According to recent reports citing an official Google Reddit account, the company’s Messages app will soon support chat bubbles. For clarity, ‘Bubbles’ are encompassed in a change that brings floating UI for conversations. That’s not dissimilar to the Chat Heads feature Facebook has been utilizing for quite some time now. Specifically, for Facebook Messenger.
With the arrival of Android 11 Beta 1, Google officially rolled out support for the feature. And, as might be expected, Facebook was among the first to add compatibility. The social media giant stepped away from its own in-house feature to do so.
Google has been testing Bubbles API for Messages since at least early January. The newest change will effectively add them to Google’s dedicated Android messaging and RCS chat app.
As might be expected, given Facebook’s rapid adoption, Bubbles work a lot like Chat Heads. In fact, based on preliminary reports, the feature is almost identical.
When users receive a message with Bubbles enabled, the system highlights a ‘notification bubble’ with the originating app icon. That also shows the image of the message’s sender, if there is one, as well as a preview of the contents. If the notification is ignored, it disappears and is replaced by a simple notification dot.
Tapping the bubble reveals the entire thread of the conversation — shown as a pop-out overlay. Like the quick reply options in the current notification shade, that means users can respond without changing apps.
Bubbles collapse when not in use and can be dismissed by tapping-and-dragging them to an “x” icon at the bottom of the screen.
Bubbles in Messages are part of a wider set of communication changes
This feature isn’t just rolling out for Messages though. That’s readily implied by Facebook’s use of the Bubbles API. But also implicated by Google’s statement on Reddit. Instead, Bubbles will eventually be widely available for just about any chat or messaging app. But the API is just one of several changes being brought with Android 11 to make communication more efficient.
Most prominently, Google is working to partition out part of the notification shade UI in Android with a segment dedicated to “conversations.”
The Conversations section will be placed just above general notifications, followed by Silent Notifications. That will bring prominence to messaging-specific apps, auto-detected by Android. Quick replies and similar features will still exist in the new UI. But it will make messages stand out, rather than incorporating them with other notifications.
How to get the feature when it arrives
To begin with, users who want to take advantage of Bubbles will need to be on the latest Android release. That’s the Android 11 Beta 1, as of this writing.
That means its use will be severely limited to the few devices that have received the update. Predominantly, that’s OnePlus 8 series handsets and Google Pixel devices, as long as they’re the Pixel 2 & Pixel 2 XL or newer. Xiaomi Mi 10 series gadgets will receive the update soon as well, among other devices.
That also means users will need to be tech-savvy enough to install Android 11 Beta 1 and comfortable with the ramifications of that. Namely, the beta is buggy and localized data loss is likely to occur as part of the process.
Setting those caveats aside, users will also need to be enrolled in the beta program for Google’s Messages app itself. That means navigating to the app in the Google Play Store and then scrolling down to “Join the beta” — assuming any spots are available. From there, users just need to update the app. The update will arrive within the “next week or two.”