Google rolled out a workaround for the way iPhones handle message reactions sent to Android phones earlier this year, Its Message app interprets the reactions as emojis rather than text thus saving the space on screen as well as making for a smoother experience. Inspired by the approach of Google, iOS 16 is making similar change to the group texts. The conversations that include Android phones still don’t have full access to iMessage features which include an Android user in group text will no longer cause so-called Tapback spam.
In iMessage, iPhone users are able to tap the messages that they have received to react to them with little icons, thumbs up, thumbs down, a bubble that says Ha Ha and various others. Apple has named these reactions Tapbacks. When an iPhone user tries to send a Tapback to someone who is not using an iPhone that person will get a discrete text that says something like “Andre liked [message text]. Google Messages now translates those texts into in-line emoji reactions.