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Show HN: QKSMS, an SMS replacement app for Android

play.google.com

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Re: Show HN: QKSMS, an SMS replacement app for Android

#3

Post by moezb »

Feel free to ask any questions here!

The app has been in testing for a few months now, and in that time it accumulated over 20k members in the G+ tester community. Today, it's finally being released for the masses :)

Side note, I'm publishing an update in a couple hours to fix some of the crashes that have been showing up in this update

Re: Show HN: QKSMS, an SMS replacement app for Android

#4

Post by zeeshanm »

moezb wrote: post #3

Feel free to ask any questions here! The app has been in testing for a few months now, and in that time it accumulated over 20k members in the G+ tester community. Today, it's finally being released for the masses :) Side note, I'm publishing an update in a couple hours to fix some of the crashes that have been showing up in this update

Nicely done - for a moment I thought this app was officially from Google because of the circle icon. :-)

Re: Show HN: QKSMS, an SMS replacement app for Android

#6

Post by moezb »

jackmaney wrote: post #5

It looks neat, I guess, but it's only really useful for those who have a mobile plan with unlimited data and limited texting. I'm not certain, but I suspect that this is a small minority of the mobile market.

It's actually an SMS *client replacement. It doesn't use mobile data, it uses real SMS and MMS!

Re: Show HN: QKSMS, an SMS replacement app for Android

#7

Post by xpose2000 »

moezb wrote: post #3

Feel free to ask any questions here! The app has been in testing for a few months now, and in that time it accumulated over 20k members in the G+ tester community. Today, it's finally being released for the masses :) Side note, I'm publishing an update in a couple hours to fix some of the crashes that have been showing up in this update

I think the screenshots tell most of the story here. It looks pretty incredible and I am willing to try it out.

Though my biggest question is how similar this thing is to another one called Textra. Can you talk a little bit about what's going on with both of these apps and why they look identical? Plus Textra already has 1-5 million installs.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.textra&hl=...

Re: Show HN: QKSMS, an SMS replacement app for Android

#8

Post by nathanb »

Here is my biggest problem with Hangouts (and the previous Android texting apps I've used):

They seem to work pretty well most of the time. But occasionally, especially with low signal, they hit an annoying exception condition where a message will fail to be sent.

When this happens, it is never clear to me whether the message actually failed to be sent, or whether the receipt was not acknowledged. I know that sometimes it's the former, and sometimes it's the latter (leading to the sending of duplicate messages).

This is probably an artifact of the carrier that the app can do nothing about. True?

Re: Show HN: QKSMS, an SMS replacement app for Android

#10

Post by nathanb »

moezb wrote: post #3

Feel free to ask any questions here! The app has been in testing for a few months now, and in that time it accumulated over 20k members in the G+ tester community. Today, it's finally being released for the masses :) Side note, I'm publishing an update in a couple hours to fix some of the crashes that have been showing up in this update

What value does QKSMS add that Hangouts does not?

"It looks better" is a very valid answer, but honestly after reading the Google Play page, I'm still not sure. From reading the description in the Play Store, here's where I believe QKSMS differs from Hangouts:

* More visual customization

* Offers a mysterious QKReply feature (screenshot seems to suggest this is a special dialog for replying to incoming messages)

* MMS may sometimes be more difficult to set up

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