Google is aggressively focusing on its Message app to compete against the iPhone’s iMessage. The company recently replaced chats with RCS in Google messages to promote RCS functionality. Samsung devices also received permission to customize Google Messages on their smartphones to make them more native to Samsung’s devices.
How Google Improved Read Receipts on Android
After months of testing Google Message, the new update brings functionality like a vertical photo picker instead of a grid photo picker. When you open the photo gallery in a conversation, you have a live camera shutter with a preview to take a photo instantly. It will preview the last 15 images, whereas previously, it was only used to show six previews of your image.
This feature has been ported to the beta version since September of last year, and the RCS rebranding gives users more flexibility and awareness of the functionality they are using. Even after updating the Google Message, it used to show the same read receipts like Sending, Sent, Delivered, and Read, but now it will have a stopwatch or clock icon when it’s on the way to the sender (for sending).
Once the recipient reads, it will show the double-checkmark, and as for group conversations, it will now show the Send by X and Read by all icons. This has previously been spotted on some devices, but it now looks to be rolled out to more users since it’s now more stable.
Google didn’t share any of those in an official blog post, and they really should be explained so people could understand and update to the latest version to try this out on their devices. However, users seem more positive, and Google’s new approach seems good.
However, in most regions, native SMS, chat, and iMessage aren’t that popular; instead, people have been using WhatsApp and Telegram, which have already dominated, and they have read recipients like this for years. You can also join the beta program by heading over to this website.