Android Users Can Finally Turn IMessage Reactions Into Emojis
While there are some who will fight tooth and nail to say whether iOS or Android is the best smartphone platform, most of us can get along just fine, green bubbles be damned. What’s not fun is when iMessage reactions from iPhone (called Tapbacks) come to Android in full text. What will appear on the iPhone when a thumbs up appears as “Jake Peterson: Liked” Want to go to the movies? “” Not ideal.
That’s why it’s such great news that Google is rolling out a solution to this problem; The new feature allows you to display all iMessage reactions as emojis in Google Messages rather than as an annoying block of text that doesn’t really convey the point.
What’s interesting is that despite the fact that there are emojis for almost every character Apple uses to react, Google has chosen to use emojis rather than simpler icons. “Like” and “dislike” reactions are still perceived as “thumbs up” and “thumbs down”, respectively, but everything else is different:
- Love Heart on iOS is the Smiling Face with Heart Eyes emoji on Android.
- “Question”, the question mark on iOS, is the Pensive Face emoji on Android.
- The “Underline” exclamation mark on iOS is the “Open Mouth Face” emoji on Android.
- “Laughter”, the “Haha” icon on iOS, is the “Face with Tears of Joy” emoji on Android.
True, there aren’t many non-emoji equivalents for “Haha,” but other reactions may not convey the same message as your iPhone friend. They may like the message because it’s good news, and the sight of “Smiling face with heart eyes” may give the wrong idea. However, I will agree with the wrong idea of annoying text reactions any day.
However, this step only applies to Android. Unfortunately, even with this new feature, those of us on iOS will still see reactions written in group chats with Android users. Fixing this is now up to Apple, so in short, don’t hold your breath.
How to Turn iMessage Reactions into Emoticons on Android
Google has not yet rolled out this feature to everyone. Instead, you will need to sign up for the Google Messages beta, but joining this beta is very easy. Go to the Play Store, then search for Google Messages. Make sure you have the app (if not, download it), then on the same page, scroll down to “Join Beta”. Click “Join”, then click “Join” again in the pop-up window.
Adding your account to the beta may take a few minutes. As soon as you log in, you should start to see that reactions are enabled by default. If not, you can check the ” Show iPhone reactions as emoji ” option in Messages by tapping the three dots in the top right corner and then Settings > Advanced .