Samsung Messages has lengthy been the textual content messaging app that comes on Samsung telephones. Now, it is gone in favor of Google Messages. Whereas Google Messages would be the higher app, that does not imply this modification is an effective factor. In some ways, it is a step backward.
RCS Was Speculated to Change SMS, Not Turn out to be One other Walled Backyard
On the floor, Google Messages is a texting app like another. On the backend, although, it is not an internet instantaneous messaging app like WhatsApp or Sign. It’s built on RCS, a protocol meant to function a alternative for SMS.
RCS stands for Wealthy Communication Providers. It permits options equivalent to learn receipts (the checkmarks that seem when somebody has acquired or learn your messages), typing indicators (the bouncing dots), reactions (the emojis you’ll be able to reply to messages with), and high-quality photographs.
Like iMessage, Google Messages sends full-featured messages to different telephones which have Google Messages however falls again to SMS for the remaining. Now that Apple is including RCS help to iMessage, Google Messages can be gaining the power to ship full-featured messages to iPhones as effectively.
It is price getting excited about Apple adding RCS support to iMessage. In a perfect world, RCS would function an open normal that any RCS app can interoperate with.
With SMS, it would not matter which texting app you utilize. Nobody is aware of, and nobody cares. It may be Google Messages in your Pixel, iMessage in your iPhone, Samsung Messages on an older Samsung machine, a third-party app, or the built-in texting characteristic on a characteristic cellphone. Irrespective of which one you utilize, the messages are the identical.
There’s now just one RCS app on Android: Google Messages. Samsung Messages used to have RCS help, however that characteristic was retired, and now the app as a whole is following suit. There are completely legitimate causes to prefer Google Messages over Samsung Messages. The unhappy half is, for all sensible functions, utilizing RCS on Android now means everybody has to consolidate across the similar app.
Google Messages Feels, First and Foremost, Like a Google App
Google Messages seems like a Google product. Google branding is current on the high, above your chats, everytime you faucet the app icon. Whenever you open settings, you discover Google account choices first and need to dig deeper to configure the precise app. This results in the sensation that you just’re utilizing a Google internet service relatively than a local app in your cellphone.
The result’s that you just aren’t simply “texting.” It is not even instantly apparent that you just’re utilizing RCS as a substitute of SMS. What you are doing is utilizing Google Messages, identical to iPhone customers use iMessage.
Most Android telephones now include Google Messages put in. It would not matter in case your cellphone comes from Samsung, Motorola, OnePlus, Sony, or HTC. The textual content messaging app that after was merely a part of the infrastructure of a cellphone, very similar to a dialer app, is now one more Google app becoming a member of the likes of Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Maps, and the Play Retailer itself.
Samsung Messages Integrates With Different Samsung Apps
I am scripting this on a Galaxy Z Fold 5, a tool I am currently turning into a PC by connecting to a lapdock. Extra particularly, I am utilizing Samsung Notes. I like that once I swap from Samsung Notes to Samsung My Recordsdata or Samsung Gallery, there’s consistency in how the apps appear and feel.
This was once the case with Samsung Messages. It regarded like different Samsung apps, providing visible consistency as you turn between the dialer or the contacts app and the textual content messaging app. Check out these pictures from the ultimate model of Samsung Messages.
Look how effectively this matches the Samsung Dialer.
The consistency flows all through different apps that ship on Galaxy units, equivalent to Samsung Gallery.
With Google Messages, that is not the case. Google Messages would not match Samsung’s One UI. It is designed with inventory Android in thoughts, which means it seems most at dwelling on Pixel units or telephones that stick intently to Android’s default look, like Motorola telephones. The variations are refined and certain do not matter to most individuals, however for me, the distinctions are painfully felt.
I used to favor for telephones to ship with stock Android. Now, I truly recognize the distinctions Samsung has made with its units. Samsung’s One UI interface is just not the garish affair that the corporate’s former TouchWiz interface as soon as was, and there’s a lot of performance baked into Samsung’s system that I miss when utilizing different Android units.
There’s Now Much less Competitors Pushing Google to Innovate
With dominance on Android, Google Messages has just one key competitor, and that is iMessage. Google builders are laborious at work each establishing characteristic parity with Apple’s service whereas additionally slipping in options that might entice individuals over.
But there’s a distinction between the form of options you create when competing with iMessage and the type that may come from imitating Samsung. There are a selection of compelling features in Samsung Messages, a few of which have by no means been a part of Google Messages and a few that had been as soon as a part of Google’s app however have since disappeared.
Think about how Samsung Messages helps you to give each chat its personal customized look. The app additionally provided the power to kind chats into classes.
That is textbook Samsung, an organization that takes theming and customization a lot additional than Android’s default choices. In any case, the corporate releases the Good Lock suite for configuring just about any aspect of your phone.
With every launch of One UI, Samsung slips extra options into its apps. Removed from pointless bloatware, these apps are among the best apps Android has to offer. Samsung Web has many benefits over Google Chrome. Samsung Gallery is a greater local-only picture administration software than Google Photographs, which is targeted on cloud-based options. Samsung Notes presents a wider characteristic set than Google Hold.
With the demise of Samsung Messages, that is one much less firm innovating how we ship messages from our telephones. That makes telephones rather less enjoyable.
I hope an ecosystem of texting apps sometime crops up across the RCS protocol. I like the concept of downloading an open-source texting app like QKSMS (QKRCS, maybe?) that may chat with contacts who use Google Messages and Apple iMessage. Nonetheless, that risk feels a bit diminished after watching the demise of an choice that already had a level of RCS help.
Whereas RCS delivers actual privateness and usefulness advantages, that is one other space the place, in the intervening time, Google and Apple’s duopoly is being additional cemented. Trendy texting is popping into one thing you’ll be able to not do from any cellphone. You want a smartphone, and particularly, you want an app from Google or Apple to make it work.
