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CES is currently ongoing in Las Vegas, and as usual, Google is there with a pretty big presence. However, this year, they have a big digital billboard outside of their venue, targeting Apple.
9to5Mac posted a video of it on Twitter. Basically, the billboard starts with a text message to Apple, saying that “since CES is about sharing the latest tech, we though we’d share some code to help fix your pixelated texting problem” and then goes on to say “oh wait… yeah, you still use SMS.” Then proceeds to flash a ton of code – who knows if that is actually related to RCS at all. Then says “Help Apple, #GetTheMessage”.
Google venue outside CES pic.twitter.com/iJ7svCYvTV
— 9to5Mac (@9to5mac) January 5, 2023
This is all part of Google’s recent campaign to get Apple to adopt RCS. Which is pretty rich, since they can barely get carriers and OEMs to adopt RCS on Android itself. Apple has openly said that it is not going to adopt RCS, though the European Union could force them to do that. Similar to how the EU is forcing Apple to add USB-C in the next iPhone.
Google’s RCS problem isn’t Apple
While Google has been putting the focus on Apple, to get them adopt RCS, there’s a lot of other issues with RCS than just iPhones. As mentioned above, RCS isn’t even supported by every carrier on every Android phone. It is available on most, however. But it’s not enabled by default. Additionally, on Google Fi, if you have RCS enabled, it actually limits features. Like being able to text message from your laptop or the web.
So before Google goes all-in on shaming Apple, they really need to fix things on their own platform first. But this does get a lot of people talking, and that’s exactly what Google wanted with this stunt. If you’re going to CES, you’ll be able to see it in front of the Las Vegas Convention Center through the weekend.