Google upgraded its Rich Communication Services (RCS)-based Messages app to improve features within conversations between Android and iPhone users, as its product manager for the service pushed rival Apple to also adopt the standard.

In a Google blog announcing the changes, group product manager for Messages Jan Jedrzejowicz explained its updates “can only do so much”.

“We encourage Apple to join the rest of the mobile industry and adopt RCS so that we can make messaging better and more secure, no matter what device you choose.”

Upgrades to Google’s app include visual improvements to emojis and reactions received from iPhones and the ability to send direct links to high quality images and videos held on Google’s Photo app.

Explaining the need for changes in transfer of multimedia content, Jedrzejowicz noted: “The RCS standard lets people with Android devices share…high-quality photos and videos with one another. But unfortunately, without RCS, they look blurry when you share them with your iPhone friends”.

“Now everyone can watch your videos in the same resolution that you do since we’re bringing Google Photos into Messages,” he wrote, explaining this means users can send content as a link “inside the conversation, preserving their clarity”.

He added Google planned to offer the same functionality for pictures “soon”.

Other changes to Google’s app include settings related to arranging messages, an option to switch on reminders about birthdays and to push people to reply to unanswered correspondence.