Google Messages celebrates 1 billion users with new iMessage-like features – Huawei

the Android messaging app It embraces and promotes the open RCS protocol, which can be fully interoperable with many other popular messaging apps – including iMessage as of 2024 – just as it has been for many years with its predecessor, SMS.

In fact, Google recently announced that Google Messages has reached the impressive milestone of 1 billion active RCS users worldwide and is celebrating this massive success with a series of new innovative features that come to provide more personalization and personalization of the user experience. .
The new features are mainly focused on bridging the gap with competing services like Apple’s popular iMessage, with options to create custom stickers and cool visual and audio effects aimed at delivering a distinct and personalized messaging experience.

First, Google Messages integrates so-called Photomoji, which allows users to turn photos they’ve taken themselves or found online into personalized stickers, taking advantage of artificial intelligence technology that runs locally on the user’s device. Specifically, in a photo, a person will be able to select an object or person that he wants to turn into a sticker which will then be automatically processed by the application’s artificial intelligence. These custom creations will be saved in a separate tab for future reuse by their creator, and can be reused by other members in the group chat.

Additionally, to make voice messages even more personal, Google Messages offers the ability to choose from nine different animated mood themes that one can add before sending a voice message, essentially setting the emotional tone of the message before the recipient even hears it.

Also, as part of the visual update of the popular messaging app, Google is adding so-called screen effects that are very reminiscent of Easter eggs in video games and appear automatically when the user types certain key phrases. Meanwhile, there will be more than 15 new animation effects that users can discover for themselves.

Additionally, a person will now be able to fully customize their conversations depending on who they are talking to, choosing a different background color for each individual conversation as well as adding animated effects to popular emojis such as the heart. Finally, Google Messages will now support user profiles which will allow for further customization of their appearance in group chats.