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Overrun With Messaging Apps

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Re: Overrun With Messaging Apps

#21

Post by brickcap »

chrisballinger wrote: post #3

What really disappoints me about the current crop of VC funded messaging apps is that none of them care very strongly about user privacy. Even apps that claim to keep your messages "encrypted" are closed source and don't include details about their encryption techniques. There are open source encrypted messaging apps like ChatSecure [1][2], and TextSecure [3] but they lack some of the modern vanity features that user…

sorry for the self promotion. I am working on a messagin service that values privacy. Check out wrinq

http://www.wrinq.com/

Re: Overrun With Messaging Apps

#22

Post by fraserharris »

chrisballinger wrote: post #3

What really disappoints me about the current crop of VC funded messaging apps is that none of them care very strongly about user privacy. Even apps that claim to keep your messages "encrypted" are closed source and don't include details about their encryption techniques. There are open source encrypted messaging apps like ChatSecure [1][2], and TextSecure [3] but they lack some of the modern vanity features that user…

Not encryption, but: Kik does not save messages on their server. After some # of messages (100?), they disappear in the client as well.

Re: Overrun With Messaging Apps

#23

Post by mahyarm »

chrisballinger wrote: post #3

What really disappoints me about the current crop of VC funded messaging apps is that none of them care very strongly about user privacy. Even apps that claim to keep your messages "encrypted" are closed source and don't include details about their encryption techniques. There are open source encrypted messaging apps like ChatSecure [1][2], and TextSecure [3] but they lack some of the modern vanity features that user…

ChatSecure is a crashy mess, TextSecure is android only and requires a phone number, you can't use tablets. I'm looking forward to the CryptoCat clients that are supposedly being released this month, it might be an actual usable mobile OTR client for both iOS and Android.

Re: Overrun With Messaging Apps

#24

Post by hansy »

skinnycow wrote: post #15
lnanek2 wrote: post #13

Google is making a play too, with Hangouts now handling SMS. Although the people I've talked to who try that hate it, because it often sends a chat message when they wanted to text the person. Texts are just seen as much more personal and immediate where are chat texts aren't much different from email.

Maybe they should put a big SMS label on it so you know, or put "SMS 000-000-0000" at the top to signify it's an SMS chat rather than the Hangout. (This is how it is today, btw)

There's a toggle at the top of the app that lets you choose whether you want to send your contacts an SMS or an IM.

I've been using the Hangouts app for a few weeks now and am pretty impressed with it so far. It's become my go-to messenger. All of my friends usually keep their Gchat open during work, so switching seamlessly between chat and SMS has been a pretty good experience so far.

The app, though, is a little slow to load and send SMS's, but not enough to warrant disuse.

Re: Overrun With Messaging Apps

#25

Post by megablast »

xur17 wrote: post #2

All of these apps are essentially doing the same things - sending text, pictures, and status notifications. It's a hard sell, but we really need a standard like email or xmpp to allow interoperability.

It is so easy to whip one of these apps together, you could do it in a few days.

Re: Overrun With Messaging Apps

#26

Post by dvanduzer »

dpritchett wrote: post #4
xur17 wrote: post #2

All of these apps are essentially doing the same things - sending text, pictures, and status notifications. It's a hard sell, but we really need a standard like email or xmpp to allow interoperability.

Google killed Talk (XMPP), replaced it with hangouts, and is suddenly offering to replace my SMS app and send them all through hangouts. I get that this works as a direct competitor to Messages, but I'd really rather just see Jabber or something like it here.

There are plenty of reasons XMPP succeeded where it succeeded and failed where it failed.

I don't recall if this made the HN front page, but there was some news this week of interest: http://www.theverge.com/2013/12/4/5173726/you-have-too-many-...

edit: ugh, jer beat me to it by hours

Re: Overrun With Messaging Apps

#28

Post by untog »

AznHisoka wrote: post #14
Pxtl wrote: post #5

Everythign old is new again. Remember the days of MSN vs ICQ vs AIM etc etc etc?

Yes... Why can't people just download Trillian and stop giving Snapchat and Whatsapp billions of dollars. le sigh

Because that kind of always-on chat will destroy your battery.

Re: Overrun With Messaging Apps

#29

Post by Pxtl »

AznHisoka wrote: post #14
Pxtl wrote: post #5

Everythign old is new again. Remember the days of MSN vs ICQ vs AIM etc etc etc?

Yes... Why can't people just download Trillian and stop giving Snapchat and Whatsapp billions of dollars. le sigh

SnapChat makes sense because it's got the whole deletion-driven ephemral images model. That doesn't really require its own protocol, though.

Now I'm fantasizing about some kind of extensible system that allows that kind of special messaging. Making a cross-platform system for that would be hard. HTML5+JS message bodies (omg security!)? Plugin architecture? Idunno.

Re: Overrun With Messaging Apps

#30

Post by tobylane »

For a while I was heavily using Adium, with many extensions, theme packs, and Whatsapp. I'm now just using Messages on mac/iphone and much prefer it. Bells and whistles are only interesting for so long. Text and emails, on computer and phone beats any long feature list.

Same for music, I had customised Winamp and another one I can't remember the name of, but now I'm back to iTunes. I do need a new podcast client now that iTunes makes it difficult to know which episodes are downloaded. Any suggestions?

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