One app for communicating? - Android Apps and Games

Although I don't use allo, I've been following the developments to see what Google plans to do with such a flop so soon. All the comments about fragmentation of video chat, IM, and SMS, etc, instead of amalgamation got me to thinking. Why haven't they unified everything in one app yet? I mean everything... Phone, SMS, rcs, im, video, and of course email/calendar. There has been no shortage of requests for this and it's one of the things blackberry did so well. Why not fill the demand the consumer has been asking for?
Or a better question might be, will it ever come?

Related

"KIK" app

this app is pretty cool lets u chat with people that have blackberry iphone ipods or normally android Love it better than sms and pretty fast. check it out in the market now
kik me "Torvick1224"
http://www.kik.com/
I like this a lot too, I like how it shows if it's been read already or not too.
I just wish more people used it
Personally I prefer Whatsapp, 'cause it's more widely used, and havent had any problems with it yet. One time payment for iphone, and free trial period for android
darkwater13 said:
Personally I prefer Whatsapp, 'cause it's more widely used, and havent had any problems with it yet. One time payment for iphone, and free trial period for android
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yeah but member this 1 is FREE for every smartphone just need some good updates like add photos and post our own status and would be the shisnetss
does it do group chat?
no group chat
I used Whatsapp and personally like it better, but I like Kik's ability to tell you when it is sent\delivered\read while Whatsapp just tells you if its sent\delivered. I don't need group chat so that's a moot point for myself
PingChat has group chat, shows when send/read, can send pics, video, audio, contacts, maps. And it's free.
drauks said:
PingChat has group chat, shows when send/read, can send pics, video, audio, contacts, maps. And it's free.
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I'm currently using pingchat for these reasons. That and Kik was draining the battery on my Incredible :-/
Couple of gripes I have with KiK and had to get rid of it. From my limited use (2-3 days), I learned:
-you cannot log out of KiK.
-it automatically adds contacts without your approval and worse, it lets these contacts know you've signed on to KiK as well. I dont know about others but I dont necessarily want IM access to everyone in my contact list.
-it adds people that you dont even know (saw ppl on my list that I dont know) to your contact list.
-You can get random requests from ppl you dont know to add you just the same.
It seems like a very good beginning efforts but more control and privacy measures need to be put into before I'll try it again.
And, lastly, it was draining my battery ...
These are all from personal use and observation.
Interesting article. It lists upcoming features.
wwwdotbgrdotcom/2010/11/10/whats-kik-messenger-all-about/
Sorry. Can't post links yet.

Threads... why?

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.
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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.
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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.
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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.

[Q] Threaded group mms workaround...

I've done a search before I posted this.
From my searches, I find that the consensus is that there are third party apps to fix the group mms issue but you have to ask all the parties to use it.
Is there an app out there that doesn't require everyone to use it?
My HOX is unrooted if that makes a difference.
Please let me know if there is any hope. I cant believe a feature like this went overlooked. Even my BB Torch was able to group mms.
First post.
Thank you.
Sadly, I don't think there's much hope.
What I presume is happening on iPhones and BB's is that the manufacturers (Apple and RIM) have built this functionality into their SMS apps, which isn't exactly standard SMS protocol.
Since Android devices have so many manufacturers, it makes it a lot harder to standardize this kind of thing.
In other words, you need all participants to be using the same 3rd party app. In the case of an iPhone, the iPhone SMS app *IS* that 3rd party app, although it's actually 1st party.
This is all speculation, I could be way off. I suppose we'd need to sniff the SMS messages on BB and iPhone to be sure, and I'm not sure just how feasible that is.

[Discussion] [Poll] What's wrong with Android messaging?

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?

How prevalent is SMS/MMS and iMessage in the USA?

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?
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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

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