Google has just updated its SMS application for Android and introduces several new features. Among these, there is one that allows Google Message to get a little closer to iPhone users.
iOS reactions to Android
The Mountain View company’s SMS application now knows how to perfectly interpret the reactions to messages sent by iPhone users from the iOS Messages application. Until now, when reactions to a message were sent from an iPhone to an Android device, Google Message only transcribed them using a descriptive message such as “added a laugh”, “added a like” or even “added a like”.
A few weeks ago, Google was testing in a beta version of Google Message an option to translate reactions sent from iOS into emojis, as they are in principle supposed to be displayed to the recipient.
The option was available in the settings of this beta version, but was not yet functional on all devices. This is now fixed since Google has just rolled out the stable version of Messages which officially supports reactions sent from an iPhone.
High quality video and birthday reminders
Google took advantage of this update to make some changes to video sharing from the messaging application. If the videos sent with the RCS standard (thus via the Internet) do not pose a problem and are of good quality when they are received by their recipient, those sent to iPhones without RCS are compressed and blurred when they are received. To deal with this problem, Google has decided to integrate Google Photos into Google Messages. By opting for this solution, you can share your videos in high quality with your contacts on iOS by directly sharing the Google Photos URL of the video, thus allowing them to view it in its native definition.
“We encourage Apple to join the rest of the mobile industry in adopting RCS to improve messaging and secure it, no matter what device you’re using,” says the Mountain View giant in his blog post to extend a perch to Cupertino. A regular query from Google.
Finally, this Google Message update should help heads up. Indeed, if you have entered the birthday of your contacts in your address book, the messaging application will automatically display a reminder inviting you to send them a message when the time comes when opening the application.
The deployment of all these new features has just begun and will be done gradually to all users of the application over the next few weeks.
Source: google