‘Can’t comprehend how this wasn’t 10 years ago’ say Android owners after huge free Google upgrade revealed
ANDROID phones may soon get the ability to edit their text messages.
Details of a surprise free upgrade to Google Messages have been leaked online.
That's the default messaging app on Android phones, which Google says over 1 billion people use.
Apple's own alternative – iMessage on Messages – introduced the ability to edit texts in iOS 16.
But Google Messages still doesn't offer the feature, even though clues to its development have been spotted in test versions of the app previously.
Now gadget blog TheSpAndroid has uncovered more evidence of a message-editing feature in the beta-test version of Google Messages.
It works by letting you long-press on a chat, prompting a pencil icon to appear.
If you tap the pencil icon then a text-editing box appears that's titled "Editing Message."
Then you can hit send to make an edit to the message.
Of course, there's no telling exactly when – or in what form – this feature will arrive.
But Android fans gave hundreds of upvotes to a Reddit thread about the leak.
One user who replied in the thread cheered, "That's a great idea!"
But some users complained about it taking too long to arrive.
"Still can't comprehend how this hasn't been done like minimum 10 years ago," one commenter replied.
"Google could have cornered the entire world bar US with it, as that's what WhatsApp is basically. Billion users, oh well."
Another joked that it would probably be delayed, writing, "Looking forward to it in the next few years when it rolls out to a few people."
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The leak comes just a few months after Google unveiled a suite of new features for Messages.
Google revealed the features to celebrate 1 billion people using its encrypted RCS chats inside Google Messages.
One of the new features was Photomoji, which lets you turn your photos into message reactions.
Another was Voice Moods, which lets you tack on emoji-style animations to your voice notes.
Google also unveiled Screen Effects that bring your messages to life by animating the words.
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New Custom Bubbles lets you change the bubble color and background of your chats depending on who you're talking to.
You can also send animated emoji, and create custom chat profiles with a name and image.