Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Google Messages has been working on a new animation for adding messages to your chats.
- Rather than rising straight from the bottom, this change has messages expanding from the corners.
Do the subtleties of a finely crafted user interface go wasted on you? Or are you the kind of app user who notices every last little icon color tweak and menu reorganization? While it can be easy to dismiss some of those smaller changes as inconsequential, in a well-executed UI, all those little elements play a part in contributing to a more cohesive, intuitive, and ultimately more productive and enjoyable app experience. And right now we’re seeing an update right along theses lines rolling out for Google Messages.
Last month, we were digging into one of Google’s latest updates for its Messages app when we discovered work towards a new look for adding messages to a conversation. The way the interface had been behaving, when you either entered a new message yourself, or received one from the person you were chatting with, that text bubble would pop straight up from the bottom of the screen. Here’s how that used to look:
With a little under-the-hood fiddling, though, we were able to get an early look at a slightly different animation for how new messages joined the chat, expanding from the corners of screen rather than popping straight up from the bottom.
It’s been a few weeks now since we first caught wind of this change, but it’s finally rolling out to Messages users (thanks, Miles). We can confirm now seeing the new incoming-message animation on our phones, and recorded the video above, chatting with Gemini in Messages for a quick demo. This is on version messages.android_20250225_00_RC00.phone.openbeta_dynamic
com.google.android.apps.messaging of the app.
Like we said, this adjustment is just the smallest thing in the world, but for as much as we use Messages, it’s still something we’re going to be seeing over and over, hundreds of times a day. And when you’re interacting with an app that much, even this kind of minor change can affect how we subconsciously perceive things.
Have you gotten this update yet in Messages on your phone? Did you even notice until we pointed it out? Share you support for this tweak or tell us we’re making a mountain out of a molehill down in the comments.
