So, with the announcements yesterday of SMS client support in Hangouts (as well as animated GIFS and Location sharing) and the other new features announce for Google+ with the Video and Photo editing, I wonder how much it will help growth on the platform. Of course the iOS update had Google Voice support and maybe that will be baked in too. I use Hangouts a lot now to talk to family and groups that I'm part of and to automatically back up my photos and videos from my phone. It's really nice to be able to instantly go to my images from any computer and access the full size images without having to manually retrieve them. I will be interested to see how the SMS implementation is handled, but it could prove to be the "killer" feature to push Hangouts to more people. I like the fact that it works completely across all platforms. Whether I'm at my computer or my phone, or my niece's iPad or my brother's iPhone or even folks on crackberries or Windows, everyone can "Hangout" without the exclusivity of platform like iMessage or the limitations of BBM. I think the real key will be how fluid and responsive it is at full blown implementation.
Sent from my SGNote 2!
Related
Ive seen MS chose to combine IM and SMS and to me this looks really messy.
First of all the integration of IM is quite nice but I wish it was kept seperate from SMS conversations since these are to the majority of people still different than IMs and used on different devices or apps. I dont want to continue a conversation automatically on a different app or something. This will be very annoying to the other user.
Certainly if somebody just left his/her pc on or IM on accidently....
They should have added facebook private messaging as well and IM/SMS seperated like it was and just added a chat pivot in the messaging hub.
to me an sms is still something every user has always with him her, like when u send somebody an address or something it should be on their phones and not deliverd trough IM and its annoying having to switch first.
Its kind of short sighted implementation, the idea is good but the reality will be very annoying the way it works now.
you will get a ton of sms like notifications for every IM which can be annoying since on a chat conversation people send much more messages per minute than trough sms. Having to toggle online offline all the time will be a pita
am i the only one who thinks this will be garbage? Instead they should have allowed third party apps like whatsapp to use this on user permission. I hope I can switch off the live messenger. Or just revert back to the original sms screen
I like the idea to have an overview of my messages regardlessly whether they come via SMS, Windows Live or Facebook. Although I agree that getting notifications for all those messages shown on the SMS tile would be kind of overwhelming. But I can imagine Microsoft changes the way the tile works. So it still shows the number of SMS, but in addition to that shows an icon or something when you recieve a chat message from Facebook or Windows Live.
In my opinion.. the best feauture ever, of every OS. Loved that!
I love it as well, and think its nice not to have to go to 4 different places for my facebook, text, wlm & (eventually skype).
While I hope they either have a toggle setting for separate 'rows', or add it soon after Mango for those who really don't like it, I honestly doubt they want to mess it up by having too many places for messages. It fits in pretty perfectly with their vision for the overall UI design imo.
For me,M$ thread is not a new idea,it just copying the messaging app in the HP webos...however HP webos messaging is better,they can download apps that support HP connect and integrate into the messaging app(so,this means they can have more than 1 im clients in 1 messaging app).
Feel so sorry to HP webos,always being copied by others,even the UI design of playbook has been copied
Marvin_S said:
First of all the integration of IM is quite nice but I wish it was kept seperate from SMS conversations since these are to the majority of people still different than IMs and used on different devices or apps. I dont want to continue a conversation automatically on a different app or something. This will be very annoying to the other user.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Threading will be the beginning of the end for SMS IMNSHO. Most people still use SMS because it's what they know and are used to.
My wife is a great example, she keeps sending me SMSes while I'm out because that's what she's used to. Even though I've had email (and to some extent IM) on my phones since forever. With a "messaging hub" it takes all the guesswork out of the equation - she'll write the message as she normally does and the phone will decide whether it should deliver via FB, Messenger, Skype or SMS.
Now, if you don't want to continue the conversation if the user has moved to a different device you don't have to. The phone will tell you how the message was sent as well as what services the recipient is currently logged on to.
Marvin_S said:
to me an sms is still something every user has always with him her, like when u send somebody an address or something it should be on their phones and not deliverd trough IM and its annoying having to switch first.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This just proves my point - you're used to SMS. And again, you can choose whether to send as SMS or IM.
Personally I find this feature great. Two things should be done to make it even better though;
1. Implement a industry-wide protocol so it doesn't matter if you're on a crackberry, iphone or windows phone. Sure, Skype and Messenger goes a long way towards achieving this but there are still people who use smaller IM services only.
2. Allow third-party apps to hook in to the messaging hub - there's a few apps out there today that are not chat apps as such but still implement messaging. Being able to receive (and reply to) these messages from the same place would be great. It would also make it easier for other IM services to integrate with the OS.
dkp1977 said:
Although I agree that getting notifications for all those messages shown on the SMS tile would be kind of overwhelming.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But why? Are you less likely to want to read a message coming in thru Messenger than one delivered via SMS? I for one don't care how my messages are delivered, I just want to be notified. It's a bit like having three post boxes outside your house - one for deliveries by DHL only, another for Deutsche Post and a third for everyone else - i.e. pointless
I really like this new feature as well. I am confident that any replies you send to someone will use the same service they used to "text" you, unless you choose to change it. People on non-WP7 phones won't suddenly need to be jumping all over the place.
On the other hand, when other people send you messages from multiple sources (SMS, FB, WLM, etc), you will be able to get all of the messages in one convenient place. I like that.
