Google declares the green vs blue bubbles debate ‘silly and tired’

Today’s Made By Google event was full of interesting announcements, ranging from the new Pixel 10 lineup and the Pixel Watch 4 to impressive AI demos.

During the event (which was bizarrely hosted by Jimmy Fallon), Google’s VP of marketing Adrienne Lofton also declared the green vs blue bubbles debate “over.”

The comments came during a segment with Lofton and Fallon showing off the new Pixel 10 lineup. Lofton asked Fallon whether he knew what RCS was, to which he responded he had no idea.

Here’s the full interaction (which you can also watch in the full keynote on YouTube):

Lofton: Have you ever heard of RCS?

Fallon: RCS? No, I don’t know RCS.

Lofton: That’s ok, most people don’t. RCS stands for Rich Communication Services. You don’t even need to remember that name. RCS simply means there’s now one text standard for all. And what you should know is that Android has been using RCS for many, many years, but Apple recently adopted it as well.

So what does that mean? It means that now when you’re chatting with your iFriends, you can say goodbye to blurry photos and videos, you can react with all your cute emojis to text messages, and finally the group chat is for the whole group.

Fallon: So we can stop talking about the green texts vs blue texts?

Lofton: Yes. And first of all, I’m going to say, personally, the green/blue bubble battle is silly and it’s tired and at Google we’re done with that conversation. Inside of our company, whether it’s Google, Android, or Pixel, we believe technology is at its best when it brings people together, no matter what phone brand they carry in their hands. And we hope that phone in your hands is a Pixel.

Lofton is, of course, referencing Apple’s decision to adopt RCS as part of iOS 18 last year. Prior to the announcement, Google and others had taken multiple jabs at Apple over its lack of RCS support.

On iPhone, iPad, and Mac, RCS messages are still green, while iMessages are still blue. I think we can all agree that it’s a good thing Apple has adopted RCS, but the obsession with the green vs blue bubbles has always seemed to be a one-sided fixation. After all, Google and Samsung are the ones who ran multiple ad campaigns focused on the color of text bubbles.

Is the blue bubble vs green bubble battle officially over? Was it ever really a battle to begin with? Let us know down in the comments.

Check out our friends over at 9to5Google for full coverage of everything Google announced today.

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