A few weeks after announcing Gemini AI was coming to Google Messages, Google’s text messaging app, which has over 1 billion monthly active users on Android, just got a little more fun.
Google Messages users can now respond to text messages with 10 different animated emojis that not only appear as a response, but send a corresponding animation. Google first announced Reaction Effects in November 2023, but the feature only recently rolled out widely.
Each of the ten reactions has a different effect:
- Thumbs up
- Thumbs down
- Heart
- Tears
- Laugh
- party popper
- Tears of joy
- Cries of laughter
- Surprise or shock
- Pooh
- Angry or enraged (the last two send the same animation).
Hundreds of other emojis are available to respond to, but these 10 selected emojis come with animations.
- By choosing thumbs up, a trio of animated hands appear and make the thumbs up sign.
- By choosing the heart, a heart moves above the message
- By choosing the crying effect, an umbrella and raindrops appear.
And so on.
Tap the answer “poop” and you’ll be greeted by what appears to be a chocolate ice cream cone turned upside down and quickly surrounded by flies, indicating that…it wasn’t ice cream.
My favorite effect is the “tears of joy/crys of laughter” effect which makes two inflatable tubes appear waving to celebrate the event.
How to use reaction emojis?
To use this feature, long press on a text message (SMS or RCS) and the available emojis will appear. Choose one of the 10 available emojis and your reaction and corresponding animation will be sent.
Unfortunately, this feature only works between Google Messages and Google Messages, which means you can’t include your iPhone friends. If the recipient doesn’t have Google Messages, they will see the emoji but not the effect.
If you’re not interested in reaction effects, you’re out of luck for now: the feature can’t be disabled.
Source: “ZDNet.com”