of Google's sales pitch to carriers
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that chat is a worthwhile investment for their customers
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because of its broad device support.
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And that's a pretty cool pitch
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because apparently it's not even out of the question
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for Apple devices to support it down the road.
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But, right now, Google's sales pitch to Apple is that,
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what would that mean for iMessage?
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Personally, I have no idea,
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but don't let that stop you from engaging
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in the usual Android versus iOS flame wars
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with an extra helping of baseless speculation
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down in the comments section.
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