Google is working on a new feature for its Messages app to compete with the likes of Telegram and WhatsApp in the IM space. The company has been trying to make RCS (Rich Communication Services) more appealing to the users with features like support for HDR images. However, it looks Google is working on more features for the messages app.
According to TheSpAndroid, the latest version of Google Messages beta app that was released in November had traces of a message editing feature. The APK teardown revealed four new flags that were added to Google Messages codebase:
bugle.enable_edit_ui
bugle.load_edit_history
bugle.process_outgoing_edits
bugle.process_incoming_edits
The first flag suggests that there will be UI to edit the messages while the second flag will show the edit history. The third and fourth flags define how the edits are sent or received by the app. Furthermore, there were references to a creation of a new database which will allow meta data to be stored. This will include data such as edit history, edit timestamp and more.
While, message editing is not a native feature of RCS as defined by the GSMA association, that should not be a big huddle for Google. A couple of years back, Google implemented end-to-end encryption in Google Messages even though end-to-end encryption is not a part of RCS standard.
Currently, there is no way of knowing when the feature will make it to the Android users. Unfortunately for now, the flags don't do anything on the beta build of the app as the codebase is not complete. Also, there is a chance that Google may scrap the feature altogether if it is not feasible for the company. However, message editing would be a welcomed feature especially since Google is already playing catch-up with the likes of WhatsApp who already allow users to edit messages within a certain time frame.
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