To say that Google's had trouble creating and maintaining a messaging service to truly compete with iMessage would be the understatement of the century. We've seen countless attempts in the form of Hangouts, Allo, Duo, Android Messages, and others trying to offer the same experience that attracts and holds so many people within Apple's ecosystem. Each has brought good ideas to the table, but Google's yet to unify these ideas under one single umbrella to make things simple for the end-user. Thankfully, it looks like this will soon be changing. A recent teardown an upcoming version of Android Messages gave us a look at things Google has planned for a future release, and if all of this ends up going the way it looks like it will, we may soon have the iMessage competitor on Android that we've been waiting for for so many years. Verizon is offering the Pixel 4a for just $10/mo on new Unlimited lines I know we've been teased and disappointed by Google in the past, but this is why going all out with Android Messages is Google's best chance yet at finally delivering a messaging solution that people will want and use. The things that Android Messages already does right

Asking your friends and family members to download an app just so you can talk to them is a conversation no one wants to have, but Android Messages is different. The app's been around on the Play Store for some time, and even if you download it to replace the default SMS app on a phone like the Galaxy S8, all of your existing conversations are still there. More importantly, some manufacturers already choose to use Android Messages as the default SMS app for their phones. Motorola, Nokia, Huawei, Sony, ZTE, and the Pixel phones (obviously) already do this, and Google's constantly trying to convince more and more OEMs to follow suit. The combination of this and Android Messages use of SMS makes it far more accessible than anything Google's done in the past, and while SMS as a platform has its limitations, Google seems to have found a workaround for this (more on that later). More: Huawei joins RCS movement by using Android Messages as default texting app Along with your basic text and emoji messaging, Android Messages can already do quite a lot. While it may not be as fully-fledged as something like WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger, you can use it to send a variety of animated stickers, photos, voice messages, your current location, and even money through Google Wallet (soon to be Google Pay). Again, all of this is being done through SMS. If you're on Project Fi, you can even use Android Messages to send Smart Replies — automatically generated responses that populate based on the context of your conversations. This is something that Google first introduced with Allo, and it's yet another step in turning standard SMS conversations into more feature-rich ones that users have access to out-of-the-box. What Google's got in the pipeline In its current form, Android Messages is a powerful texting app with a few fun features, clean design, and easy-to-use interface. Version 2.9 of the app was recently released to the Play Store, and while it doesn't bring a lot of user-facing changes, strings of code within the update reveal that Google has a lot of exciting things in the works. Here's a breakdown of what we can expect in the near future: