iPhone Reactions And More: What's New In Latest Google Messages Update

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Google Messages recently received an update that brings many new features to the app, including support for iPhone reactions. Over the past few years, Google has improved its Messages app which now supports RCS (Rich Communication Service). Apple's iMessage still works on SMS (Short Message System) and MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service). After the latest update to Messages, Google appealed to Apple to join RCS to improve cross-platform messaging.

If and when Apple's iMessage service starts working on RCS, both companies will be able to streamline the text messaging experience between iPhone and Android smartphones. In 2021, Google Messages introduced end-to-end encryption (E2EE) for all users, making it impossible for third-parties or even Google to see the contents of a message in the app. For reference, E2EE is used by many web-based instant messaging applications such as WhatsApp and Signal.

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With the latest update to Messages, Google has released support for iPhone reactions (sent via iMessage) to all users, after testing it for nearly two months. The company began rolling out the feature earlier in 2022. Essentially, Android smartphones with Google Messages can now display iMessage reactions or Tapbacks in the form of an emoji that is located at the bottom-right corner of the message. Previously, iMessage reactions were sent as separate messages to Android users, and these messages contained a translation of what the reaction meant.

Google has released a couple of other new features for Messages. Going forward, Android users will be able to share videos in the form of Google Photos links. This would allow both the sender and the receiver