Sorry Google, but Messages still has a long way to go to become the Android texting king

Google spent the last few years on a massive campaign to make their native messaging app, Google Messages, the indisputable champion for Android users everywhere. With that, the company has been steadily rolling out a string of updates to their app to try to make texting more modern and feature-rich. This has all been in hopes that you will use their app exclusively and not bother to install a third-party messaging app. But at times, giving an app a brand new coat of paint, as it were, is not necessarily going to change user behavior.

Adding a familiar trick to the chat window

According to a new report, Google is bringing real-time location sharing directly into the Google Messages app. This means that you will not have to open up Google Maps, copy a URL, and then paste it into a text to a friend to share your location. This will all be done directly within the active text conversation.

This new feature is being made possible through an addition to the Rich Communication Services standard, or RCS, which is the underlying technology that Google has been pushing to replace standard SMS text messaging altogether. RCS is what powers features like typing indicators, read receipts, and high-quality photo sharing, but it is also going to enable location tracking between Android devices.

It is for sure a great and welcome feature. However, I must say that, while I am pleased to see it feature added to Google Messages, I think that Google Messages still has a long way to go to catch up to other messasing apps — in particular, the big boy of messaging: WhatsApp.

Playing catch-up in a very crowded room

I think this is a really big deal for anyone who currently uses Google Messages as their primary means of communication. It is a level of added convenience that, in this day and age of smartphones, people have come to expect as a standard. If you have kids who walk home from school, or if you're trying to locate your friends in a massive outdoor concert, this feature is incredibly useful.

But this is also a reminder of a larger truth with this platform in general. Google is still playing catch-up when compared to other, much larger and more established messaging platforms such as WhatsApp and Apple's iMessage, which have had this feature for a very, very long time. For them, tracking a friend's location on a map is nothing new.

The current landscape of messaging is a very, very crowded space, and WhatsApp is currently sitting atop a user base of a staggering number of people around the globe because of its reliability and cross-platform functionality. It works exactly the same on an Android phone as it does on an iPhone, and while Google is certainly closing this gap with their constant updates, they're trying to get people to jump from a service that's already deeply embedded in their daily lives to a competitor's service. At the end of the day, people will use whatever service their friends and families are currently using.

The missing puzzle piece for real texting freedom

If we look at this objectively, I have to hand it to Google Messages, as it has become a really solid app in the last few years. It has a clean interface, it has handled spam messages brilliantly, and the integration with the web has made typing messages at your desk an absolute breeze. And to top it off, the inclusion of real-time location sharing is another check in the positive column.

However, there is a fundamental problem that prevents me from giving this app all of its flowers. The glaring issue that needs to be addressed in this app is the handling of your message history when it comes to switching devices.

If you are the type of user that likes to get the latest and greatest smartphones, or perhaps have a secondary phone for work, then you would be aware of what I'm talking about. Currently, there isn't a way to simply download this app, sign in to your account, and then tap a button to sync your previous conversations. You have to wipe your phone clean and do a system restore to get your message history working properly. This isn't something that's in line with what the competition has to offer.

With WhatsApp, you can securely back up your messages to the cloud and then download your history to any device in a matter of minutes. And to top it off, this works even when moving from Android to iOS. Apple has this down pat with Google Drive and iCloud integration, ensuring that your messages are synced seamlessly to whatever device you're currently using.

There have been some rumors and leaks floating around about a dedicated restore option being developed within Google’s app, but nothing has been set in stone just yet. What’s even more frustrating about all of this is that the information is already available in the cloud, as we can currently back up our message history within a cloud-based storage solution.

What’s frustrating about all of this, however, is that there isn’t a simple button within the app to retrieve specific data from our account. I want to say that things are a little more streamlined if you’re sticking within the Pixel line of devices, however, I think it’s safe to say that if you take your SIM card out of a Pixel device and insert it into a Samsung or Motorola device, things don’t work quite as well.

While it takes more than just matching features to overthrow a king, I do agree that Google Messages is going in the right direction. It's just not there yet. I would love to use a single app for all of my communications, and while I think Google Messages is a great app, I think there’s a lot of work to be done within its foundational elements of data portability.