Here’s one way Google Messages might fix its image compression problem (APK teardown)

Hadlee Simons / Android Authority

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.

An APK teardown helps predict features that may arrive on a service in the future based on work-in-progress code. However, it is possible that such predicted features may not make it to a public release.

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.

The first new thing we’ve noticed is that in the latest Messages beta, that Send photos faster option no longer appears to be present for many users. That going away on its own doesn’t fix anything here, but with these new releases we’ve also been able to manipulate the app into transferring images without messing with their compression.

Since this requires some under-the-hood fiddling, we’re not even sure if this is going to be one of the options Google might ultimately implement — and if you remember the last time we checked out progress, the best option we found still had Google downsizing and recompressing pics — just not nearly as severely as it does now.

But based on what we’ve found, this no-recompression option could theoretically emerge in a future Messages build, should Google’s development continue down the right path. For now, at least, we’ll keep on the lookout for Messages implementing any user-facing changes here.

Got a tip? Talk to us! Email our staff at [email protected]. You can stay anonymous or get credit for the info, it's your choice.