Google has started to widely roll out a new Google Messages feature for beta users that allows the Android messaging app to correctly interpret emoji reactions sent from the iOS Messages app.
According to The Verge, this feature appears to be live in version 20220121_02_RC00 of the app, but not for all users.
Although it didn’t work on every phone, the feature worked on an Oppo Find X3 Pro, which is more than can be said for when the feature initially started appearing last November.
The feature fixes a long-standing issue that can affect SMS chats between iPhone and Android users.
When an iPhone user reacts to an Android message with emoji, the Android user typically sees this reaction sent as an entirely separate text message, resulting in confusion and lots of unnecessary clutter.
For example, previously, the thumbs down emoji would have been represented by a separate text message for Android users, saying a user ‘disliked’ the message. The new beta app now treats emoji reactions the same across both operating systems.
As per The Verge, there are inconsistencies between how reactions are represented on each operating system. The thumbs up and thumbs down reactions are similar across both platforms, but iOS’s ‘haha’ reaction turns into ‘face with tears of joy’ on Android, while ‘heart’ becomes ‘smiling face with heart-eyes’.
‘Exclamation marks’ become ‘face with open mouth’ while ‘question mark’ is ‘thinking face’. These are minor differences, but they could lead to significantly different interpretations of a reaction’s meaning. (ANI)
