Google says Apple should not benefit from bullying created by iMessage lock-in

Google has accused Apple of benefiting from bullying as part of a deliberate strategy to make Android users into second-class citizens on the iPhone-maker’s iMessage service.

Apple’s messaging service includes a number of iOS-exclusive features, like Memoji, and famously turns texts from Android users green instead of the iOS-native blue. This has turned iMessage into a status symbol among US teens, creating peer pressure for young people to buy iPhones and sometimes leading to the ostracization of Android users. Showing up in a group chat as a green bubble has become, for some, a social faux pas.

A recent report in The Wall Street Journal highlighted this dynamic and prompted a response from both the Android team and Google’s head of...

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