Google Messages Adds Emoji Reactions, Media Editor, and More

Jul. 23, 2020

Google has added a handful of new features to its messaging app –Google Messageson Android. The features include emoji reactions in RCS messages, media editor, and a few others.

The software giant has beentesting emoji reactionsin the Messages app for a few months. While the feature had popped for several users in the past, it is widely rolling out now. The feature, as the name suggests, lets youquickly react to RCS chatswith a predefined set of emojis. This is similar to tap-backs iniMessage, and Facebook’s own implementation of reactions for posts.

Smart Reply on Google Messages previously let users choose between text predictions. The company is now expanding the feature to stickers as well. Suggested stickers are currently available in English. With this feature, you will get suggested stickers along with the suggested smart replies as shown in the GIF below.

Google hasadded a media editorinto Messages. The feature lets you easily add text or draw on images using the available brush tools such as highlighter and pen. You can access the feature by tapping on the Edit button that appears after you take a photo. It’s a simple mark-up like tool, but can prove useful if you’re trying to point out a particular part of a picture, or highlight text.

Google has been going all in onDuothese past few months. Now, as a step to make it convenient for users to start video calls while in between messaging sessions, Google Messages has gained support for Google Duo.You will now see a video call buttonat the top right corner of conversations. Tapping on this will instantly start a Duo video call with the recipient.

Apart from all of this, Google is also adding voice messages to Google Messages. This means you can now send audio messages to people if you like. Although fair warning, people might not like it. Anyway, the new features are rolling out, and in typical Google fashion, it may be quite some time before you get access to these new Messages features on your Android phone.

Subin writes about consumer tech, software, and security. He secretly misses the headphone jack while pretending he’s better off with the wireless freedom.