Google’s cute talking Pixel and iPhone are back to welcome Apple to the world of RCS

This week has been a big one for mobile communication, and with the release of iOS 18, iPhone users are getting their first major taste of RCS. The cross-platform messaging standard isn’t just a much-needed modernization of old-fashioned SMS text messages, but an opportunity for smartphone users everywhere to really start interacting on a level playing field. Understandably, Google is very hyped about the whole thing, and has cooked up another of its cute little anthropomorphized iPhone and Pixel ads to help share the news.

You might remember these guys from earlier appearances in the likes of the Pixel 8 afterparty, but now we’ve got our iPhone and Pixel showing up for a therapy session in what appears to be an impressively faithful recreation of Dr. Melfi’s office from The Sopranos (you knew you saw that circular table and tissues before).

Unsurprisingly, Google can’t resist getting a few digs in at Apple in the process, gently chastising the company for the way it’s playing catch-up here, while also trying to raise awareness about the benefits RCS affords. As we’ve spent a lot of time talking about, RCS is a huge upgrade over SMS in terms of everything from media support to read receipts.

If you’re new to RCS on your iPhone, we’ve got some tips on getting up to speed. Admittedly, Google may be a little optimistic here in terms of expectations of breaking down barriers between iPhone and Android users — green bubbles aren’t going anywhere — but this is still huge progress, all the same. That said, there’s plenty of room to go, and one of the next big steps we’re looking forward to is solving the problem of end-to-end encryption across platforms.

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