Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google Hangouts 4.0: now simpler, faster, more beautiful

googleblog.blogspot.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 110 posts

Re: Google Hangouts 4.0: now simpler, faster, more beautiful

#31

Post by mtgx »

aesthetics1 wrote: post #14

I personally have moved on to Google Messenger for MMS. It's simpler and faster. I like the feature of being able to color-code my contacts in conversations too. It just makes it a lot easier to read through a group text that way. Hangouts is cool and all, but I wish Google would just decide which app they are going to push and get on with it.

I don't think IMs and SMS/MMS texts should mix. Period. Leave the legacy stuff to its own apps, and we just move on to new stuff without having to support that legacy burden. It's exactly why I welcomed TextSecure killing the SMS integration (it was even more annoying that it was asking you for it by default, as Hangouts does, too).

Re: Google Hangouts 4.0: now simpler, faster, more beautiful

#32

Post by rplnt »

livingparadox wrote: post #25

I CAN FINALLY GET MMS MESSAGES WITH MY GOOGLE VOICE NUMBER! Sorry for the caps. But that's been mildly annoying for a long time, so its kind of exciting to finally have a complete messaging system on google voice.

But don't do it if you have Android :)

Re: Google Hangouts 4.0: now simpler, faster, more beautiful

#33

Post by wtallis »

Lx1oG-AWb6h_ZG0 wrote: post #10
Zikes wrote: post #5

The only features I want are setting availability status and getting online notifications for contacts. IMs have had those features for decades, and contrary to Google's narrow worldview not everybody is online and available 24/7.

This post is about the android app. How do you define "online" when you're on a phone with a data connection, an extremely common use case for this scenario? (Or rather, what makes someone "offline" here?) Maybe it's better to track whether the user is busy or free-to-interrupt, which I think is what Google is already doing. (I believe there is also an option to broadcast if you're on your phone or your desktop, alth…

> How do you define "online" when you're on a phone with a data connection, an extremely common use case for this scenario?

Perhaps that's why he asked for the ability to set such status manually, in the manner of desktop IM clients.

Re: Google Hangouts 4.0: now simpler, faster, more beautiful

#34

Post by nkoren »

Can I actively control my visibility settings, as with every other IM client? Inability to control my own visibility makes Hangouts an absolute non-starter for me, and many other people that I talk to. Our only choice is to keep it turned off at all times. Which is a shame, because Google Chat used to be my go-to messaging client.

Re: Google Hangouts 4.0: now simpler, faster, more beautiful

#35

Post by lightbritefight »

zzleeper wrote: post #29
izacus wrote: post #7

Of course, I still have to run Chrome just for a slow and terrible browser interface on the desktop. Which was a major annoyance (especially since for some reason using Safari extends battery life for a huge amount) that caused me to switch to Telegram.

Are there any limitations I should be aware of before trying to switch to Telegram?

"Roll their own" encryption is the main one. Search Hackernews for older, but indepth reviews of it.

Re: Google Hangouts 4.0: now simpler, faster, more beautiful

#36

Post by wnevets »

sliverstorm wrote: post #15
izacus wrote: post #7

Of course, I still have to run Chrome just for a slow and terrible browser interface on the desktop. Which was a major annoyance (especially since for some reason using Safari extends battery life for a huge amount) that caused me to switch to Telegram.

I ache for the old GTalk windows application. Tiny, lightweight, standalone, and simple. Very Unix, really.

it was probably the best ui google has done with the exception of their home page.

Re: Google Hangouts 4.0: now simpler, faster, more beautiful

#37

Post by mrbig4545 »

They should just concentrate on making it work properly on android

The amount of times it thinks I'm in a call and I'm not is far too many. Or it doesn't dial. Or doesn't ring. And if turn the video on there's a good chance it'll crash so hard I'll have to force stop it.

Which is a shame as I really like hangouts

Also the sms part should be better integrated, why can't I view/send sms on my phone from gmail?

Re: Google Hangouts 4.0: now simpler, faster, more beautiful

#39

Post by dantillberg »

izacus wrote: post #23
StavrosK wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not use Pidgin or Adium?

The convenience of being able to use several devices (laptop, tablet, phone) to seamlessly continue conversations is pretty much the main reason I like these services. Pidgin and Adium do not support (transferrable) chat history and do not show messages when I'm offline, which is a huge usability hit. Especially when people talking on the other side expect that the messages are visible to you even if you're not immed…

> Pidgin and Adium do not support (transferrable) chat history and do not show messages when I'm offline, which is a huge usability hit.

This times a million. GChat (now "hangouts"), though their XMPP interface, attempts to send new messages only to the "active" client, which means that if you try to use Pidgin or Adium (I used both myself for a number of years; they're fantastic applications) or any other XMPP client, you'll lose messages in Adium/Pidgin for a few minutes whenever you move the mouse cursor in gmail or peek at messages in the hangouts phone app. You'll never see those messages in Adium/Pidgin, and there's no way (afaik) to tell that you're not getting messages, either; it's like they don't exist.

Google, however, sends all the messages to its own clients; you never miss messages there. And so, to me, this smells like a clever (and intentional) strategy to cripple third-party clients.

Re: Google Hangouts 4.0: now simpler, faster, more beautiful

#40

Post by nilkn »

zzleeper wrote: post #29
izacus wrote: post #7

Of course, I still have to run Chrome just for a slow and terrible browser interface on the desktop. Which was a major annoyance (especially since for some reason using Safari extends battery life for a huge amount) that caused me to switch to Telegram.

Are there any limitations I should be aware of before trying to switch to Telegram?

Just ignore any marketing claims they make about security. It's no more or less secure than any other platform like Hangouts.

It received a lot of heavy duty criticism when initially launched because security was at the time its primary selling point. It looks like they've at least partially pivoted away from that and now are focusing on making what appears to be a smoother, faster Hangouts.

Post reply on HN