A comment I don't see here yet is that this is to some extent a consequence of Google's business model. The assumption seems to be that a company should be wary about doing what they're doing, because they'll lose business. But Google's not directly selling these services, in most cases. I assume they're happy with the way they do things, which is try a bunch of stuff in a slightly chaotic but fairly nimble way, be happy when some of it works well (Gmail, Google Maps, Google Docs), and kill the rest. Frustrating for users, absolutely, but that's the company you're getting your free stuff from. It's pretty clear that this behavior isn't affecting their profits and maybe it's not even hurting their reputation, outside of circles like this one.
Google’s Messaging Mess: A Timeline
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Re: Google’s Messaging Mess: A Timeline
#52There are two hard things in computer science: cache invalidation, naming things, (and off-by-one errors....) I feel like naming things is something Apple works really hard on. And why they place so much emphasis on it in their keynotes, when they use the phrase "And we're calling it ..."
"And we're calling it..."
iPhone Xs Max
Apple has improved their naming but they had a bunch of duds.
Re: Google’s Messaging Mess: A Timeline
#53> it’s almost possible to see Google’s strategy. Gmail exists for emails; Chat is the GChat / Hangouts-style messaging system for real-time conversations and group chats; Spaces is the Slack / Discord-style area for more persistent, larger rooms based on a particular topic or conversation; and there’s Meet for video chats.
This is like the exact opposite of what we want. It was the best when my gmail tab was email, SMS, chat, video calling all in one.
Re: Google’s Messaging Mess: A Timeline
#54I think Google tries so many things at once and this is why they end up killing most of their products.
I remember when they launched an email app Inbox i loved using it but 3 years later they decided to kill it and guess what they decided to integrate inbox app features into gmail app and then I was forced to use it.
On contrary if we compare apple to Google. Apple does one thing really better they integrate their services really well across all devices and that’s one of the reason its hard to leave Apple Ecosystem.
Re: Google’s Messaging Mess: A Timeline
#55I tried so hard to integrate into the Google ecosystem. I had a Gmail account and Google Talk to start. Eventually an Android phone, on Project Fi, with Hangouts and SMS (so I could send SMS over the internet). I upgraded from Gmail to Inbox. Then when they ditched that for Allo and Duo I tried to switch to those. Then I lost SMS on my computer because it got removed from Hangouts. Then I tried to switch to Google vo…
Thanks for laying out alternatives. Others were already asking about Calendar, but additionally I am curious if you found a solution for Maps/Navigation and Photo syncronisation and sharing. I'm still trying to find a migration path off from Google...
Re: Google’s Messaging Mess: A Timeline
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't Inbox just an email client? > chat.google.com is just aggressively worse in far too many ways, and will surely be killed circa 2024. I doubt it. Google Chat is Google's enterprise product offering like Microsoft's skype.
>Google Chat is Google's enterprise product offering like Microsoft's skype. Yeah, at our company we have actually used Google Chat somewhat succesfully as main tool for internal communication
We do to, the main feature is you’re able to start a quick meeting on Google Meet. Google Chat gets the job done, no one really enjoy using it, but it mostly just works.
They could improve Chat a lot if they just cared to do native clients. Seriously, how many developers would that require? Like three for macOS, and the same for Windows and Linux?
Re: Google’s Messaging Mess: A Timeline
#57I tried so hard to integrate into the Google ecosystem. I had a Gmail account and Google Talk to start. Eventually an Android phone, on Project Fi, with Hangouts and SMS (so I could send SMS over the internet). I upgraded from Gmail to Inbox. Then when they ditched that for Allo and Duo I tried to switch to those. Then I lost SMS on my computer because it got removed from Hangouts. Then I tried to switch to Google vo…
> My email is now IMAP > WebDAV Can you explain how you implemented these too?
What’s WebDAV I’m just curious to know
Re: Google’s Messaging Mess: A Timeline
#58They forgot about Inbox! After following this nonsense product timeline for 16 years from the original Google Talk days, my last chat thread still using Hangouts moved to Facebook Messenger. chat.google.com is just aggressively worse in far too many ways, and will surely be killed circa 2024.
I remember using it. I actually preferred using Inbox over Gmail as it was so good then they decided to kill that app
Re: Google’s Messaging Mess: A Timeline
#59I tried so hard to integrate into the Google ecosystem. I had a Gmail account and Google Talk to start. Eventually an Android phone, on Project Fi, with Hangouts and SMS (so I could send SMS over the internet). I upgraded from Gmail to Inbox. Then when they ditched that for Allo and Duo I tried to switch to those. Then I lost SMS on my computer because it got removed from Hangouts. Then I tried to switch to Google vo…
> Then I lost SMS on my computer because it got removed from Hangouts
This isn't true, if you were a Fi subscriber. Fi subscribers were able to keep using Hangouts SMS up until they launched the replacement, Fi support in Messages for Web. There was no time where Web SMS was unsupported.
The transition worked reasonably well for me. I do miss the Gmail integration, and it's lame that you can't have RCS enabled if you want Web support (of course Hangouts never supported RCS anyway so it's not a regression, and hopefully it will be fixed someday). But otherwise it's a fine replacement and I use it every day.