Apple Says It Will Improve the Green vs. Blue Texting Experience

Starting next year, it should be less frustrating for iPhone and Android users to text one another.

Apple says photos and videos sent between those devices will be of higher quality. Group messaging will be more reliable, and users will also be able to turn on read receipts and send their locations in texting threads.

The changes will come once Apple adds support for a technology called rich communication services, also known as RCS, next year, the company said. RCS is like the more modern cousin of short message service, or SMS.

Green message bubbles signal that they are coming from an Android or other non-iPhone user. But they have come to be associated with an unpleasant texting experience for iPhone users, whose messages are blue to indicate that they have been sent via iMessage. The green bubble is here to stay, however: It will signal when RCS is in use.

The technology “will work alongside iMessage, which will continue to be the best and most secure messaging experience for Apple users,” Apple said in a statement.

Until now, Apple had shown no desire to make the changes.

When asked at last year’s Code Conference about the texting technology by an attendee who expressed difficulties with sending videos to the attendee’s mother, Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, responded, “Buy your mom an iPhone.”

The about-face may have been set off by pressure from competitors, such as Google and Nothing, a mobile technology company, and the European Union’s Digital Markets Act.