RCS is officially big. In fact, there are 1 billion monthly active users. Google announced the milestone today and to celebrate is giving the Messages app 7 new features. Apparently these will “help your personality shine through.” However, they will not make RCS bubbles blue on iOS.
RCS, in case you’re living under a rock, is a new standard that’s supposed to replace antiquated SMS and MMS, Google says, although these are still used as backups, so not so much “replace” as “improve.” Anyway, the point is that it’s like iMessage but for Android phones.
Google pushed this hard – and we mean it Very – in recent years, and it seems that his efforts have not been in vain at all. RCS features typing indicators, read receipts, threaded replies, high-quality media sharing, improved group chats, and better privacy.
Now let’s get to the new features. First, Fotomoji. As the name suggests, this lets you turn a photo into a reaction using Google’s AI on the device. All these creations are then saved to a special card for when you want to use them again. Plus, your friends in group chats can also use any Photomoji you send.
The next step is Voice Moods. These are animated emojis superimposed on a voice message, to visually express how you feel at that moment. The bitrate and sampling rate of voice messages have also been increased for an improvement in perceived quality.
Screen effects allow for vibrant animations that take up the entire screen, when you type specific messages like “it’s snowing” or “I love you,” for example. There are more than 15, but they’re hidden, so Google wants us to discover them.
Then, Custom Bubbles: You’ll never be able to do this on iMessage, that’s for sure. You can customize the color and background of the bubbles for any conversation. If you want, you can choose a different color for each chat – Facebook Messenger themes greet you.
Reaction effects bring “more life to your conversations,” Google says. It works with the ten most popular emojis, and when you react with one of them, the reaction will animate on the message you’re reacting to.
Animated emoji are just that: visual effects for specific emoji, which activate when you send just that specific emoji – WhatsApp has something similar, for example.
Finally, Google Messages now has Profiles. You can customize your profile name and picture which will then accompany your phone number. This, the company says, “solves the issue of receiving messages from phone numbers not saved in your contacts” and can be especially useful in group chats so you know who all the members are.
And now the disappointment. These new features will first be available in the Messages beta, and not all at the same time. “Many” of these features, Google says, will be available in the beta channel today. We’re not sure which, and the company hasn’t clarified, so who knows. Hopefully it won’t be long before they drop into the stable channel.
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