Back in October, Google fully rolled out its Material You and Dynamic Color redesign for its Messages application. The popular news-sharing website, 9to5Google now reports that the app might be prepping to integrate Google Photos for sharing images and videos through MMS rather than sending them manually.
The report highlights some screenshots of the app with the updates. When a video is shared inside a chat, a card appears suggesting a new method for sharing videos and photos by uploading them to Google Photos.
The feature seems to make the suggestion when composing a message for media through an MMS chat. In cases where the other person either does not have RCS chat enabled or the recipient is using an iPhone, the feature does not work. In such a case, the recipient would receive a link to view or download the media.
In addition to the Google Photos feature, Google seems to be backing away from its decision to slowly phase out the ‘hamburger menu,’ also known as the navigation drawer, from most Android applications by simply placing all the menu items behind a profile photo icon.
The decompiled APK shows Messages, Starred, Archived, Spam, and Blocked tabs are all within what looks like the return of the navigation drawer.
Google appears to have integrated the latest update for only the Messages app and is not expected to back the Material You guidelines to include the navigation drawer.
However, neither the Google Photos upload nor the navigation drawer is an official feature yet as they are disabled in the APK.
