Google Message just continues to improve its feature set across time. We’ve seen the introduction — and recent stouch with Apple — of RCS, continued feature additions, End-to-end encryption and a lot more.
Now, through an APK teardown, it’s been identified that there are likely more upgrades coming our way. These are the addition of voice message transcription (utilising the transcription capabilities of Android 13), more emoji and a better gallery view for messaging.
As someone who uses voice memos regularly, transcription is a great solution. At times the quality of the audio isn’t great for a variety of reasons, but Google’s AI does a good job of interpreting and presenting it. The feature can be either manually or automatically enabled for incoming messages. Practically speaking, automatic transcription on send may further improve accuracy. According to the 9to5Google team, this is pretty accurate but not as quick as the live transcription features.
The updates don’t stop there though with a full emoji reaction support also in development. While this isn’t a huge thing for most users there’s a cohort who will appreciate it. From the screenshots and description of the feature, you’ll be able to add any emoji to your personal carousel for regular use, or simply a single use.
The final new feature identified is really useful if you’re regularly sending pictures or videos over RCS. Previously you’d have recent images displayed with a horizontal carousel available to search through. Now, you can increase the size and scroll vertically, increasing the size of the gallery on your screen and the ease of finding your images.
It’s been a long road for Google to find a Messaging platform that it’s happy to stick with. I use it regularly and very happily, and I know a lot of others who do too. What further features would you like to see added to Google Messages to make it a go-to messaging option for you?
