Google fixes Messages app to improve texting experience with Apple’s iMessage

• Google Messages will start showing iPhone emojis as reactions.
• Earlier, the iPhones emojis came as a separate text for Messages users.
• The iPhone emojis are translated into Android reactions which are similar but not always identical.

Google seems to have finally fixed the annoying divide between its Messages app and Apple’s iMessages. After Apple had introduced the TapBack feature, that let iPhone users hold a message to react with emoji reaction over the text, the divide grew further as Android users would not get the reactions over the text but as a separate text message altogether.

According to a report in 9to5Google, Google released a beta update for the Messages app and they noted that a new preference in the code of the app revealed that Messages app would soon be able to show the Tapback reactions as emojis.

Emoji reactions

The report also showed screenshots of how the new feature would work. According to the screenshots, the emoji reactions from iPhone now attach themselves to the texts in Google’s Messages app. However, these reactions are tweaked a little. For example, the heart emojis change to a smiley face with heart eyes or a laughing reaction becomes a face with tears of joy.

And when you tap on the reaction, it will tell you that it is “translated from iPhone”. Although this feature is still in the beta version, it will significantly reduce the text overload due to Tapback reactions for the Android users. One drawback of this feature is that Google is yet to confirm whether this is available for all users. Even if you download the latest beta version of the Messages app, it still may not be available to you.

iMessages

While Google is looking to bridge the gap between iPhone users and Android users, Apple has no plan to bring iMessage for Android users. In 2016, Apple SVP Craig Federighi claimed in an email that bringing iMessage to Android will hurt the company more than it will help them. He had added that making iMessage available on Android would remove the obstacle for families with iPhones of giving their kids an Android device.

Seems like Apple wants to keep the divide and provide exclusivity to the iPhone users. For now, Android users can rejoice that they don’t have to feel left out while texting people using an iPhone.

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