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Help Messages on Android: Samsung vs. Google. Which one and why?

A

AppleUser

Android Enthusiast
On my Samsung Android, one can choose Samsung Messages (three dots in icon) or Google Messages, both labelled as "Messages". Which one do you use and why? Is there a table or list which compares and contrasts these two apps?
 
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On my Samsung Note20 Ultra it only had the stock Samsung Messages app. So that's what I use, and never given any thought to using another app for SMS. Although sending SMS it not something I do very often, and the only SMS I receive a things like bank notifications, carrier notifications, extreme weather warnings, etc.
 
PitCarver said:
Personally, I use Textra, and have for as long as I've been using Android.
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Thank you. Does it combine the best of Google & Samsung? Can you switch among the three? Samsung doesn't do emoji, moving gifs, or instant reactions (or whatever it's called when one attaches a reaction to the sender's message) ?
 
i use google's messaging app. not sure why to be honest. its been a habit since my very first android phone, HTC Hero. just kind of stuck with it. they both seem to be the same as far as performance.
 
AppleUser said:
Thank you. Does it combine the best of Google & Samsung? Can you switch among the three? Samsung doesn't do emoji, moving gifs, or instant reactions (or whatever it's called when one attaches a reaction to the sender's message) ?
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Textra allows you to customise the appearance of the app and conversations, and is faster than most message apps (not an issue if your phone is fast enough, but on older hardware it can make a difference). You can switch amongst any number of SMS apps by just changing which is the default app. However, Textra won't support reactions, or GIFs, or "message read" indicators. And neither will any other SMS app apart from Google Messages or Samsung Messages.

Why is this?

The answer is that Google messages mixes 2 message standards, the original SMS/MMS (supported by all networks and all phone operating systems) and RCS (which Google used to call "chat features", not sure whether they still do). RCS was originally developed as a standard replacement to SMS to add the features that more sophisticated messaging apps had (WhatsApp, Signal, iMessage, etc), but because that would have required investment by the networks few were prepared to pay for that and so it never took off. A few years back Google, wanting a "built-in" rival to iMessage, decided to set up an RCS service themselves, i.e. RCS basically became a proprietary rich message service run by Google, just like iMessage is by Apple, or WhatsApp by Meta. And for some reason they don't want others to write RCS apps, so they have never realeased the APIs, which is why no other message app supports this. The one exception is Samsung; I can only speculate as to why they were given the APIs, but my guess is that Google needed an RCS-supporting app to be the default on Android phones for it to take off, Samsung were at the time the biggest Android manufacturer and were installing their own message app instead of Google's, so if RCS wasn't going to fail Google needed to let Samsung add it to their app. But that's only a guess: unsurprisingly Google have never been clear on why Samsung get access or why nobody else does.

So basically if you use those features then your choice is Google Messages or Samsung Messages: I personally find them rather similar, so I'd say just pick whichever you like best.

(I actually don't use RCS, because it has the same problem as iMessage in reverse: the features aren't well supported on iPhones, so if your group includes people who use different platforms it works better to use an app that works on both platforms, such as WhatsApp or Signal. For a long time there was no RCS support on iPhones, there is now but it's still only on some networks and so the problem can still remain - plus all of my groups have established cross-platform solutions so even if it started to work for everyone we'd have little incentive to change.)
 
Hadron said:
Textra allows you to customise the appearance of the app and conversations, and is faster than most message apps (not an issue if your phone is fast enough, but on older hardware it can make a difference). You can switch amongst any number of SMS apps by just changing which is the default app. However, Textra won't support reactions, or GIFs, or "message read" indicators. And neither will any other SMS app apart from Google Messages or Samsung Messages.

Why is this?

The answer is that Google messages mixes 2 message standards, the original SMS/MMS (supported by all networks and all phone operating systems) and RCS (which Google used to call "chat features", not sure whether they still do). RCS was originally developed as a standard replacement to SMS to add the features that more sophisticated messaging apps had (WhatsApp, Signal, iMessage, etc), but because that would have required investment by the networks few were prepared to pay for that and so it never took off. A few years back Google, wanting a "built-in" rival to iMessage, decided to set up an RCS service themselves, i.e. RCS basically became a proprietary rich message service run by Google, just like iMessage is by Apple, or WhatsApp by Meta. And for some reason they don't want others to write RCS apps, so they have never realeased the APIs, which is why no other message app supports this. The one exception is Samsung; I can only speculate as to why they were given the APIs, but my guess is that Google needed an RCS-supporting app to be the default on Android phones for it to take off, Samsung were at the time the biggest Android manufacturer and were installing their own message app instead of Google's, so if RCS wasn't going to fail Google needed to let Samsung add it to their app. But that's only a guess: unsurprisingly Google have never been clear on why Samsung get access or why nobody else does.

So basically if you use those features then your choice is Google Messages or Samsung Messages: I personally find them rather similar, so I'd say just pick whichever you like best.

(I actually don't use RCS, because it has the same problem as iMessage in reverse: the features aren't well supported on iPhones, so if your group includes people who use different platforms it works better to use an app that works on both platforms, such as WhatsApp or Signal. For a long time there was no RCS support on iPhones, there is now but it's still only on some networks and so the problem can still remain - plus all of my groups have established cross-platform solutions so even if it started to work for everyone we'd have little incentive to change.)
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(I too have vouced out of google messaging services and Samsung too)

I use Next Sms by Handcet more, customizations rule, easy download.
 
Dannydet said:
Google messages, I've used Textra but not impressed with the results. Messages just does it better. Without all of the fluff.
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Actually I have a problem with Messages on my phone: the colours it chooses are very low contrast, which for me is a both a usability and an aesthetic fail.

This is because of the way it uses my system colour palette and theme to set the app colours. It's actually perfectly fine on my wife's phone, but doesn't work on mine. It is better in light mode, and can be improved a bit by changing the phone's palette, but I prefer dark mode and don't want to re-theme my whole phone just for one app, so in practice it just doesn't work for me.
 
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