Occasionally i will laugh when i see granny (liked this message) knowing she uses android and had to type that out but whatever.

Actually, that's just another example of Apple's shittiness. When you see that, that's not someone typing it out, that's when an Android user uses a reaction on our side.

Which should speak volumes to you, iOS was perfectly capable of understanding what an Android phone sent, but instead of simply matching it to an applicable iOS reaction (Or even just defaulting to a thumbs up or whatever), it just...does that.

The funny part is that on the Android side when an iOS/iMessage user a reaction it does exactly what you'd expect, it matches it to the applicable Android reaction lmao