He's pointing out that Apple considered green originally the best background color for texting, and then added their own protocol with a blue background.
So it's not like they deliberately relegated SMS to green because they were certain blue was better; if they believed blue was superior, they'd have used it from the beginning.
Regardless, they could improve it at any time, yet its been like this for... a decade now? Cognizant Inaction Is Intention. It doesn't matter why it is how it is; they can make it whateverthehell they want, they run the code, they run the org, they got the keys to production, so: fix it!
The original color may not have been malicious, but it WAS DELIBERATE. Every design decision at Apple is deliberate; to assert otherwise is to be revisionist. Cognizant Inaction Is Intention. Its color was deliberately chosen originally; its color was deliberately changed; their inaction in fixing the accessibility issues that change created is Deliberate, because Cognizant Inaction is Intention.
[1] https://d2bs8hqp6qvsw6.cloudfront.net/article/images/750x750...
As others point out, there are accessibility options for people who want more contrast (and which benefit users with trouble reading these outbound messages in far more useful places).
@Time0 -> Priority1=X, Priority2=Y
@Time1 -> Priority1=X, Priority2=Z, Priority3=Y
Across this timeframe, Y's priority was lowered from P2 to P3, because the org intentionally decided to make Z a higher priority.
One could argue that improving this experience was never in their priority list; but as long as product leaders in the org knew about it; its the same thing. Letting something linger in the backlog, and intentionally deciding to never add it to the backlog in the first place, are identical.
I don't know about "maleficence", but intentional: Yes. Cognizant inaction conveys intentionality.