thanks the gods.... hopefully it's better
Google Hangouts 4.0: now simpler, faster, more beautiful
61–70 of 110 posts
Re: Google Hangouts 4.0: now simpler, faster, more beautiful
#62> (iOS users recently got many of the same updates).
How is it that Google is still "iOS first." I mean, I love my iPhone and am happy that Google feels the need to update iOS apps before Android. But why? That's like Microsoft being OSX First, it just doesn't make any sense.
Re: Google Hangouts 4.0: now simpler, faster, more beautiful
#63Of 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.
Oh yes, the old GTalk was a really good software. I think the best messenger app I used, ever.
Re: Google Hangouts 4.0: now simpler, faster, more beautiful
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 clien…
It's happening less frequently recently, but I occasionally miss messages even in hangouts. Technically they get sent but no notification is ever shown. It's happened to both my fiance and me. I am not sure if our accounts are bugged or what. I did see a google group thread where other people were complaining about the same issue.
This happens to me as well. I've found the workaround is to always make hit "home" after finishing with the app before turning off the screen again. I've tested it, and if I leave hangouts as the on screen app when I turn off the screen it doesn't notify me of new messages.
Re: Google Hangouts 4.0: now simpler, faster, more beautiful
#65I typically don't care about naming too much but "Hangouts" is so awful.
Re: Google Hangouts 4.0: now simpler, faster, more beautiful
#66> (iOS users recently got many of the same updates). How is it that Google is still "iOS first." I mean, I love my iPhone and am happy that Google feels the need to update iOS apps before Android. But why? That's like Microsoft being OSX First, it just doesn't make any sense.
Not necessarily. Google Hangouts is still a much integrated experience on Android. iOS also doesn't have the Dialer app for example.
Re: Google Hangouts 4.0: now simpler, faster, more beautiful
#67> (iOS users recently got many of the same updates). How is it that Google is still "iOS first." I mean, I love my iPhone and am happy that Google feels the need to update iOS apps before Android. But why? That's like Microsoft being OSX First, it just doesn't make any sense.
Hangouts team has significantly more Android engineers than iOS engineers, but features and bug fixes still take longer on Android. It's as simple as that.
Re: Google Hangouts 4.0: now simpler, faster, more beautiful
#68Hangouts is "okay" at best. I continue to be amazed that companies like Microsoft and Google are so bad at instant messaging that upstarts like Slack can eat their lunch with essentially hosted IRC and a pretty client.
I for one wish Slack was the new standard messaging app for everything and everyone.
At $5/person/month I don't think so.
Re: Google Hangouts 4.0: now simpler, faster, more beautiful
#69Of 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.
>especially since for some reason using Safari extends battery life for a huge amount
on a side note i see several people say this but using a 2015 mbp I don't really see this battery draining behavior. Can anyone point to benchmarks or has anyone actually done a real test on this assumption ?
Re: Google Hangouts 4.0: now simpler, faster, more beautiful
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
I ache for the old GTalk windows application. Tiny, lightweight, standalone, and simple. Very Unix, really.
I ache for the old GTalk Android application too. Also very Unix, then Google had to go and be all walled-garden. I hate how I have to have three separate IM clients, each with its own half-baked implementation on at least one platform, just so I can talk to all my friends. Too bad corporate interests are against openness. I really would have liked it if all services were interoperable with one another.
Their Android application still didn't support federated contacts even when it was based on XMPP.