Google Announces ‘Chat’, Its New Texting Experience For Android

This one, according to reports, will just be called “Chat”. Using a bot the hairdresser could automatically respond to you and book your appointment. How does it stack up on security? This is because unlike Apple, they do not have a unified platform in the form of iMessages, but that is expected to change.

It is primarily being built by carriers across the world as a successor to SMS, with modern functionalities, such as read receipts, typing indicators, group texts and full-resolution images and video, and group texts. Once your phone maker or carrier adopts RCS, your Android messaging should automatically get an upgrade, allowing for chat features you might now find in WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, or Google’s Allo.

Google has announced a re-calibration of its efforts in the messaging space, pulling engineers off Allo and onto a new communications initiative called Chat. If this is an issue, you’ll have to stick to other messaging apps, but for many, it will be a non-issue. If the person you’re texting doesn’t have Chat on their handset, the message will “revert back to SMS”.

Google is working on another competitor for iMessage – but wait before you roll your eyes and close this story, because the search company isn’t just making another Android app.

However, the new messaging service doesn’t offer encrypted messages and mobile operators will have to choose whether or not to enable the service. Referred to as Rich Communication Services (RCS), this will basically be the new standard that is meant to replace basic SMS texting services.

However, because Chat uses “Universal Profile for Rich Communication Services”, for it to work properly Google will have to rely on the telecom operators. This would bring similar messaging to all.

Unfortunately, Chat itself won’t support end-to-end encryption, so it’s about as secure as SMS.

55 carriers, 11 producers, and two working operating system creators (Google and Microsoft) have joined to Chat up until this point.

Google told The Verge that the Chat services will be enabled for users on a carrier-by-carrier basis.

As always, the hold-up will be courtesy of the mobile carriers.

As for when that happens, Google is expecting that many carriers will follow through this year (2018), but admits that some might dawdle. We hope to see the new Chat app very soon in the market. By supporting RCS-based Chat, Apple could provide its users with iMessage-like features no matter who they’re talking to. We don’t know anything about iOS compatibility with Chats, as Apple has been silent about it. “They’re not interested in going to a different place to use SMS”, Sabharwal said, according to The Verge.