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Apple cheekily takes credit for Android Messages fix
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Apple has cheekily sought to take the credit for the new iMessage reactions appearing in Messages on Android phones, despite it being a Google feature.
Marques Brownlee associate David Imel has drawn attention to an item listed on Apple’s “New features available with iOS 16” page.
Apple is literally listing the SMS tapback emojis that Google had to hard code into Google messages as an iOS 16 feature.. whathttps://t.co/XoomBur1AFpic.twitter.com/2sSrBI9lEY
One of these so-called new iOS 16 features is listed under the title “SMS Tapbacks on Android”. The description states that the feature enables you to “React to SMS messages with a Tapback, and a corresponding emoji reaction will appear on recipients’ Android devices.”
As Imel mentions, this is something that Google itself has had to hard code into its Messages app for Android phones. Prior to this measure, reactions added by iPhone/iMessage users (aka Tapbacks) would result in weird and unrepresentative text translations on Android phones.
Thanks to Google’s efforts, which it announced way back in January, these ‘Tapbacks’ are now represented by an appropriate emoji-like symbol in corner of messages within the Android Messages app.
As9to5Googlepoints out, this could be an innocent case of Apple’s marketing department conflating Google’s efforts with Apple’s new way of handling mixed iPhone and Android group chat messages in iOS 16.
Alternatively, it could just be another case of Apple trolling Google and Android users. At the beginning of September, Apple CEO Tim Cook told a questioner to “Buy your mom an iPhone” in response to a complaint over the way video messages were translated from iOS to Android.
Google, for its part, has been ramping up pressure on Apple to “fix texting” byadopting the RCS standard.
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Jon is a seasoned freelance writer who started covering games and apps in 2007 before expanding into smartphones and consumer tech, dabbling in lifestyle and media coverage along the way. Besides bein…
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Founded in 2003, Trusted Reviews exists to give our readers thorough, unbiased and independent advice on what to buy.
Today, we have millions of users a month from around the world, and assess more than 1,000 products a year.
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
