Messages for Web appears on messages.google.com for the first time

Back in December, we reported about a commit in Chromium that would eventually direct users to a web interface for Android’s default SMS app: Messages. The new commit would direct users to a new and previously unused address: messages.google.com.

A Reddit user first discovered this happening when they were experiencing issues with the Messages for Web interface. Some users on the thread were experiencing the same issue but were soon redirected to the new web address. If you are redirected back to the Android.com domain, you can head directly to: https://messages.google.com/web/authentication.

New to the Google.com version of Messages for Web are RCS settings, which can now be accessed from the interface, enabling the new RCS chat features. Of course, in order for this to work, you’ll need to be on a carrier that supports RCS and a device that supports the same carrier on RCS on the latest version of the Messages app.

RCS is still on a slow rollout, but independently of how far along RCS is, the change furthers the idea that Google is phasing away the use of the word “Android” in any of the features, apps, and services offered on the Android OS. At Google I/O last year, the word wasn’t even mentioned once.

We’ve previously speculated that Android might be renamed to something else as to push the “Google”

name over Android. We’ve seen this with Android Wear (changed to Wear OS), Android Pay (changed to Google Pay), Android Market (changed to Google Play), and even Android Messages dropped the “Android” part and is just “Messages”.

Anyway, if Google is planning some kind of rebranding, we might start hearing hints about it at this year’s Google I/O.

Via | Via Reddit