For so long, Apple has had a sizeable lead over Google when it comes to texting, with iMessage featuring a number of exclusive features such as per-message emoji reactions and end-to-end encryption. In response, Google released RCS, bringing the messaging experience on Android much closer to that of Apple. However, one big problem that remained unresolved was cross-platform texting. For every reaction on iMessage, the same message is returned again to the other Android user, prefixed by their reaction, clogging up the chat thread with meaninglessly long messages, just because it’s not an iPhone-to-iPhone conversation. Well, it looks like those days will be over pretty soon. In fact, you could end this peril as soon as now.
Google has just released a new beta version of Messages, their iMessage alternative, bringing official support of iPhone’s emoji reactions. This way, your conversation thread won’t be cluttered with these ridiculous messages anymore. However, it does come with its caveat. These emoji reactions on iMessage are only translated with respect to Android’s emoji stack, which isn’t entirely accurate. Here in the picture above, if someone “liked” a message on iMessage, it shows up as a heart-shaped-eyes emoji reaction on Google’s Messages app. Still, it’s much better than getting the whole message returned back with “liked” before the text.
Earlier this year, Google’s SVP Hiroshi Lockheimer went on a little rant on Twitter, voicing his dissatisfaction with Apple’s handling of messaging on their platform, having to fall back to the archaic, much less secure SMS standard, in case one of the users is not using an iPhone. He further states that, with RCS now available, Apple only needs to support this standard on iMessage, claiming that Apple is now holding back texting as a whole. And, frankly speaking, I can’t help but think the same. It’s still unclear if Google and Apple will sit together and sort this out anytime soon — iMessage’s exclusive features have been the fulcrum of Apple’s strategy to lure everyone into their luxurious walled garden, after all. But for the most part, Google’s support for iMessage emoji reactions will suffice.
Just head over to the Play Store and sign up for the beta version of Google’s Messages app, then go to Settings > Advanced and enable the “Show iPhone reactions as emoji” option.
Source: Droid-Life
