These messages are texts and photos that you send to other cell phones or another iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. SMS/MMS messages aren't encrypted and appear in green text bubbles on your device. To use SMS/MMS on an iPhone, you need a text-messaging plan. Green text bubbles on an iPhone can mean that you're texting with someone who doesn't also have an iPhone, but they also mean that the texts are not encrypted through iMessage. When you send texts. Short answer: Blue ones have been sent or received using Apple's iMessage technology, while green ones are 'traditional' text messages exchanged via Short Messaging Service, or SMS.

You can use the Messages app on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to send messages. Those messages are sent as iMessage or SMS/MMS. Learn more about the difference between the message types.

iMessage

iMessages are texts, photos, or videos that you send to another iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or Mac over Wi-Fi or cellular-data networks. These messages are always encrypted and appear in blue text bubbles. To turn iMessage on or off, go to Settings > Messages.

SMS/MMS

If you aren’t using iMessage, you can use SMS/MMS. These messages are texts and photos that you send to other cell phones or another iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. SMS/MMS messages aren't encrypted and appear in green text bubbles on your device.

To use SMS/MMS on an iPhone, you need a text-messaging plan. Contact your wireless carrier for more information. You can also set up your other Apple devices to send and receive messages from any Apple device.

If Wi-Fi is unavailable, iMessages will be sent over cellular data. Cellular data rates might apply.

Good news, green bubbles: Google has finally flipped the switch on an update that makes texting on Android more like iMessage.

What Does Green And Blue Text Messages Mean

If you live in the U.S, Google's Messages app should now officially support 'chat' features like read receipts, typing indicators, and better support for photo and group messages. The update is the result of a effort by Google to ditch SMS, which was created decades before the first smartphones changed how we think about text messaging.

Google announced in November that it was upgrading its Messages app to support Rich Communication Services (RCS), a newer standard that allows messages to be sent via Wi-Fi, along with all the other 'chat' features you expect from a messaging app in 2019. But Google being Google, this update wasn't actually available to everyone until Thursday.

Now, as long as you have the latest version of Messages and Carrier Services, you should be able to text with all the 'chat' features fully enabled.

Importantly, these upgrades only work if you're texting someone who is also using an RCS-supported messaging app. So if you're texting someone who uses an older, out-of-date app like a carrier-branded service, the new features won't work until that person also upgrades. (You can tell if your messages are RCS or SMS by looking at the compose window before you start typing; threads that support RCS will be labeled as 'chat message.')

It also won't do anything to address the green bubble/blue bubble dynamic. Because while the new 'chat'-friendly Android Messages may function similarly to iMessage, Apple does not, in fact, support RCS in its messaging services. So any messages between iOS and Android users will still be sent via the same old SMS standard.

Difference Between Blue And Green Text Messages On Iphone 5

'We would need Apple to also adopt RCS, the standard, in order for this experience to also be improved for iPhone users,' Google product management director, Sanaz Ahari, explained in an interview in November. 'But we certainly believe that we all kind of collectively owe it to our users to really upgrade them from this, you know, 30 plus year old technology and give them the modern messaging protocol that they really deserve.'

For its part, Apple hasn't publicly said where it stands on RCS, but the company has reportedly held 'discussions' on the matter so there might be a glimmer of hope. Until then, there's not much green bubbles can do make group messages with their iPhone-wielding friends less painful, short of using an entirely separate app like WhatsApp,

But, the fact that Google has finally flipped the switch at least puts everyone one important step closer toward a future where everyone can text without fear of 'ruining' the group chat.