Google Messages now lets you react to messages coming from iPhone devices

Amid the fight over the adoption of RCS (Rich Communication System) between Google and Apple, the former seems to have pushed an update to the Google Messages app, allowing users to react to messages coming from iPhone devices. While the idea sounds seamless on paper, things are not as smooth as users would like to see.

When Android users react to a message coming from iPhone devices, the other person will get a text in the format of the following:

(emoji) to “(message)”

It gets messier when the iPhone user again reacts to the message reactions coming from the Android phones. For Android users, it will then be displayed in the format of:

(emoji) to “(emoji) to “(message)””

The experience is as bad as it gets if both Android and iPhone users keep on reacting to each other’s reactions. However, the change seems to be available for select beta testers of the Google Messages app. Reddit user u/Jabjab345 first spotted the feature, explaining how it works. It is also important to note that you can react to only texts and not messages in other formats. For instance, you cannot react to an image coming from an iPhone model. However, this limitation is available both on Android and iOS devices.

If you want to use the feature, you need to become a beta participant first. However, there is no surety that you will get a new reactions feature, as, in all likelihood, Google has pushed it through a server-side update. But no harm in trying, as you might get lucky there.

If you are using Google Messages beta and know someone using an iPhone with the latest version of iOS, you can try reacting to their text messages, and let us know about your experience in the comments section.