The latest on Messages, Allo, Duo and Hangouts • Hacker News Board

Re: The latest on Messages, Allo, Duo and Hangouts

#101

Post by kibwen » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 4:44 AM UTC

pavanagrawal123 wrote: post #63

sorenjan wrote: post #57

Does anyone think that now is Microsoft's best chance to revive Skype as a household name synonymous with chat and video calls? I doubt anyone would want to use any chat app from Google anymore, Facebook is getting really bad PR which could affect WhatsApp as well soon enough. Signal and Telegram are good alternatives but lack marketing muscle. Slack and Discord are mainly used for group chat in professional and gami…

I use skype right now to chat with some friends and it actually works really well for me. Cross platform, video calls, captioning now available is really awesome.

Does it work from within a browser yet? Last time I tried, installing Skype was a surprising hassle on my Windows machine; there were at least two versions being offered through various Microsoft channels, and they appeared to have different feature sets, and I couldn't tell which one of them I ought to be using or if one was deprecated. Discord has spoiled me with chat that Just Works on the web.

Re: The latest on Messages, Allo, Duo and Hangouts

#102

Post by balladeer » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 4:48 AM UTC

brendanmc6 wrote: post #96

yaacov wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

XKCD has a comic for just this situation: https://xkcd.com/927/

Hahaha I had that in my copy clipboard while typing the post :) For real though, has any sort of movement or organization tried to alleviate these problems without financial motivation?

I would say that would not be done by "an app", nor "a service with an API exposed", but by "a protocol" that other/most/all apps follow. Jabber/XMPP comes to mind, so does Matrix.

Re: The latest on Messages, Allo, Duo and Hangouts

#103

Post by millstone » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 4:50 AM UTC

cjtrowbridge wrote: post #87

killjoywashere wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hangouts is... something special. Would you, please, elaborate?

Hangouts integrates your Google Voice and Google Fi texts right into web pages like GMail, contacts, etc. And this works even if your phone is off, lost, broken, or has no service. Hangouts also works on any device with an internet connection if you log in. You can text and call from your number on literally any device just by signing into hangouts. None of the multitude of other redundant Google messaging products d…

This makes no sense to me - why not integrate texts into Google Sheets or Google Maps? This feels like pushing unrelated projects to boost engagement. iMessage does not invade my email.

Didn't Google get badly burned integrating chat into gmail (Google buzz)?

Re: The latest on Messages, Allo, Duo and Hangouts

#104

Post by balladeer » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 4:50 AM UTC

brendanmc6 wrote: post #88

rayiner wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s wrong with iOS Messages? I can text literally everyone I know. I don’t even know what it does under the hood.

It's hardware specific! Most of the planet is on Android. If there is a way to do iMessage on Android, I can at least say that not many people know how.

I think that's where Google Messages is headed unless they somehow decide to put it on other app stores.

Re: The latest on Messages, Allo, Duo and Hangouts

#105

Post by navait » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 4:51 AM UTC

senectus1 wrote: post #4

The sooner they replace hangouts with something that is fast and more reliable the better. getting tired of the inconsistencies experienced with hangouts.

Google Meet is the new thing.

Re: The latest on Messages, Allo, Duo and Hangouts

#106

Post by niftich » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 4:52 AM UTC

I should take my timeline of Google's chat fumbles [1] and keep it updated. A lot has happened since. But Allo's stagnation has been known since April 2018 [2], and "classic" Hangouts' decline has long been suspected in light of the new services also prefixed by the same name.

This post seemed like it might cut the BS and explain what's going on, but it's tinged with PR platitudes and is unacceptably unclear and nonchalant about "classic" Hangouts' fate. They're basically saying they'll shut it down soon but not quite yet.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13465483 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16886921

Re: The latest on Messages, Allo, Duo and Hangouts

#107

Post by tehlike » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 4:53 AM UTC

Eridrus wrote: post #98

tehlike wrote: post #8

The text of the blog post is very confusing at best. I consistently got the feeling we have no idea how to do messaging, and we are throwing many things to see which one sticks. In other words, the blog post felt like it was a post about telling how we have no idea what we are doing using some thousand words. Messages app is very primitive. I like hangouts way more. I can hop from text message to video chat with fami…

What you see as throwing shit at the wall, looks like testing market hypothesis to me. Google isn't going to win the messaging space by building a kitchen sink messaging app that is compatible with everything, so they need to look for opportunities in the market that they can capitalize on. Particularly since Google has regulators breathing down their neck, and carriers unwilling to allow an iMessage equivalent on An…

Google has been testing the market since gchat. Doesnt mean it is working out.

Re: The latest on Messages, Allo, Duo and Hangouts

#108

Post by tehlike » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 4:55 AM UTC

millstone wrote: post #103

cjtrowbridge wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hangouts integrates your Google Voice and Google Fi texts right into web pages like GMail, contacts, etc. And this works even if your phone is off, lost, broken, or has no service. Hangouts also works on any device with an internet connection if you log in. You can text and call from your number on literally any device just by signing into hangouts. None of the multitude of other redundant Google messaging products d…

This makes no sense to me - why not integrate texts into Google Sheets or Google Maps? This feels like pushing unrelated projects to boost engagement. iMessage does not invade my email. Didn't Google get badly burned integrating chat into gmail (Google buzz)?

Gmail has chat. It is gchat->hangouts. I love it.

What you said doesnt make sense is actually easy to get hooked up onto. I get a phone call, and i can answer it from my laptop, or it goes to voice mail and i get a transcript. It is amazing.

Re: The latest on Messages, Allo, Duo and Hangouts

#109

Post by sondh » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 4:55 AM UTC

shubidubi wrote: post #25

ndnxhs wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they gave 4 different people a promotion

give another promotion to the person who will combine all of them.

The problem is right here, it's just gonna end up with 5 different apps.

Related xkcd https://xkcd.com/927/

Re: The latest on Messages, Allo, Duo and Hangouts

#110

Post by HHalvi » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 4:58 AM UTC

My takeaway from this post was google saying : We acknowledge that Hangouts, Duo, Allo exist and we think they were orphaned for too long and we are adopting them back. Hangouts to me is like Flash, useful but so out of touch with everyday needs of an ever evolving world and sadly forgotten. I love Google Photos, Duo as well as Messenger (SMS App) and i hope they don't end up in Google's Graveyard sometime soon.