You can now view emoji reactions sent by iPhone users on your Android smartphone. The feature will be available to everyone as part of a slew of new and upgraded features for Google’s Messages app that will be rolled out over the next several weeks.
Google has closed a big gap between Android and iOS users with the latest update, which means iMessage emojis will no longer appear as text in Messages. Previously, instead of an actual like button, emoji reactions sent from an iPhone were converted into text descriptions such as “liked an image.”
This was owing to incompatibilities between Google’s new RCS standard and SMS, which iPhones are still trapped on at the moment.
This feature is now live for users on the Google Messages beta program and can be enabled by heading to Settings, scroll down to Advanced, tap and scrolling down to Show iPhone reactions as emoji and swiping on that toggle to activate this feature.
Other upcoming features include nudges to remind you to respond to missed messages, distinct tabs for business and personal conversations, birthday reminders, support for clearer videos via a Google Photos interface, and an extended selection of emoji mashups.
In addition, both Android and iOS users will now get YouTube previews in Google Messages.