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Google Messages was supposed to roll out iMessage reactions synchronization on Android as far back as November of this past year, but for some reason or another, it never really fully appeared for most users.
In fact, I saw it appear for me one evening, but just as fast as it had shown up, it was gone with the wind. I’m not certain what the hold-up has been, but Google is now officially rolling it out to more users – for real this time.
As reported by Droid Life, a new “Show iPhone reactions as emoji” option is appearing in the advanced settings area of the beta version of the Google Messages app (v20220121_02_RCoo).
For those who are unaware, the current state of cross-platform messaging is pretty screwed up when it comes to message reactions. When an Android phone user receives a text message from their iPhone friends or contacts, things work just fine. However, once the iPhone user presses and holds a message in that conversation and adds an emoji to show that they like it, love it, or any other common reaction, it comes through to the Android user as a separate message as seen below. It’s incredibly awkward and changing this is way past due.
That’s right, it literally spells out the reaction, making it seem like someone actually wrote such a sentence and failed to grasp the social context for expression. It’s more annoying than it is funny, but it’s also funny, right?
Anyway, while it is just in beta, this new option will resolve the awkwardness and allow both senders and recipients in a conversation to see the same, glorious emoji regardless of the hardware they use.
There have been many features for Google Messages that have still yet to come to the masses such as starred conversations, labels, and even auto-deleting OTP messages. I truly wish that Google would get this app in gear and just get everything in our hands already. I’d be interested to know if any of you have any of the features discussed and if so, what region you may be based in.
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