Google Messages could soon be getting a WhatsApp feature
One of the features you will commonly find in a lot of messenger apps like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, LINE, and so on are profiles. This lets you display more information about yourself for your contacts to see, like busy status, a profile photo, maybe a status update, and so on.
It seems that Google could be planning something for its Messages app. This is according to a screenshot shared on Reddit in which it shows the Messages app where there is now a new Profile settings that users can access.
Unfortunately, not much is known about the feature because according to the post, nothing is working at the moment, suggesting that it is more of a placeholder for now and that Google has not activated it yet. From what we can tell, there is an option for “Profile sharing”, which is unclear what it does, along with some privacy settings like Visibility where users can control how their profiles are shared.
There are also toggles for features like getting notified when new contacts are discovered, and when contacts are updated. Seeing as how Google is banking on RCS and turning it into a universal messenger platform, we suppose having user profiles makes sense. Exactly how it will work remains to be seen but hopefully Google will have more information to share soon.
Source: Android Police