Observe these steps to modify your default Android textual content messaging app

One of many lesser-appreciated options of Google’s Android mobile operating system is the power to modify your default apps with out fuss. Your default net browser, cellphone app, caller ID and spam app, digital assistant app, home app, and Quick Message Service (SMS) texting app are all simply interchangable with third-party options.

There are lots of, many reasons to be critical of Google, however I will give credit score the place credit score is due: the tech large has executed a fairly good job of creating Android a versatile OS, messaging apps included. When you’re questioning the best way to make the swap to a third-party text messaging app, otherwise you merely wish to check out one thing that is not Google Messages, then all it will take is a few purposeful display faucets.

Tips on how to swap out your default SMS texting app on Android

The whole course of solely takes a couple of moments to finish

With the intention to swap from one Android texting app to another one, observe these steps:

1. Obtain a third-party textual content messaging app from the Google Play Store, in the event you do not have already got one put in in your Android cellphone.
2. Find this third-party texting app from inside your cellphone’s app drawer, and faucet on its icon to launch the software program.
3. Instantly, you may be greeter with a splash display. You will wish to faucet on the Set default SMS app button.
4. From the checklist offered, faucet on the textual content messaging app of your alternative.
5. Faucet on Set as default.

And similar to that, whichever texting app you’ve got chosen will begin working as your new default — it will robotically replace and sync up all of your present textual content message threads, with no extra enter required. The method to return to your beforehand chosen texting app is similar, however merely in reverse.

When you’re in search of some glorious third-party messaging app suggestions, Pocket-lint has a dedicated article on the subject. Briefly, some in style choices embody:

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Google is the undisputed chief relating to trendy Android textual content messaging

That being stated, third-party SMS apps nonetheless have their place out there

Lately, we have seen Google push aggressively to make its personal Messages app the de facto texting expertise on Android. The tech large has emphasised its personal implementation of the Rich Communication Services (RCS) protocol, and has brokered offers with giants like Samsung to include the service on new phones by default.

The truth is, because it at the moment stands, the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) or ‘vanilla’ model of Android doesn’t even have an actively maintained app for messaging family and friends. As an alternative, it is as much as smartphone OEMs and third-party builders to fill the Google-sized void within the room.

Fortunately, whereas the present collection of various SMS apps is not large, the obtainable choices are nonetheless being often up to date. If the newer RCS texting customary continues to realize business prominence — and it’s a safe bet that it’ll do so — then I can envision an eventual RCS-powered renaissance within the Android texting app scene.

After all, as a prerequisite, this may require Google to open up its distinctive taste of the RCS protocol to third-parties within the type of a developer API. In the interim, the vast majority of texting apps on Android fall into one among two camps: people who depend on the now-ancient SMS customary, and people funded by deep pockets that may afford to construct proprietary messaging applied sciences à la WhatsApp, Discord, and others.

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