Google Messages

Google I/O is the tech giant’s annual chance to boast its wins, and also provide meaningful updates on where its various products stand. Below, we’ve collected some of the key numbers and metrics from Google I/O 2022.

Today at Google I/O 2022, Google confirmed that over 500 million people are actively using RCS messaging and took the chance to throw another dig at Apple.

A new bug in Google Messages leaves your camera on in the background, quickly draining your battery and heating up your device.

Update: Google has begun rolling out a fix for the Messages app.

In response to a research paper outlining the data collected by Google’s Phone and Messages apps, including call and text records, the company has updated both apps to better respect privacy.

In recent weeks, Google has been testing and slowly rolling out a number of new features for Messages on Android. The company announced today that iMessage reactions, Google Photos integration, and several other capabilities will soon widely launch.

To help improve the auto-categorization of SMS and RCS messages, Google Messages is now asking selected users for SMS “donations.”

In a big win for Google, its Messages app is the default client for the Galaxy S22 in the US. However, Google’s RCS backend might not be powering your messaging experience and that might result in an extra step during the set-up process.

Last year, Google Messages in India started automatically categorizing your texts into categories. This auto-group capability is now starting to appear for users in other parts of the world.

Messages picked up a navigation drawer redesign and Google Photos integration at the start of this month, but it has yet to become widely available even on the beta channel. Users that have it noticed today that image upload capability has disappeared. 

Messaging on Android has been a mess for years, but the tide is finally changing. With Google Messages bringing enhanced RCS messaging to virtually any Android user that wants it, there’s finally a “default.” Now, RCS is getting a big boost as Samsung has finally adopted Google Messages as its default app in the United States.

After we enabled on Wednesday, Google Messages is starting to roll out the navigation drawer redesign in Photos integration.

As Google starts rolling out iMessage reaction translations, Messages is readying a navigation drawer that surprisingly bucks the company’s recent design trend. Meanwhile, we have more details on how Google Photos media uploads will work.

As we spotted in November and following the latest push for RCS support on iPhone earlier this month, Google Messages is starting to roll out iMessage reactions in beta for Android users.

Over the past year, Google has publicly pressured Apple to support Rich Communication Services. The latest salvo this weekend was the harshest yet, but RCS on the iPhone is not the panacea to Google’s historical messaging woes, nor will support lead to a transformatively better experience for Android users when interacting with their iPhone counterparts.

After critical comments on Saturday, Android chief Hiroshi Lockheimer is back with some “thoughts and clarifications” on RCS and iMessage.

Messaging is a core part of any smartphone, and it’s something that Apple has really nailed with the iPhone and iMessage. Googlers have voiced their frustration recently over how Apple uses iMessage as a tool for lock-in and while Apple’s resistance to RCS and other cross-platform standards is certainly annoying, the context of Google’s countless failures in messaging don’t really help the company’s case.

The latest update to Google Messages prepares for a new way to handle the annoying iMessage reaction messages often seen in mixed group chats.

Update: This feature has already begun rolling out for some, allowing us to see it in action.

Google is all-in on Rich Communication Services (RCS) as its main consumer messaging strategy. That said, Google Messages is working on the ability to have video usually sent over MMS be sent using Google Photos instead.