Google Messages and Photos may integrate to fix the worst thing about MMS

Source: Jeramy Johnson / Android Central

Anyone who sends a video over MMS would know that the result can be hit or miss, and it’s not great even when it’s a hit. However, according to code found in the latest beta version, Google seems to be preparing to fix that by integrating Google Photos into its Messages app.

9to5Google dove into Google Messages version 10.4 APK and found a new setting that would allow users to “share sharper clarity video in text (SMS/MMS).” The setting is marked under Google Photos, meaning the apps would somehow integrate to share high-quality videos.

It’s unclear how this feature would work whenever Google rolls it out, but it could potentially create a link for the video file that’s shared to the recipient, who could then open it to view the media. This approach would be similar to Samsung’s Messages app, which has a feature that sends media through a link using Samsung Cloud.

Google could potentially take the feature a step further and somehow allow the media to play natively in the Messages app. For now, its implementation remains a mystery until the feature rolls out.

That said, it sounds like the new feature would be quite helpful, considering sending video over MMS is a hot mess. Of course, there’s always RCS which sends high-quality media across the best Android phones.

With Google Messages already the default on devices like the Pixel 6 on phones from Samsung and others, RCS is becoming much more widespread, making the messaging experience between devices much better.

However, given the lack of support from iOS, this new feature sounds like it can address one pain point with sending media between the two operating systems and other Android phones that don’t have RCS enabled.