Google’s Messenger SMS/MMS app has been pretty well received since its debut last year (including finding a home on my own phone), and this week it received a small update to 1.2.036 that fixed some bugs and added a couple of notable features.
Firstly, you can now send and receive animated GIFs. This feature shouldn’t be overlooked for the next time you need to share a funny cat GIF from 9Gag with a friend who’s just not on any other chat medium that already supports it.
Okay, so that’s maybe a little unfair. It might be playing catch-up, but it’s still nice to see the feature added to Google’s own app. Hangouts has had great support for animated GIFs for a while now.
The other change is the addition of a homescreen widget that shows your conversations. While it’s interesting that it took this long to add the widget, it’s still nice to be able to see your conversations without opening the app. The widget scales nicely on launchers where users might have configured them for nonstandard layout grids, too (I use Action Launcher, and the widget displays nicely there).
Do you use Google’s Messenger app for your SMS/MMS conversations? Why / why not? Tell us in the comments!
