Javed Uddin’s future was riding on a single emoji.
In 2016, Uddin, a small business owner in Houston, had been single for the past year.
A friend introduced him to Maryam Baloch, an office manager and makeup artist in Chicago.
The two began messaging.
However, the pair realized they were running into miscommunication problems.
Uddin, using an Android-poweredLG Nexus 5X, was receiving incorrect emojis from Maryam’siPhone 6.
Twelve years later, the differentiating green bubbles persist.
This prompted Uddin to switch to an iPhone as quickly as he could.
“Like, I really, really wanted this to work.”
Apple’s messaging divide is affecting how people interact.
Photos and videos also come in heavily compressed.
While it took years, allthreeUS major carriersalso have pledged to support the RCS standard.
But Apple refuses to support it.
Apple didn’t reply to requests for comment.
In this case, it’s extending to the technology we use.
“Creating us-them divides, that’s human nature.”
Products soon became a way to communicate our personalities and values.
That relationship marked a major departure from how identities were defined in past generations.
In the past, our identities were defined by the family we were born into, Ahuvia said.
Our family’s religion and social class ultimately determined our career trajectory and marital prospects.
In stark contrast, people today have more control over their identities.
“Everything is totally up for grabs,” said Ahuvia.
But the bad news is that you become obsessed with your identity and creating and forming it."
Sociologists call this nonstop work to shape and present our identities the “project of the self.”
In other parts of the world, third-party messaging services are the standard over SMS.
RCS was first developed in 2007 and began deployment a few years later.
By contrast, iMessage had already launched in 2012, all but sealing BlackBerry Messenger’s fate.
Major players like Google, Apple, Samsung and other hardware makers often work closely with the GSMA.
Google has its own RCS servers, which AT&T uses.
T-Mobile uses its own servers.
So by no means is RCS Google-controlled, but it does supply encryption keys.
Last year, Google had todisable RCS ads in Indiadue to spam from businesses.
That designation, which Google supports, would require Apple to make iMessage compatible with rival messaging services.
Included in this designation is WhatsApp, in which thebeta includes support for other texting options.
But Cook’s position toward privacy and encryption only includes Apple customers communicating with each other.
And RCS itself isn’t an end-all solution, either.
Socially, the green bubbles of iMessagecan lead to bullying.
“A lot of kids actually get bullied for having Android phones,” Ahuvia said.
“They’re treated badly.
It bothers them when they talk about it.
Their emotion is so clear,” said Ahuvia.
“Apple is unfortunately making money off of that.”
Phones shouldn’t define us
Consumers are caught in a messaging divide that Apple could bridge.
Most popular social networks don’t interlink.
Open systems like email and the web are in some ways the exception.
Our technology choices don’t define who we are.
Stereotypes might suggest Android owners are more techies and iPhone owners are more fashion-forward.
For Uddin and Baloch, being on iPhones helped their emoji communication breakdown.
But both agree that it wouldn’t have prevented them from getting married.
And Baloch told Uddin that buying an iPhone was excessive.
“The jump was pretty exciting back into the Google ecosystem,” Uddin said.
