Here’s one way Google Messages might fix its image compression problem (APK teardown)
Not recompressing images at all sounds like a best-case scenario.
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- We’ve been able to use Google Messages to send images via RCS without recompression.
- The latest Messages betas have been removing the Send photos faster toggle.
- It’s still too early to say if this option will ever formally arrive, or if we’ll just get better compression settings.
Google Messages represents the future of person-to-person communication on Android, with Samsung beginning to direct new users over to Google’s app. In a lot of ways, that’s a very, very good move, as Google’s implementation of RCS looks like the best, most robust around. But for as much as we like there, it also has its flaws, and one we’ve been talking about quite a bit lately has been the way it handles image attachments, subjecting them to unnecessary over-compression — and really just making Android look bad compared to Apple. We’ve already seen some signs that Google’s been working to remedy this, and while we still can’t say if and when those efforts might go live, in some recent tests we were able to use Google Messages to send an image over RCS without recompression.
Your phone’s got a high-res camera, a big, detailed screen, and odds are you’re on an unlimited data plan. Add those up, and using RCS to send big, beautiful pictures makes perfect sense. But so far, Messages has been severely reducing the resolution of pictures sent through it, and dialing up compression by 90% or more. Flipping the Send photos faster toggle barely changes anything, and we’ve been craving proper control over image transmission options.
