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 internet 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 alternate options.

There are numerous, many reasons to be critical of Google, however I am going to give credit score the place credit score is due: the tech large has completed a fairly good job of constructing Android a versatile OS, messaging apps included. When you’re questioning how one can make the change to a third-party text messaging app, otherwise you merely wish to check out one thing that is not Google Messages, then all it’s going to take is a few purposeful display screen faucets.

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

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

As a way to change from one Android texting app to another one, comply with these steps:

1. Obtain a third-party textual content messaging app from the Google Play Store, when 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 screen. You may wish to faucet on the Set default SMS app button.
4. From the checklist introduced, 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’s going to mechanically replace and sync up all of your current textual content message threads, with no further enter required. The method to return to your beforehand chosen texting app is an identical, however merely in reverse.

When you’re on the lookout for some glorious third-party messaging app suggestions, Pocket-lint has a dedicated article on the subject. Briefly, some fashionable choices embody:

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Google is the undisputed chief with regards to trendy Android textual content messaging

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

In recent times, 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.

In reality, 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 number of different SMS apps is not large, the out there choices are nonetheless being repeatedly up to date. If the newer RCS texting normal 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 could 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, nearly all of texting apps on Android fall into one in every of two camps: people who depend on the now-ancient SMS normal, 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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