Google Messages wants this repair earlier than iPhone RCS help lands

Sooner or later this 12 months, the unthinkable will lastly occur: iPhones will help wealthy communication companies (RCS). This may knock just a few bricks out of the notorious “walled backyard” that stops iPhone customers who rely completely on iMessage from successfully speaking with Android customers. Whereas folks outdoors the US have already solved this interoperability drawback via the usage of platform-agnostic apps (WhatsApp, Telegram, and many others.), some iPhone customers within the US are so hooked on iMessage that they may ostracize family and friends and even refuse to this point somebody who initiates the “inexperienced bubble” of their conversations.

Sadly, the inexperienced bubble isn’t going anyplace. RCS help, nonetheless, will permit a number of notable new options to work between the native messaging apps of Android telephones and iPhones. These embrace learn receipts, typing indicators, location sharing, and the flexibility to ship high-resolution media.

That final one is essentially the most notable. Keep in mind again in 2022 when Apple CEO Tim Prepare dinner made the utterly embarrassing “purchase your mother an iPhone” quip to an iPhone person who was asking why they will’t share movies with their mother, an Android person? Nicely, RCS help will lastly clear up that difficulty, and that individual gained’t want to purchase their mother an iPhone. When that each one went down, I wrote an opinion piece about how Prepare dinner’s assertion was past terrible from an environmental perspective but additionally from the perspective of its personal customers, certainly one of whom was bodily proper there in entrance of him telling him how a lot they need to talk with their mom successfully!

With all this in thoughts — and as a diehard Android person who has personally skilled “inexperienced bubble hate” — you’ll be able to think about how excited I used to be to check out RCS on an iPhone for myself. It’s at present solely accessible in iOS 18 beta within the US, so it’s not broadly rolled out, however I obtained it arrange on my iPhone 12 and began checking what the expertise could be like as soon as Apple rolls it out formally someday later this 12 months.

Sadly, in my testing, I discovered there’s going to be an enormous drawback, and it’s not Apple’s fault; it’s Google’s.

Within the US, when you’re on Android and utilizing RCS, you’re probably utilizing Google Messages. Though Samsung Messages additionally helps RCS in some areas, let’s deal with Google’s app for now. We’ll get to Samsung’s in a bit.

Though Google Messages might be the very best messaging app you should use for texting on Android, it sadly compresses the photographs it sends considerably. This isn’t actually information, however it may not be one thing you’re conscious of. To catch you up, in 2023, Google added a brand new toggle in Messages’ settings referred to as Ship pictures sooner. That is routinely toggled on and compresses all photographs you ship. To see the toggle for your self, open Messages, faucet your profile avatar, then go to Messages settings, and the toggle would be the first one you see.

Right here’s an instance of what occurs when you might have this toggled on. The unique picture (captured with a Galaxy S24 Extremely) is on the left, and the picture despatched via Google Messages (obtained by a Pixel 8 Professional) is on the correct. Observe how a lot decrease of a decision the obtained picture has, in addition to its important discount in each megapixel depend and file dimension:

As you’ll be able to see, the unique 50MP picture was decreased to 1.9MP, slashed all the way down to a 1,200 x 1,600 decision, and decreased in file dimension by a whopping 98% to simply 147KB. Truthfully, this isn’t a lot better than what you’d obtain simply sending a photograph as an MMS.

Naturally, you’ll assume that when you turned off that Ship pictures sooner toggle, you’ll then ship uncompressed photographs. Nonetheless, that’s not the case. Take a look at this second instance under, with the identical setup as above, however with that toggle turned off:

On this instance, we see much less compression than with that toggle switched on, however we’re nonetheless getting a really, very compressed photograph. So far as file dimension goes, as an alternative of a 98% compression fee, turning off the toggle brings that all the way down to a 93% compression fee. Wow, a lot decision, so higher.

In different phrases, in relation to sending pictures via RCS in Google Messages — even between flagship Android telephones — you might have two selections: ludicrously compressed or tremendous compressed. This hasn’t been a secret or something, so that you may already know this. I wasn’t conscious it was this unhealthy, although, so I can solely think about not less than a portion of individuals studying this didn’t both.

No matter whether or not folks knew about this or not, one factor most customers gained’t know but is that Apple Messages, within the overwhelming majority of circumstances, does not compress photographs when sending them via RCS.

