The Department of Justice also hates the green bubbles that appear for Android users on iMessage

The US Department of Justice and 16 attorneys general filed a lawsuit against Apple for allegedly violating federal antitrust laws on Thursday. the Complaint of 88 pages It presents the government’s case against Apple, claiming that the tech giant abused its monopoly in the smartphone market by enforcing unfair developer practices, blocking super apps and cloud streaming apps, and blocking tap-to-pay services outside of their scope of services.

But on page 38, the plaintiffs get to the interesting stuff: Apple’s long-running attack on Android users via the infamous green text bubble.

The government says Apple “positively undermines the quality of competing smartphones” by creating text messaging interfaces for iPhone users and non-iPhone users. It’s not just about aesthetics, and yes, I’ll admit there’s something off about that green-on-white look. Apple also restricts the functionality of these conversations outside of the iMessage experience: they’re not encrypted, videos are pixelated and grainy, and users aren’t allowed to edit messages or see when the other person is typing.

“This suggests to users that competing smartphones are less good because the messaging experience for friends and family who don’t own iPhones is worse — even though Apple, not the competing smartphone, is to blame for this degraded user experience,” the complaint says.

But the government does not stop there. “Many non-iPhone users also face social stigma, exclusion, and blame for ‘broken’ conversations where other participants have iPhones,” the complaint states. The impact is worse for teens, he says. Isn’t every social stigma worse for teens?

While Google’s Android devices, and other non-Apple devices, are more popular than expensive iPhones overseas, Apple It controls more than 70 percent of the smartphone market in the United States Through revenue. And when they weigh in on the green bubble nonsense, it constitutes an illegal abuse of that monopoly power, according to the Justice Department. The complaint includes letters from an Apple executive to CEO Tim Cook that made it plain: “Moving iMessage to Android will hurt us more than help us.” And for an iPhone user He lamented At a conference in 2023, Cook told him he couldn’t text his Android mother for high-quality videos, and asked him to buy his mother an iPhone — an incident that, of course, ended up in the lawsuit.

Fixing the green bubble issue won’t be a magic solution, but it will do one thing for sure: it will allow my Android-using brother-in-law to join the family group chat for the first time. Even then, it’s not worth the green bubbles and blurry videos. (Sorry Ben.)