Summary
- Despite earlier indications of phasing out Samsung Messages in favor of Google Messages, Samsung is actively developing new features for its native messaging app.
- Upcoming features in Samsung Messages, discovered in an APK teardown, include Birthday Reminders, live location sharing, emoji/sticker reactions, and more.
- The release timeline for these new features is unclear.
The future looked bleak for Samsung Messages when the South Korean tech giant started encouraging users to migrate to Google Messages last year. It’s one major sign that the company might quit the messaging space. While it didn’t entirely give up on it, it removed the Samsung Messages app from the Google Play Store and decided to pre-install Google Messages as the only text messaging app on its latest phones.
This is enough evidence for anyone to assume that the clock may be ticking for Samsung Messages. While it may cease to exist sometime in the future, it doesn’t look like Samsung is ready to turn its back on its text messaging service just yet. It has big plans for the Samsung Messages app, and they’re no longer a secret, courtesy of Android Authority‘s APK teardown.
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Samsung’s plan isn’t anything groundbreaking. In fact, it has taken a lot of inspiration from Google Messages to enhance its text messaging app. One of them is Birthday Reminders. As you may be aware, the Birthday Reminders feature in Google Messages notifies users to send wishes when there is a birthday of a saved contact. This feature has now been spotted in a new version of the Samsung Messages app in a leaked One UI 8 firmware.
birthday_conversation_description;It's %s's birthday today!
Let them know that you're thinking of them.
birthday_description_double;It's %1$s and %2$s's birthday! Send something special?
birthday_description_single;It's %s's birthday today! Send something special?
Another Google Messages-inspired feature Samsung was spotted working on is support for live location tracking. This will allow you to share your location with your contacts. Additionally, you’ll have the option to stop sharing your live location at any moment and be able to reject an invitation to share your location.
While live location sharing is useful, the code snippets suggest that the feature might be linked to the Samsung Find app and may also require you to log in with your Samsung account. This isn’t available in Google Messages, as the Mountain View tech firm is still working on it.
chatting_plus_tips_title_10">Share your location in a snap;
chatting_plus_tips_message_10;Easily share your location with loved ones without
copying the address.
install_find_body_receiver;To view %s's location, you need to install the Samsung
Find app.
install_find_body_sender;To share your location, you need to install the
Samsung Find app.
install_find_title;Install %s?
sign_in_samsung_account_body_receiver;To view %s's location, you need to sign in to
your Samsung account.
share_location_inbox_accept;%s’s location is visible.
share_location_inbox_declined;You declined to view %s’s location.
share_location_inbox_stop;%s stopped sharing their location with you.
share_location_inbox_text_in_card;%s shared their location with you.
share_location_infinity_time;Indefinitely<
share_location_outbox_accept;%s can now see your location.
share_location_outbox_declined;%s declined to view your location.
share_location_outbox_stop;You stopped sharing your location with %s.
Moreover, Samsung is also planning to expand the Now Brief’s capability to include notifying users about suspicious, malicious, and blocked messages. This will likely function when you use Samsung Messages as the default messaging app. Either way, you shouldn’t respond to those messages, but for everyone else, you might be able to spice up the conversation with the emoji and sticker reactions in Samsung Messages. The Google Messages app already has emoji and sticker support, and now Samsung is working towards adding it to its text messaging app.
Unfortunately, there is no clarity about when these features will be available for users. But since these features were spotted in a new Samsung Messages app in One UI 8, we might see them in action in one of the public beta builds, which is expected to be released this month.
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