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Google has boosted its first-party messaging app with the help of RCS (Rich Communication Services) for a long time now. RCS, being an alternative to the traditional SMS service allows a better messaging experience. But, the company hasn’t made the most of it yet as users have complained about over-compressed images sent via Google Messages.
The messaging protocol lets the default messaging app replicate the experience of social apps like WhatsApp. It allows users to send high-quality photos, videos, GIFs, and other various types of files. RCS also brings end-to-end encryption to the table and offers other features like read receipts and typing indicators.
Google Messages’ users may soon be able to send high-quality images over RCS
Although RCS is capable of all the great things discussed above, its current implementation in the Google Messages app falls short in one major area. Despite having RCS capabilities, Google Messages heavily compresses the image quality, barring users from sending high-quality images. This eventually spoils the entire messaging experience at large. However, Google is reportedly working to fix it.
Yesterday, Android Authority posted a detailed APK teardown report of the latest Google Messages app hinting at a welcoming change. Per the report, Google is working on raising the image compression ceiling for a better texting experience.
The publication spotted code strings which could allow you to send images up to 8,192 pixels wide and tall, with the JPEG quality set to 100. However, if you enable the “Send Photos Faster” option, the images will compress to 2,408 pixels reducing JPEG quality to 90. Currently, enabling this option compresses images to 1,600 pixels while heavily tampering with its details.
Oddly, Google implemented this limitation, it doesn’t have to do anything with RCS
It is worth noting that this limitation is not associated with RCS. Other messaging apps such as Samsung Messages also utilize RCS protocol but don’t have this sort of limitation. If you have to blame anyone for this, it has to be Google. If Google chooses to proceed with this change, you can see a visible difference in the image quality you would send over the Google Messages app.
There is no exact reason why Google decided to put this sort of odd limitation. But, it is now changing the same for good. However, we can’t rule out the possibility that Apple’s decision to officially bring RCS support to the Messages app with iOS 18 could have influenced this change. After all, it is Google who always called out Apple to support RCS from time to time.
More recently, GSMA announced a major update for RCS which could bridge the messaging gap between Android and iPhone. Also, the fact that Google is fixing the image compression limitation, Android users would cherish cross-device texting and sharing high-quality images with their friends having iPhones. All that said, there’s no word on the rollout timeline yet.