You could soon be able to text from the browser on your computer. An APK teardown reveals that Google could be working on a web interface that will allow Android users to pair their smartphones with their computer for easier texting right on their computer. The “text from browser” feature could accompany enhanced chat features and the ability to make purchases inside Android Messages.
XDA-Developers did a teardown of the APK for Android Messages 2.9 and found signs of Google shifting further toward the next major change in messaging technology, which is RCS (Rich Communications Services). The APK teardown seems to suggest that Google may add a web interface that allows users to text from the browser on their PC, including Chrome, Firefox and possibly others.
Google Allo users already know that Google added a web interface for messaging to it already, but it would be a bigger deal for this feature to be brought to Android Messages. People have been able to send messages using the browser on their PCs for many years, but the “text from browser” web interface that seems to be in the works would actually bring SMS text messages to laptops and desktops.
XDA’s APK teardown suggests that scanning a QR code will pair a smartphone with a user’s PC. The functionality is reportedly similar to the way the web integration for Google Allo works. The experts at XDA partially enabled the feature that lets users text from the browser, but unfortunately, clicking on the feature crashes it. Apparently, it isn’t yet fully implemented, which is why it’s crashing, they added.
The teardown revealed that when it is implemented, the feature is expected to allow users to text from these browsers: Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, and Opera. It’s possible that it will support additional browsers in the future, as XDA found “other” and “unknown” categories, which could mean that a lot more will be supported when it finally launches.
Upon exploring the “text from browser” feature further, XDA uncovered a notification that appears in the foreground telling the user that they are connected to their desktop. They believe this could mean that a manual connection to the PC will be required every time you want to send a text from the browser. Although it does sound somewhat inconvenient, they suggest that it could be that way for security purposes. However, the feature seems to remember the computers the phone was paired with the last time, so it’s unlikely that the QR code will need to be scanned for every text message.
It seems like it could be quite some time before we get the ability to text from the browser on our computers, and it might never roll out at all, given that Google isn’t talking about it yet.
