Google Introduces Chat In Android Phones To Counter Apple iMessage

RCS (Rich Communication Services) is the next-generation messaging standard having expanded character set, messaging size overcoming SMS and MMS. With SMS text messaging, a user could only know the whether the message is sent or not, but with RCS, he could know the ongoing message status like sent, delivered, read, responded as similar to Facebook, Whatsapp, iMessage etc...and also the other needed features high-resolution photos, location sharing, group chats.

Google already has four messaging apps such as Hangouts, Allo, Android Messages, Duo. Although Google Duo is meant for high definition video chatting doing good in the market. Mostly, all of the Google's messaging apps had similar looks. Apple's iMessage does well because Apple controls other messaging apps in its OS, but Android is not doing so.

Now, Google plans to introduce "Chat'' based on RCS standard in Android smartphones that will support the modern messaging needs as stated above. The difference between Chat and Apple's iMessage is that the data is not encrypted in Chat messages. So far, 55 different carriers, 11 OEMs have agreed to support RCS Standard. Currently, Chat is supported by 2 OS providers.

 Initially, the feature shall be working through Android Messages app of Google. i.e., an Android Messages user when sends a message to a Chat user, the RCS message shall be delivered as it is. If the receiver is not using Chat, it will be delivered as SMS to him.

Anil Sabharwal, the brain behind the Chat product from Google said that the company would pause investment in Allo since it has not fulfilled the expectation we had and switching over to new messaging service Chat that will be further updated with features much needed to the modern messaging world. Google Allo allows the mobile users to send messages instantly to people using web browsers like Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Opera.