What you need to know
- Google Messages might have a new interesting feature in the rollout.
- The messaging platform to expand emoji reactions for texts in individual chats.
- Currently, it allows users to only react with seven emojis.
Google Messages recently got a ton of new features to enhance RCS and SMS chats. It included the ability to react to individual messages in a conversation with a set of emojis. The ability is likely to expand soon.
As spotted by 9to5Google, Google Messages is seen rolling out full emoji reactions for a set of users, which previously was limited to choosing one from a total of seven emoticons.
Since Google Messages enabled RCS, it has let users react to texts in a conversation or group. Users would select the message, and instantly a panel would pop up displaying seven emojis like Smiling-Face, and Face with Heart-Eyes, amongst others.
After the new update, the pop-up panel would showcase an emoticon with a “plus” symbol on top towards the end. 9to5 notes hitting that would open up a full emoji picker organized categorically to choose from (like any Android device would have noticed when hitting an emoji icon on their respective keyboards).
The emoji picker is said to be showcasing recently used emoticons on the top, followed by the full emoji picker. The report also points out a possibility that it would eventually replace the seven instant ones currently showing up in Google Messages.
Further, according to 9to5, there have been two instances of this being implemented with the most recent beta, but it still needs to be generally available to the public. However, users can notice anytime soon in the next few days.
It looks like Google is constantly trying to improve one of its best messaging apps, which is also the default texting app found on Pixel devices like the Pixel 7 Pro.
The search giant has been adding user-friendly features alongside RCS and end-to-end encryption for group chat messages. It recently added support to enable Swipe to Reply for a message in chat next to the ability to react to SMS messages received from iPhone users.
