Copyright PhoneArena
A new report shows Google Messages is testing yet another user interface tweak, this time for the text field. It’s just the latest in a long line of changes that has us wondering if Google's quest for features is making its main messaging app a bit of a mess. What happened with Google Messages? It seems like every other week, we're seeing a new feature or UI change being tested for Google Messages. This time around, a new report highlights that Google is ready to swap the famous hamburger menu for a context menu when selecting a message. This might seem like a tiny, insignificant change, but it’s part of a much larger, more important story: the slow and steady "feature creep" that is transforming Google Messages from a simple texting app into a complex, all-in-one communication hub. To understand why this is happening, you have to look at all the other features Google has been stuffing into the app recently. A quick rundown of recent Messages updates Why is this feature-creep a big deal? This all boils down to a central identity crisis for Google Messages. What is this app supposed to be? Recommended Stories For years, it was the clean, simple, stock-Android default. It was the "iMessage for Android" in spirit—a straightforward app that handled your SMS and its modern successor, RCS, without any fuss. It was reliable, clean, and fast. But Google isn't just competing with iMessage, which remains a locked-down, (mostly) simple experience on Apple devices. Google's real global competitor, if we're talking Android, is WhatsApp. WhatsApp is the king of features. It's a "super-app" in many countries, handling not just messages but also video calls, status updates (like Instagram Stories), business payments, and massive community "Channels." It is, by every definition, a very crowded app. But it's also what hundreds of millions of users are accustomed to. Google is in a tough spot. To make RCS a viable competitor to iMessage and WhatsApp, it needs feature parity. It needs profiles, it needs better attachment options, it needs fun reactions, and it needs AI bells and whistles. The "good" side of this is that Google is actively developing its platform and giving users more tools. The "bad" side is that in chasing this goal, Google Messages is losing its own identity. It's becoming heavy. You can see the complaints online: the app feels slower, settings are buried, and simple actions now require more taps. Many users just want an app that sends and receives texts quickly, not one that asks them to set up a profile or gets in the way with AI suggestions. By trying to be both the simple, invisible default messaging app for carriers and a feature-rich, over-the-top messenger, Google Messages is becoming a jack of all trades and a master of none. Do you feel that Google Messages is losing its way by adding too much to the UI? Yes No Yes 0% No 0% Is Google Messages losing its way? So, to answer the initial question: no, it’s not just you. Google Messages is absolutely becoming crowded, and it often feels confusing. Look, as someone who uses this app every single day, I appreciate the new tools and I actually like them, but I'd be lying if I didn't find it confusing sometimes, especially when —because of Google's staged rollouts — many features roll out to some users sometimes a whole month before everyone else gets them. It's confusing when not everyone has the same feature set available at the same time.
