Google testing new messaging feature, will allow Android users to react to messages from iPhones

Tech giant Google launched a campaign last month called #GetTheMessage that aimed to convince Apple to support RCS messaging on iPhones.According to GSM Arena, Google’s efforts to improve messaging between Android and iPhone users are apparent with the latest feature being tested.

A Reddit user has spotted that the Google Messages app is testing the ability to react to messages sent from iPhones. When an Android user reacts to an SMS from an iPhone user, they will see a message showing an emoji was used to react to a message.

Basically, Google pulled an Apple. If you recall, iOS users can react to SMS messages, which send an SMS message back to the recipient (in this case an Android phone) and pass along a message of the reaction emoji, along with the quoted message text.

Google has since made it so that its Messages app could tell which message the reaction was for, and instead shows an emoji next to the message itself. With this new implementation, Google is poking back at iPhone users, showing them a similar text-only version of a reaction to a message, reported GSMArena.

Reacting to messages with an emoji isn't anything new. Plenty of cross-platform messaging apps including WhatsApp, Telegram, Messenger, Skype, Teams and Instagram among others, all support reacting with an emoji.

At this point, the only market where this really matters to some people is in the US, where users prefer to use the phone`s default messaging experience. In Android`s case, that`s Google Messages with RCS, and the iMessage on the iPhone, as per GSM Arena.