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Stories Are Coming to Signal

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Re: Stories Are Coming to Signal

#61

Post by rvz »

So another unnecessary feature coming to a chat app that no-one asked for - just like including their own cryptocurrency in the messenger.

After all, from a privacy perspective it is still a disaster to create an account by using your phone number to sign in. From a typical user's perspective it is basically a worse version of WhatsApp that still cannot backup your texts and conversations properly, so why bother switching at all?

The users will still sit on WhatsApp due to the latter still being the case. Once your phone is lost, stolen, or you have a different phone, your conversations are lost if you are using Signal.

Oh dear.

Re: Stories Are Coming to Signal

#62

Post by Aachen »

keewee7 wrote: post #34
deutschepost wrote: post #11

The feature that I missed the most after switching to signal was Live location sharing. It is just so convenient to find your friends while going out or going to the street exactly at the time someone is there to pick you up.

>after switching to signal was Live location sharing Which messaging apps have actual Live Location sharing?

Telegram

Re: Stories Are Coming to Signal

#63

Post by jimkleiber »

anthropodie wrote: post #57

So Signal is missing a basic feature like location sharing and they chose to go ahead with implementing Stories. I guess they are focusing more on getting new users than making a great app. The thing is none of these centralized apps will ever get messaging right. Because no matter how good the intentions of the team are sooner or later the higher management or the PM wants to have bigger piece of cake. This in the e…

As a counterpoint, if I want to share a message or photo with many people on Signal right now, I have to create a large group and choose whom to invite and I think give it a name and have it persist unless I actively delete it. If I want them to be able to reply directly to me, they may have to do some gymnastics to copy and paste the photo in a private message to me or forward it to me.

Since those options doesn't easily exist, I use WhatsApp or Snap or IG to achieve that because I may still want to communicate a message to all my contacts and find the outlet that lets me do this.

So I hear you on the element of focus to maintain robustness, I just think it may always be a trade off between doing one thing very well and adding new things.

Also, while you may see location sharing as a basic feature, I see it as an advance feature and see stories as a basic feature. Which basic feature should they add or should they not add any new things?

Re: Stories Are Coming to Signal

#64

Post by karmanyaahm »

newscracker wrote: post #27

The development of Signal, sorry to put it harshly, seems to suffer from a split brained syndrome. On one hand they’ll focus on adding stickers, stories and other trivial features to help appeal to a broader user base, but on the other hand they’ll refuse to implement basic and important features that people need in a chat app, like chat backups (there is no backup option for iOS, only a device to device transfer…so…

SchildiChat (Android and web) is an Element fork focusing on simplifying the UX and making it like WhatsApp, Telegram etc. Them not having an iOS version is very unfortunate

Re: Stories Are Coming to Signal

#66

Post by aksgoel »

few predictions on why this PR is an indication to Signal falling into the chasm:

1. The Signal team will soon realize that adding social messaging concepts to a private messaging app in a safe way is possible and more importantly is wanted by a big subset (early majority) of people. 2. The early adopters of Signal App will feel offended as they were looking for a strictly principled secret messaging app. 3. The target market of early majority will not see much difference in Signal and other options and they will stick to the app where their network is already at.

https://www.businessillustrator.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/...

Re: Stories Are Coming to Signal

#67

Post by hermanradtke »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #50
jbreitbart wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I intentionally drop all messages from time to time (typically once I get a new device). Am I the only one who feels like loosing old conversations is just fine? After all, I don’t remember all conversations I had in person as well. I understand that loosing them at an unexpected time can be annoying and a backup is useful, but I personally never had a use for that feature and knowing that it is annoying for someone…

Yes. I keep my iMessages forever, and even back them up (as well as my photo library) as part of my desktop backups. I’m switching my social networks to Telegram after Signal burned up its good will focusing on features they want versus what their users want. Do I care if it’s as secure? No, I prefer the convenience and superior UX iMessages and Telegram offers. Really unfortunate, as it was Signal’s race to lose aft…

> I’m switching my social networks to Telegram after Signal burned up its good will focusing on features they want versus what their users want.

It seems to me like Signal has been focusing on making their UX closer to Telegrams. This seems to be what many users want?

Re: Stories Are Coming to Signal

#68

Post by deutschepost »

waah wrote: post #40
deutschepost wrote: post #11

The feature that I missed the most after switching to signal was Live location sharing. It is just so convenient to find your friends while going out or going to the street exactly at the time someone is there to pick you up.

Don't you get this if you click on the "+" icon? I see options for Camera, GIF, File, etc. then "Location" and I've sent my location this way. Using iPhone.

You can just send your current Location. Not have the message update continuously.

Re: Stories Are Coming to Signal

#70

Post by zepearl »

jbreitbart wrote: post #47
newscracker wrote: post #27

The development of Signal, sorry to put it harshly, seems to suffer from a split brained syndrome. On one hand they’ll focus on adding stickers, stories and other trivial features to help appeal to a broader user base, but on the other hand they’ll refuse to implement basic and important features that people need in a chat app, like chat backups (there is no backup option for iOS, only a device to device transfer…so…

I intentionally drop all messages from time to time (typically once I get a new device). Am I the only one who feels like loosing old conversations is just fine? After all, I don’t remember all conversations I had in person as well. I understand that loosing them at an unexpected time can be annoying and a backup is useful, but I personally never had a use for that feature and knowing that it is annoying for someone…

> Am I the only one who feels like loosing old conversations is just fine?

Same here - but maybe if doing Business then somebody might want to keep them (e.g. to keep track of whatever your customers told you in the past? Just a guess...).

(btw. I think it's not "loosing" if you don't mean something like "letting them free", but "losing". "losing" vs. "choosing", I kept mixing that up until recently... :P )

What I would like as a feature in Signal is "polls" (e.g. to choose with a few friends to which bar/restaurant to go, when to meet, whatever).

But now unluckily I'm back on Whatsapp as even after having abandoned it, within almost 2 years most of my friends refused to install Signal -> in the end, on 31.Dec.2021, I decided to admit that I failed, and I reinstalled Whatsapp :(

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