After Google complained that Apple didn't support RCS messaging on the iPhone, the company upped its ante and added support for iMessage tapbacks to Google Messages.

Apple's iMessage app is the only major messaging platform to support SMS, a quirk that dates back to the original iPhone, which combined SMS and iPhone-to-iPhone messaging into the same app. The added capability has caused problems over the years, most recently with complaints that Apple should stop excluding "green bubble" contacts by locking them out of certain features. Now, Google's Messages app will do what Apple won't and translate iMessage tapbacks into emojis.

“I wish that applied to incoming messages as well, because if you're in a group chat with a mix of iPhones and Android phones, you'll see something like, 'Katie liked blah blah blah,' and I wish Apple would just parse those messages [and turn them back into tapbacks],” Apple podcaster Casey Liss told the Accidental Tech Podcast.

This feature is called “tapbacks.” iMessage users can long-press on a message and then perform a quick emoji-like reaction. They can give the message a heart, a thumbs up or thumbs down, and so on. But these only work with iMessage. If an iPhone user is talking to a friend on an Android (a friend with a green bubble), the conversation will be conducted via text message. The Android user will get a text description of the tapback. For example, it might tell you that someone “liked an image.”