Google Messages will get animations in message reactions on Pixel & other Android devices

Your Google Messages texting sessions with friends will be more fun thanks to the upcoming animations on message reactions. This new change will make message reactions look similar to those of Telegram, and they will be available on your Google Pixel and other Android devices.

It’s noteworthy that the service has already supported message reactions for a while. However, now the company is bringing eye-catching animations to the existing reactions on Google Messages, similar to what Telegram offers for Premium plan users.

Before, the message reactions were similar to the ones you can use in WhatsApp or Telegram (non-premium), showing a reaction icon in the message corner and a small animation. But now the message reactions will have a wide and expressive animation. You can check how they look in the following video (by TheSpAndroid):

The source of the leak is the same one that recently discovered that Google team is also working on support for markdown text formatting, so lately they have been busy developing multiple new rich text features for its messaging service. Does this have to do with Apple agreeing to integrate standard RCS into iMessage? It is possible.

Currently, the new animated message reactions are available in the latest Google Messages app beta version (messages.android_20231121_01_RCOO.phone.openbeta_dynamic). Therefore, it is likely that rollout for everyone in the stable version will happen soon, although there is no confirmation on this yet.

The animated message reactions and markdown text formatting join other new features that Google has been developing in recent weeks such as noise cancellation, and the redesigned profile and chat UI. Considering this, more news and leaks could emerge about other future Google Messages features that we still don’t know anything about.

It seems that Google has decided to try to make the Messages service your main messaging ‘hub’, without having to resort to third-party popular apps like the aforementioned WhatsApp, Telegram, and others.