Google has announced that its instant messaging app, Google Messages, based on RCS (Rich Communication Services), has achieved 1 billion monthly active users. To celebrate this milestone, Google has released several new features for the native messaging app on Android phones. These features include customizable chat bubble colors and backgrounds, similar to Apple's iMessage. Users can now set the chat bubble color to blue, making Google Messages resemble iMessage when iPhone users communicate with each other. Additionally, users can customize the color of each conversation and change the default white background to a different color, such as light blue. Another new feature, called Photomoji, allows users to create unique reaction emojis from their phone's gallery photos. This feature is similar to what Apple offers in iOS 17, where users can turn photo snippets into stickers for use in iMessage conversations. In Google Messages, the Photomoji feature can be found under the new "Create" menu when tapping the chat bubble. By selecting a photo from their gallery, the built-in AI model by Google automatically detects the subject of the image and removes the background. Once the user clicks the "send" icon, the sent reaction emoji will appear in the bottom right corner of the chat bubble. Interestingly, these custom-made reaction emojis are saved in a dedicated tab for reuse by the user and their friends in group chats. Furthermore, Google Messages introduces Profiles, a feature similar to Contact Poster in iOS 17. It allows users to create a brief personal information card with their name and picture. This card can appear on the recipient's phone screen when they receive a call. The profile card includes a profile picture, background, and username. Lastly, Google Messages now includes animation effects for specific words or phrases entered by users. For example, typing "I Love You" triggers a heart animation that fills the screen, while sending the phrase "It's snowing" displays a snow animation.