Buying a Samsung Galaxy phone can be a confusing experience thanks to the Korean tech giant's annoying inclusion of what appear to be duplicate apps. After unboxing your shiny, new Galaxy phone and booting it up, you're confronted with multiple calendar, clock, browser, and messaging apps, to name just a few. For users unfamiliar with Samsung's approach to Android, it's baffling to sort through them. While Google's apps are familiar to more users, Samsung's clones offer better integration with the company's hardware ecosystem and often offer some truly useful features. Even as someone who has regularly used Samsung phones since the Galaxy S III was all the rage, I still frequently swap between apps from both companies.
The choice between Samsung Messages and Google Messages can be especially confounding. Most users are likely to use whichever apps their phone comes with by default, according to a 2020 study from Meta. But when two preinstalled apps jockey for a user's attention, it's tempting to pick one at random. When it comes to your messaging app, that choice can have ripple effects, as you might miss out on useful communication features.
However, in the case of Samsung Messages vs. Google Messages, there's one clear choice. Google Messages is here to stay, and Samsung Messages has accepted defeat. Having developed a closer relationship with Google in recent years, Samsung has somewhat relegated its own messaging app to the background, and even offered a bespoke version of Google Messages that conformed to its One UI design philosophy. But more recently, Samsung made an announcement about the future of its texting app, holding up a white flag to Google.