Texting between Android and iPhones isn’t at all times the smoothest expertise. Photos and movies get pixelated, messages from Android customers present up because the dreaded inexperienced chat bubble on iPhone, after which there are emoji reactions. When an iPhone person hits the thumbs-up or coronary heart response emoji, that doesn’t translate to Android, and it exhibits up as an ungainly textual content description of the emoji as an alternative.
Google has been attempting to repair a few of that, although it faces the unending problem of buy-in from Apple. This week, Google mentioned that updates coming to Messages will permit Android customers to answer iPhone texts with emojis. Other updates embrace the power to string responses to particular person messages, embed YouTube movies immediately in messages, and get automated transcriptions of voice messages on sure telephones. It’s a concerted effort by Google to make messaging on Android extra interesting and put stress on Apple to satisfy it midway.
Photograph: Google
The technical level of competition right here has been Rich Communications Services, a messaging customary that Google has been pushing its companions to undertake over the previous 12 months. RCS handles attachments and media higher than the SMS customary that has been the norm in messaging for many years. Thing is, Apple has its personal messaging customary between iPhones and different Apple units, after which defaults to SMS when an iPhone person and Android person are exchanging messages. And Apple expressed precisely zero curiosity in switching to RCS. So a variety of messages get misplaced in translation between the platforms.
Last month, Google made a public plea for Apple to change its requirements so iOS messages would play good with Android units. But after Apple CEO Tim Cook’s withering dismissal of the thought, the stalemate between the tech giants continues. At least Android customers—or these contemplating the change—are getting barely higher messages with this newest replace.
Here’s another gadget information.
Come Along and Ride on a Fantastic … Advertising Voyage?
Anyone who has ever ridden in a New York City taxicab has seen their justifiable share of commercials on a loop, which through the years has advanced from “Taxi TV” to straight-up programmatic promoting. So it appears inevitable that rideshare companies like Uber would wish to capitalize on all that quiet, peaceable passenger downtime and fill your journey with advertisements.
Uber has tinkered with promoting throughout rides earlier than, like when it added taxi-style ad billboards to the tops of automobiles in 2020. But in a press release this week, Uber laid out its plans to “capture consumers’ attention” by serving them advertisements throughout practically each a part of an Uber interplay. Uber customers can stay up for audio advertisements enjoying whereas they await a journey and in the course of the journey. The firm can be planning to show distinguished advertisements throughout the Uber Eats app, ship sponsored emails, and slap much more video advertisements on tablets inside automobiles.
Remember people, it’s not concerning the vacation spot; it’s about how a lot you purchase on the journey.
Sharing Is Caring, Unless You’re Netflix
In different bleak information from the land of capital extraction, Netflix is about to start out charging for all these additional customers siphoning off one individual’s account. This week, Netflix mentioned it would lastly transfer to place an finish to people sharing their logins. The value will probably be $4 a head for every additional account that’s not thought-about in the identical house. Netflix has been testing the crackdown since March, although not within the US. But quickly, it appears, will probably be platform-wide. Netflix mentioned the brand new coverage will go into impact in 2023.
As if to preempt the choice, Netflix introduced earlier this week that it’ll now permit you to spin off a sub account into its own paying account. You’ll need to splurge on the total month-to-month price, however at the least it would preserve your watch historical past and preferences intact.
