[doctoboggan]

Before iMessage, they used the green bubbles for SMS. So unless Apple was planning a long con, they believed the green bubbles were fine for their customers for years, and switched to a new color (blue) when iMessage came about.

[YetAnotherNick]

They used to do black text on green[1], which was fine, but they switched to white text on green/blue.

[1]: https://mobiforge.com/files/iphone-sms-1.jpg

[tr3ntg]

For some reason reading this, I didn't believe you, and imagined "black text on green bg" to be very ugly, but you're totally right. There's the classic look we remember. Hmm.

[wrs]

What I find ironic with all this talk of lower-class green bubbles is that the Messages app icon is still…green!

[hnrodey]

Back in my day..... all message bubbles were green!