Android 12 isn’t expected to be ready for its official release until later this year, but in the meantime, Google on Tuesday published a public post announcing a couple of new features coming to all android devices globally.
Google says the new features will help improve accessibility, make Assistant shortcuts more useful, among other things.
One of the new features includes end-to-end encryption for RCS chats sent through messages. The feature rolled out in beta last November and is now officially available.
RCS (Rich Communication Service) is an upgraded version of SMS available in the Google messaging app. It’s very much like WhatsApp where live chats can take place and supports multi-media transfer. All you need is a data connection and you are good to go.
Another not so complicated feature Google released is starred chats. The feature helps to keep track of some of the important messages and easily find them later without having to scroll through all your conversations, which is pretty handy.
Additionally, starting this July, contextual emoji suggestions will be available on Gboard. The Emoji Kitchen helps users discover the perfect emoji mashup that goes with a typed message.
And last but not least, Google Assistant will now take you to specific places inside apps. So, you can tell it stuff like “hey Google pay my Capital One bill” to jump right into the app and complete that task, which is quite neat. For a full list of what’s possible, say “Hey Google, shortcuts”.
For more in-depth information on some of the other features, check out Google’s blog post to learn more.
Alfred Gitonga is a passionate tech news writer with a deep interest in smartphones and related technologies. He is a staff writer at Mobitrends.co.ke.
