Android smartphones may soon show iMessage reactions as emojis

NEW DELHI: Google Messages is getting a new feature that enhances iMessage reaction within the app. As per a report by 9to5Google, Android users will be able to use reactions as emoji characters instead of text even though they don’t use iMessage.

Apple users — both iPhone and Mac — can add a reaction to a message. These reactions could be a heart, thumbs up, thumbs down, a laugh, a question mark, or an exclamation. These reactions show up as annotations to an iMessage.

Reactions can also be used on “green bubble” messages from Android users. However, Android may not always interpret them correctly and it can lead to awkwardness. For example, if you heart a message on an iPhone, it shows in text to an Android user as : [Person] “Loved”.

As per the code spotted in the latest beta update of Google Messages, iMessage reactions will not be shown as text. Instead, they will be translated to emoji reaction. rs.

“Show ‌iPhone‌ reactions as emoji,” reads a line of the code, underIn the Messages app on iOS and Mac devices, users can add a reaction like a heart, thumbs up, thumbs down, a laugh, a question mark, or an exclamation, all of which show up as annotations to an iMessage. These reactions can also be used on “green bubble” messages from Android users, but Android doesn’t interpret them correctly and it can lead to awkwardness.

If you heart a message on an iPhone, for example, a fellow ‌iPhone‌ user will see a little heart on the message. On Android, though, when you heart a message it shows it in text: [Person] “Loved” and then the text of the message. This is true of all of the iMessages reactions, Google turns them into text in a way that looks weird, especially if Android users aren’t aware of iMessage reactions.

9to5Google looked at the code in the latest beta update to Google Messages and discovered that rather than showing iMessage reactions as text, Google Messages may soon translate them into emoji, which would be a much better solution for Android users.

“Show ‌iPhone‌ reactions as emoji,” reads a line of the code. “iMessage has a different set of reactions than currently offered by Google Messages in RCS chats. Google may be accounting for this, as there is mention in the code of “mapping” the iMessage reactions, possibly mapping to the set of reactions available in Google Messages today, or perhaps just mapping to various emoji”, 9to5Google reports.

The feature has already started rolling out to some Android users, as per the report.

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