I did this identical check on my iPhone 12 with iOS 18 beta and RCS help activated. Beneath on the left, you’ll see the unique picture captured with the iPhone, and subsequent to it, you’ll see the obtained picture on each the Galaxy S24 Extremely and Pixel 8 Professional. Observe that nothing modifications:

You may assume the picture dimension is pretty small right here, due to Apple’s HEIC file kind. Maybe there’s no compression as a result of the file dimension is sufficiently small that it doesn’t matter? I examined this, too, by sending a really giant JPG that I downloaded from the web. It seems that the iPhone will compress large photographs earlier than they exit, however solely the file dimension is affected, with the megapixel depend and determination remaining unaffected:

I examined this out with different photographs with smaller file sizes and noticed that there’s no compression for photographs beneath round 40MB. The truth is, in a single experiment, a 7.8MB downloaded picture got here via at 11MB, so there was some form of decompression taking place there.

Apparently, Samsung Messages on Galaxy smartphones — in case you have entry to RCS and the right settings — doesn’t compress despatched photographs both. In areas the place RCS help is obtainable on Samsung Messages, you’ll be able to tweak the app’s settings to ship pictures uncompressed (Settings > Chat settings > Shared picture high quality > Authentic). If you try this, pictures arrive as marketed, i.e., utterly uncompressed.

I’d additionally wish to level out that each one three of my gadgets — the iPhone 12, Galaxy S24 Extremely, and Pixel 8 Professional — have their very own T-Cell SIMs put in. I believed that possibly this was a T-Cell difficulty, however nope: I had Android Authority workers members from across the globe use RCS in Google Messages to ship high-res pictures to my iPhone, and each single one got here via closely compressed.

In different phrases, sending ultra-compressed photographs is a Google Messages drawback, not an Android, RCS, or service drawback.

So, to summarize, this experiment proves that when Apple Messages customers ship a photograph over RCS, Google Messages customers will get a picture with the identical decision and megapixel depend (and, normally, the identical file dimension) as what was despatched. On the flip aspect, when a Google Messages person sends a photograph to an Apple person, the photograph that lands on the iPhone might be shrunk down by as much as 98%.

It is a actually large drawback, and Google solely has a brief period of time to repair it.

It’s no secret that an enormous swathe of iPhone customers assume that iPhones are universally higher than Android telephones. Apple does a terrific job advertising this message, particularly concerning photograph seize. I’m sure that the majority iPhone customers, if requested, would in all probability argue that iPhone cameras are superior to Android cameras. Nonetheless, a flagship Android digital camera is, by most metrics, superior to an iPhone digital camera via goal evaluation. We’ve confirmed this time and time once more in our digital camera shoot-outs, equivalent to in our pitting of a Pixel 8 Professional towards an iPhone 15 Professional Max. The outcomes converse for themselves.

Regardless of this, Apple customers are basing their opinions on what they see of their day-to-day lives, and what they’ve seen for years shouldn’t be good. So you’ll be able to’t actually blame them for getting into the Apple hype. For years now, individuals who solely use iMessage have completely seen trash pictures from Android customers as a result of these pictures come to them via MMS, which compresses them all the way down to the purpose that they’re pixelated gobbledygook. Why wouldn’t they assume Android telephones have horrible cameras?

With RCS help, Google lastly has the chance to indicate iPhone customers that Android cameras aren’t terrible. It’s an enormous deal.

Nonetheless, if the pictures Google Messages customers ship to iPhone customers via RCS are nonetheless super-compressed, the outdated misconceptions about Android telephones will proceed to prevail. Clearly, these RCS photograph examples I’ve proven listed here are nonetheless a lot better than MMS, however what’s going to iPhone customers say once they get super-compressed photographs from Android customers and Android customers get uncompressed, full-quality snaps from iPhone customers? If something, that can have the other impact of what Google ought to need, with iPhone customers being like, “Ugh, even with RCS, these Android pictures are nonetheless fairly unhealthy,” and with Android customers being like, “Hey, these iPhone photographs look nice! Possibly I ought to change.” That’s, clearly, not good for Android.

Google would probably argue that Android customers can ship full-resolution photographs and movies via a Google Images hyperlink as an alternative, which works throughout any platform. Whereas that is actually a viable choice, it’s an additional step that most individuals merely don’t take. It additionally solely works if folks have their pictures in Google Images and both pay for area above the free 15GB threshold or solely have a small assortment that stays beneath that restrict. Both manner, sending that hyperlink can’t compete with the comfort and ease of simply sending the photograph itself to the chat, so Google can’t use that linking system as an excuse — particularly when Samsung and Apple supply the streamlined system customers count on.

I sincerely hope Google addresses this difficulty quickly. Because the outdated saying goes, you solely get one likelihood at a primary impression, and if Google Messages doesn’t have the flexibility to equal the iPhone in relation to RCS messaging proper from Day One, it’s going to take lots of work to undo that repute in a while down the highway. Because it stands proper now, Google Messages has years of unhealthy blood associated to photograph sharing to counteract already, and my testing reveals that it’s at present behind the curve on this key space — and Apple Messages’ RCS help isn’t even secure but.

That is your one likelihood, Google. Make it depend.