Google wants Apple to open up iMessage & it’s using the EU to do it

Google has reportedly urged the EU to designate iMessage as a “core” service that would require Apple to make the app compatible with rivals.

Like every other one of its services Apple doesn’t want to open up iMessage to its rivals. But Google has been very consistent lately in urging the Cupertino company to make its chat app interoperable and adopt RCS (rich communication services).

Taking things a step further, Google, along with major telecom groups, has now urged the EU to designate iMessage as a ‘core’ service, according to a Financial Times report. This would force Apple to make the app compatible with competing chat services.

iMessages’s exclusivity to iPhones might end soon

Unsplash: @maria_shalabaieva

iMessage currently remains exclusive to iPhones, and when texting with Android users, the app loses functionalities such as the quality of videos and photos. Apple also shows texts received from an Android phone as a green bubble, which is often dreaded by younger consumers.

Google and other Android brands want Apple to break this exclusivity but Apple doesn’t seem to be listening.

However, the iPhone maker may soon be forced to open up its messaging app. In a letter sent to the European Union (EU) and obtained by the Financial Times, a group of signatories, including a senior vice president at Google and the CEOs of major European telcos, claimed Apple’s iMessage service satisfies the qualitative criteria of the recently enacted Digital Markets Act (DMA).

They suggest the chat app should be captured by the rules to “benefit European consumers and businesses”. In other words, iMessages should be interoperable with competing messaging apps.

The EU is currently investigating if iMessage meets the requirements for regulation under their tough DMA rules. If the EU decides that iMessage needs to follow DMA rules, Apple might finally open up the texting app to the rest of the Android world.