Google celebrated 1 billion users of “Messages” with exciting features.
The RCS messaging standard, which brings modern features like replay, has had a busy month. Shortly after Apple’s announcement that RCS will be added to the iPhone, Google has announced that it will add interesting features based on RCS to Google Messages.
Google says that more than one billion users use RCS features in Google Messages every month. Considering that support for RCS was very limited just a few years ago, reaching one billion monthly users is a big deal for Google.
Some of the new RCS features in Google Messenger will look familiar, especially to iPhone users. One of these features is the ability to create something like a Contact Poster in iOS 17, where you can put your name and photo on it.
Google is also adding a feature called Photomoji to Google Messages that allows you to cut out the subject from the photo and use it to react to messages; Similar to the functionality that is offered in iOS right now.
Google Messages now allows you to attach an emoji to your message when sending a voice message. Google says that this emoji represents the mood of the user at that moment. By doing this, you can allow the other party to know the subject of the voice message to some extent before playing it.
Emojis shared within groups or emoji used to react to a message will sometimes have animations, Google says. Google Messages also allows you to change the color of the message bubble for each conversation.
Google is very happy with the addition of RCS to the iPhone because it makes messaging between Android phones and iPhones much more interesting. Of course, Apple has said that it uses the Universal Profile 2.0 RCS standard, which does not include end-to-end encryption.
Google is working with the GSM Association to encourage Apple to use the more advanced RCS specification (Apple is a member of the association).
Other features such as topic-based replies (one of the attractive features of iMessage), reading ticks and reactions to messages are among the other things that Google wants to see on the iPhone.
