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Google’s Messaging Mess: A Timeline

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Re: Google’s Messaging Mess: A Timeline

#151

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan »

vl wrote: post #119
gonehome wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used Google Voice when they first acquired it - it was years early and really ahead of things back then. Texting from the web, voice transcription for messages, could ring multiple numbers. Then they did nothing with it for maybe seven years? MMS would silently fail so people inviting you to events via group chat or sending you a photo would just think you were ignoring them. Hangouts came and the mess with that an…

Google Voice was basically almost de-staffed for few years. Then they started to invest into it again around 2017, I don’t remember exact reason why the strategy changed.

The original acquisition was simply to get their hands on the mounds of voicemail data so they could train their fancy new speech recognition models. It was a prescient move (the Google assistant is still years ahead of its competitors), but they never really had any interest in nurturing that baby. They got what they want from it and let it wither on the vine.

Years later, when Apple neared feature parity, they tried to salvage what was left of it, but it was too little to late. They started creating new messaging apps from scratch that didn't catch on, and now they have a flotilla of pseudo-connected messaging products in various states of abandonment.

Ironically, I think Apple is the only entity with the power to guide Google out of this mess. If Apple integrated its (encrypted) iMessage platform with the already-existing (encrypted) RCS standard, it'd suddenly be the closest we've gotten to having an interoperable communication standard since XMPP/Jabber in the mid-aughts. Apple won't ever choose to do this on their own of course, but I'm holding out hope that it sees the antitrust storm clouds forming in the distance and starts to take some drastic pro-consumer measures to neutralize that threat.

Re: Google’s Messaging Mess: A Timeline

#152

Post by simonh »

busymom0 wrote: post #37
gonehome wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used Google Voice when they first acquired it - it was years early and really ahead of things back then. Texting from the web, voice transcription for messages, could ring multiple numbers. Then they did nothing with it for maybe seven years? MMS would silently fail so people inviting you to events via group chat or sending you a photo would just think you were ignoring them. Hangouts came and the mess with that an…

> At the same time Apple’s stuff has improved year over year. Out of all the large tech companies I’m most bearish about Google’s future - they seem aimless. Deepmind is cool, but Google better hope that ad money machine never stops printing. As an iOS user, I feel the opposite in most areas except calling/messaging/facetime. I find Apple software to be severely limiting their own hardware. Their iPads are such excel…

As against all the awesome tables OSes and applications on competing devices?

I think it's just that growing tablets to be competitive with desktops is either really, really hard or just not reasonable to expect. As a form factor, for all that I love it and you'd have to tear my iPad out of my cold dead hands, it just has inherent limitations to go with it's strengths.

Re: Google’s Messaging Mess: A Timeline

#153

Post by throwaway29303 »

echelon wrote: post #47

The problem with Google is Sundar Pichai. His peers -- Satya Nadella, Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, and Mark Zuckerberg -- all deeply understand and concern themselves with their companies' respective places in the world. They think twenty years into the future and frequently take risks to mitigate a changing landscape and position themselves for future wins. Sundar Pichai isn't one to make bold bets. His company is a fat pi…

I agree, however, these problems started showing up soon after their previous CFO, Patrick Pichette, left Google and Ruth Porat took the reigns. Since then I've noticed they've been obsessively bean counting. Sundar, IMHO, was part of their strategy to get into the Next Billion Users.

Re: Google’s Messaging Mess: A Timeline

#154

Post by mkr-hn »

echelon wrote: post #47

The problem with Google is Sundar Pichai. His peers -- Satya Nadella, Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, and Mark Zuckerberg -- all deeply understand and concern themselves with their companies' respective places in the world. They think twenty years into the future and frequently take risks to mitigate a changing landscape and position themselves for future wins. Sundar Pichai isn't one to make bold bets. His company is a fat pi…

I don't think Google has yet realized Microsoft is going after their backend and B2B/enterprise customers (365[Azure, Teams, Office]), while Apple is going after all their frontend customers[2]. Google still acts like it's 2004 when Microsoft and Apple still acted like it was 1984.

[2] https://stratechery.com/2019/the-iphone-and-apples-services-...

Re: Google’s Messaging Mess: A Timeline

#155

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan »

donny2018 wrote: post #79
busymom0 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't even know this ever existed.

Wait till you find out that the new Google Pay app also doubles as a chat app.

Google photos as well! Just discovered this feature last week.

https://techcrunch.com/2019/12/03/google-photos-adds-a-chat-...

Re: Google’s Messaging Mess: A Timeline

#156

Post by COGlory »

reirob wrote: post #55
COGlory wrote: post #7

I 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...

Photo sync I use Nextcloud for. It will automatically upload my photos to my Nextcloud instance. That takes a bit of effort though, because you have to set up a Nextcloud server.

Re: Google’s Messaging Mess: A Timeline

#157

Post by jaimex2 »

deadmutex wrote: post #24
jaimex2 wrote: post #2

Google as an inovative company with amazing things to try died almost a decade ago. Today its more or less IBM. Would you try IBMs new chat app?

There's so many counter examples to this though... E.g. Stadia, which a lot of people doubted would be technically possible at all.

Is it innovative? I've heard of it but isn't it just an iteration on the usual remote play tech? ie

Wii U, Steam Link/Remote, nVidia Play/Geforce Now etc

I can't say I've ever heard it talked about in my gaming circles.

Re: Google’s Messaging Mess: A Timeline

#158

Post by jaimex2 »

kd913 wrote: post #98
deadmutex wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Technically impossible? Really? I don't think anyone held doubt Yes, so many people were citing latency would make it unplayable, etc. > You work for Google; there may be some bias here. If I was stating an opinion, maybe. In this case, I am merely pointing out the counter example: Stadia, etc.

The concept of stream gaming was done before? I don't think anyone argued that Google couldn't technically develop a solution as good as the predecessors who have far less resources. I don't think Google has solved the fundamental issue which is latency and home broadband infrastructure. They can handwave it with AI, ML latency algorithms and video compression algorithms, but the latency is still not competitive to c…

Turns out they're being outdone by nVidia's GeForce now anyway.

Re: Google’s Messaging Mess: A Timeline

#159

Post by RikNieu »

COGlory wrote: post #7

I 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…

I tried using another search engine, like Duck, but they are horrible. I don't know if it's because I'm not in the US, but it's BARELY usable.

Re: Google’s Messaging Mess: A Timeline

#160

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan »

mkr-hn wrote: post #154
echelon wrote: post #47

The problem with Google is Sundar Pichai. His peers -- Satya Nadella, Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, and Mark Zuckerberg -- all deeply understand and concern themselves with their companies' respective places in the world. They think twenty years into the future and frequently take risks to mitigate a changing landscape and position themselves for future wins. Sundar Pichai isn't one to make bold bets. His company is a fat pi…

I don't think Google has yet realized Microsoft is going after their backend and B2B/enterprise customers (365[Azure, Teams, Office]), while Apple is going after all their frontend customers[2]. Google still acts like it's 2004 when Microsoft and Apple still acted like it was 1984. [2] https://stratechery.com/2019/the-iphone-and-apples-services-...

Google is mainly concerned with protecting its own advertising turf and the data its platforms gobble up: search, YouTube, Gmail, Android, Maps. Apple may be gunning for market share in some of these areas, but hard to imagine Google losing its dominance here any time soon. YouTube and search are absolute behemoths, and monstrous cash cows.

Seen through this lens, their enterprise offerings and free messaging services are almost an afterthought.

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