Google Messages is testing a new iOS-like background blur effect when users long-press to select messages, a visual update that currently appears to be exclusive to a subset of Android users, particularly those with Samsung devices.

• The feature, discovered by Techish Kenya's Alfred Kamicha, blurs the chat background to focus on the selected message, mimicking older iOS aesthetics.
• Testing on a Redmi Note 14 (running Android 15) and a TECNO Camon 16 S (running Android 10) did not show the feature, despite having the same Google Messages beta version installed.
• The visual tweak is currently rolling out to Samsung devices running One UI 8 due to a specialized app build, identified by the _samsung_ tag in the package name: messages.android_20251212_00_RC01.phone_samsung_openbeta_dynamic.
• The general Android ecosystem awaits confirmation on whether this feature will be incorporated into the main app branch.