Now, Google’s Messages app will do what Apple won’t and translate iMessage tapbacks into emojis.
Google Translates
This feature concerns’tapbacks.'
iMessage users can long-press on a message and apply a quick emoji-style reaction.
Tom Werner / Getty Images
They can heart the message, add a thumbs up or down, and so on.
But these only work with iMessage.
The Android user will get a text description of the tapback.
Apple
It might tell you that someone “loved an image,” for example.
Apple
Now, Google translates these text messages into emojis.
But like all Google translations, this one loses a little something along the way.
Apple’s heart tapback is turned into a emoji.
An exclamation mark is turned into and Haha is translated as .
Should Apple Integrate SMS Better?
A recentWall Street Journal articlecomplained about the green bubbles that the Messages app assigns to non-iMessage messages.
It claimed that Apple was using this to pressure youngsters into buying iPhones to conform to social pressure.
But this is an iMessage difference, not an Android difference.
SMS messages from iPhones also turn green.
But should Apple better integrate SMS into its messaging app?
First of all, SMS has no support for emojis.
Its text all the way.
Second, no other messaging platform other than Apples and Googles Messages apps integrates SMS.
Not Signal, not Telegram, not Facebook, or anyone else.
Another barrier is that SMS is tied to a phone number.
Thats ok if youre on an iPhone and youre happy with sharing your phone number.
But you dont have a phone number on the Mac and iPad.
The real problem is that we still use SMS.
Its an old, outdated system thats unencrypted and tied to a phone number.
The only thing it has going for it is universality.
Like email, SMS is not tied to a single vendor.
Apple is probably right to spend as few resources as possible on supporting SMS and even RCS.
But theres one thing it should fix up ASAP: Tapback.
It has only six options.
Why cant you choose from all the emojis, like you could in messaging apps like Slack?
Get on that Apple, kindly.
Its probably not difficult.
