Google Messages is setting up a new, particular Android permission that will assist you with sending RCS messages from a tablet or smartwatch utilizing Samsung’s “Congruity.”
For a few years now, Samsung has offered a system called “Call and Message Continuity” or “Call & text on other devices” that permits you to place calls and send/receive text messages utilizing your Samsung Galaxy tablet or smartwatch. Last October, we found that Google Messages was attempting to help Samsung’s Call and Message Continuity system, likely getting ready for the way that the Galaxy S21 utilizes Google Messages as its default SMS application outside of the United States.
XDA Developers has shared the next step of this joining among Google Messages and Samsung phones, discovering text alluding to a new permission for an “Android Messages API.” In the application’s code, this new permission is referred to as “External Messaging.”
In short, applications with the new permission will actually want to freely send messages to your contacts through SMS, MMS, and RCS. This is valuable as Google Messages can send RCS messages from almost any Android phone all throughout the world without requiring direct RCS support from a cell carrier.
As shared by XDA’s Mishaal Rahman and affirmed by our APK Insight team, this “External Messaging” permission is just present in the form of Google Messages that has been exceptionally customized for Samsung gadgets. This persuades that the permission is proposed for Samsung’s usage for the time being.
Delving into Samsung’s Call and Message Continuity application, we discover various references to Google Messages’ External Messaging API, straightforwardly linking the two applications. It’s conceivable that Google made this permission for the express motivation behind permitting Samsung’s Continuity service to have the option to send and get SMS/RCS through Google Messages, which has become the default messaging app on Galaxy phones in Europe and different regions.
Delving further into the code for Google Messages’ External Messaging permission, we find that it currently uses an allowlist system, which means it’s not proposed for use by any application that asks for the permission. It’s conceivable that Google could permit more applications to send RCS messages down the road, however for the present, that isn’t the situation.