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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] Group SMS

So on my iphone I could have group conversations with 3 other people and it would all be in the same conversation window, I but now, on my one x, when I try this it just sends to everyone individually. It works on my friends droid because he has the verizon messaging app which isn't available to att users (I think)
anyways I was just wondering if there was a simple solution to this (I've tried two 3rd party messaging apps with no luck)

Yeah, you're not gonna be able to get that, AFAIK. The "WhatsApp Messenger" app does this, but that's not actual text messaging, it's an IM app that uses your contacts phone numbers to identify them, and can only message other WhatsApp users.
Just for my own curiosity, when you would do this with your iPhone, would all the other participants be iPhone users? Or would it be a mixed bag of BB/Android/WP7/iPhone?

You should check out the app 'GroupMe'.
Great app that can do either real texting or over the internet messages.
The catch is, you have to message a 'Group number' and GroupMe then forwards that message on to everyone else.
This enables you to add/remove people to a conversation.
You can make these numbers private or public
I'm pretty sure they support every os and you can also just use their website to send messages.
It's all free which is the best part.

This is one of my biggest gripes with Android ICS. My Galaxy Nexus wasn't able to do group SMS either and, coming from an iPhone where I had lots of groups, it's a pain in the ass.
Also, using 3rd party apps that require every other person you want to chat with to also have the app is not a real solution. GroupMe is even worse than the rest b/c if someone EVER had the app (and no longer does) it doesn't recognize that and just doesn't deliver the message at all.

NextNexus said:
This is one of my biggest gripes with Android ICS. My Galaxy Nexus wasn't able to do group SMS either and, coming from an iPhone where I had lots of groups, it's a pain in the ass.
Also, using 3rd party apps that require every other person you want to chat with to also have the app is not a real solution. GroupMe is even worse than the rest b/c if someone EVER had the app (and no longer does) it doesn't recognize that and just doesn't deliver the message at all.
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The awesome thing about GroupMe is you don't need the App at all. You can use their service purely through texting.

[email protected] said:
The awesome thing about GroupMe is you don't need the App at all. You can use their service purely through texting.
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You didn't read what I wrote. If someone EVER had the app and got rid of it then the app doesn't recognize that and simply doesn't deliver the message at all. This is even worse than simply not being able to message people who don't have the app b/c now the sender has no clue whether their messages were delivered to each recipient.

NextNexus said:
You didn't read what I wrote. If someone EVER had the app and got rid of it then the app doesn't recognize that and simply doesn't deliver the message at all. This is even worse than simply not being able to message people who don't have the app b/c now the sender has no clue whether their messages were delivered to each recipient.
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If I am not mistaken, If the user changed his settings through the web interface he could set it up to be texting only again.
I have never ran in to this issue personally. When I removed the App from my phone I would still get the messages, just not through texts until I switched the settings.
Sorry for not fully understanding the first time.

[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.

[Q] Looking for simple, cross platform messaging

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!
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[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?