According to Korean tech portal DDaily, Samsung's ChatON instant messaging service will soon get video calls. :victory:the feature will work over both Wi-Fi and 3G/4G internet connections:good:, just like FaceTime on iOS 6. It is expected for the Android version of the client to get video calls first, although seeing the functionality making its way to clients for other platforms is quite likely.
ChatON was introduced by Samsung less than a year ago as an alternative to Apple's iMessage and RIM's BBM. Besides exchanging instant messages with other ChatON users, it allows group chats, file transfer, and other neat stuff one might expect from such a service. In addition to Android devices, ChatON can be used on iOS, bada, Windows Phone, as well as BlackBerry smartphones.
Keep in mind that this is all unofficial information, so treat it as such and don't get too excited until Samsung confirms it. We don't have any word as to when video chats might arrive on ChatON, yet the service's first birthday seems like a perfect opportunity to launch the new feature.
As the title says I'm looking for something small and simple that would allow messaging between Windows 7 desktops, android and ios users. This is for a small business I work at so we can do quick texts within our office and to our mobile users. Right now the only one I could find was Viber, which looks like it could work. Anyone know of any others that could work for us? The simpler the better, have to get ~20 people with varying technical levels (mostly low) to all join and make it work. Thanks for any help!
I would say gmail.. you could use the gmail chat on any pc and also use apps like IM+ to connect the gmail chat on phones or hangouts.. and if you want sms you have google voice.
David_Webb said:
As the title says I'm looking for something small and simple that would allow messaging between Windows 7 desktops, android and ios users. This is for a small business I work at so we can do quick texts within our office and to our mobile users. Right now the only one I could find was Viber, which looks like it could work. Anyone know of any others that could work for us? The simpler the better, have to get ~20 people with varying technical levels (mostly low) to all join and make it work. Thanks for any help!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Let me preface this by saying that my first phone was an Android, 1.6 Droid Eris, then an iPhone 4s, and now an HTC One m7.
Android has changed significantly from 1.6 to KitKat, but the feature that made it most difficult, for me, (and I'm sure a lot of others as well) to switch from iOS back to Android was iMessage. With all the news surfacing that Apple was aware that iMessage does not deliver messages to Android phones properly, I believe this highlights something larger in the Android ecosystem: Android needs its a better messaging experience.
The messaging space is crowded as all get out in 2014, but there is something common among all of them: they don't default back to SMS if the other user does not have their specific messaging app, example Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, etc.
There is no messaging experience on Android currently that is seamless to the user, sending via data when both users have the same app, yet defaulting back to SMS when it is not available. The closest alternative I can think of is Hangouts. The only downsides to this I can think of is the Google Plus integration some people dislike, lack of customizability, and the possible security risks giving Google access to your texts for targeted ads.
What has been your experience with Android messaging? What features do you wish were built into the messaging experience on Android, e.g. chat heads, delivery/read reports, encrypted texts, instant feedback, or maybe another feature I forgot?
I come from a country where everyone uses WhatsApp to communicate, and I never worried about messaging apps.
But I will be in the USA, and it seems like people just use the default messaging app that comes on their phone (wtf???). And iPhones are bundled with a built in modern messaging app, but one that is locked down to only iPhone users, and falls back to the really old SMS/MMS (not RCS) when messaging non-iPhones, which would lead to iPhone users being annoyed from messaging non-iPhones (do they even support stuff like group chats, messages longer than a tweet, sending videos, location, etc? i guess not or not fully).
Ironically this makes it seem like having a feature phone would still be useful in that country.
Before, I didn't even understand why RCS even existed, just that it seemed like another seemingly cool messaging initiative by Google that was gonna fail just like Allo and so many others, and I'm not sure how helpful is it due to Apple not implementing it. I also didn't understand why Hangouts, Signal, Messenger, etc had the feature to be your SMS app and for example Messenger is pretty insistent even going to the path of dark patterns.
I'm curious to see what the thoughts and experiences of the American XDA community are. Do you use the SMS app? Do you use workarounds like BlueBubbles to use the proprietary iMessage?
xMotoDA said:
I come from a country where everyone uses WhatsApp to communicate, and I never worried about messaging apps.
But I will be in the USA, and it seems like people just use the default messaging app that comes on their phone (wtf???). And iPhones are bundled with a built in modern messaging app, but one that is locked down to only iPhone users, and falls back to the really old SMS/MMS (not RCS) when messaging non-iPhones, which would lead to iPhone users being annoyed from messaging non-iPhones (do they even support stuff like group chats, messages longer than a tweet, sending videos, location, etc? i guess not or not fully).
Ironically this makes it seem like having a feature phone would still be useful in that country.
Before, I didn't even understand why RCS even existed, just that it seemed like another seemingly cool messaging initiative by Google that was gonna fail just like Allo and so many others, and I'm not sure how helpful is it due to Apple not implementing it. I also didn't understand why Hangouts, Signal, Messenger, etc had the feature to be your SMS app and for example Messenger is pretty insistent even going to the path of dark patterns.
I'm curious to see what the thoughts and experiences of the American XDA community are. Do you use the SMS app? Do you use workarounds like BlueBubbles to use the proprietary iMessage?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In order to use imessage on Android I heard u have to have a mac if u don't than their is no way to use imessage on Android
I have a gaming windows 10 pc so I'm out of luck plus why would I buy a mac just for imessage I like windows better for me windows 10 Is better but it's just up to u whatever u prefer
You can have a macOS virtual machine, though. But how much effort one would put to it would depend on how important it is in American society to have iMessage