Several new features are coming to Google Messages! Camera effects will beautify your photos during your discussions while the interface will be given a nice spring refresh!
If, initially, Google Messages was a simple SMS application, it has gradually established itself as one of the most popular instant messengers, seducing the hearts of no less than a billion monthly active users. Its management of RCS – Rich Communication Services –, a communication protocol intended to replace the aging SMS and MMS for the exchange of messages on mobile, has nothing to do with it, but the application has also acquired, over the years, many functions that found among its competitors. From now on, messages can be accompanied by photos, high quality videos, links, or even emojis. It is also possible to create group conversations, and even activate typing indicators which indicate when the correspondents are writing.
And Google doesn’t plan to stop there to improve its app. While the company is in the process of making it possible to add text to caption the images you send and to react more quickly and easily to messages received with a double tap (see our article), our colleagues at TheSpAndroid discovered in the latest beta version that Google was preparing some small new features for its users – if they are not yet accessible, they are however visible in the application code or can be activated by modifying certain settings.
Google Messages: options for editing photos
The most important new feature concerns the integrated camera function in Google Messages. Although it is already possible to take a photo from your smartphone using the application, the integrated camera function is not very developed. Indeed, it only offers a few options, such as activating the flash, the choice between photo and video, or the possibility of zooming. According to the pieces of code, the Web giant is preparing to offer “camera effects”. We don’t know more, but it would involve personalizing visual exchanges, with filters, effects or quick edits directly from the application for example – part of the code mentions “filter effects”.
The Google Messages interface should also see some small changes. Note the deletion of the most recent contacts when carrying out searches and the disappearance, in the list of the most recent conversations, of the preview of messages in draft. A way to declutter the interface and facilitate access to essential conversations. Our colleagues have also discovered a change in the advanced settings, with the appearance of an option allowing you to accept or refuse the usage and diagnostic information which is specifically collected from the Google account with which you are logged in. connected to Google Messages. By default, the option should be disabled. These new features are still under development, so you will have to be patient before you can hope to benefit from them.