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Updates to our Google Voice apps

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Re: Updates to our Google Voice apps

#261

Post by djsumdog »

tw04 wrote: post #143
djsumdog wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never had an eyePhone and switch to Android from Palm's WebOS. But for years I've always used 3rd party ROMS (Cyanogen mostly). Google has a vested interest in not fixing Android's brokenness. They make a lot of money off phones that needs to be replaced every 2 years. With their strict control over OHA, they can easily mandate PC style platform standards to reduce e-waste, fight planned obsolescence and offer r…

>They make a lot of money off phones that needs to be replaced every 2 years. No... they really don't. They make a lot of money off search traffic and the app store. Android licensing amounts to approximately $0.75 per handset. That's not even a rounding error on their balance sheet, and SURELY not something to "intentionally break android" over. Broken android is a great way to drive people to other platforms. There…

Okay, sure not off direct licensing of the OS. But total revenues are $31 billion. That's a significant number on their balance sheet.

http://www.androidauthority.com/how-does-google-make-money-f...

The Pixel doesn't have an sdcard slot, which is a deal breaker for me. (I don't rent my music, so I have a 200GB micosd card with my collection on it). Even their 128GB model simply won't cut it.

Re: Updates to our Google Voice apps

#262

Post by joosters »

threeseed wrote: post #247
dlandis wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One issue is how they nickel and dime you for storage space. I think you only get 5GB free and then have to "upgrade your icloud plan" even after dropping $800+ on a new phone, which you might want to back up.

5GB is actually enough for most people backing up their phones. The OS, Apps, Music, Books etc don't count towards that 5GB number. The issue is if you take a lot of photos that you will want to upgrade. But it is a small amount.

Photo sharing doesn't seem to count towards your storage limits either...

Re: Updates to our Google Voice apps

#263

Post by rconti »

komali2 wrote: post #227
fooey wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Opening iMessage to other platforms would cannibalize iOS sales. I hear soo many people say they'd try Android, but they can't lose iMessage

I don't think "desperately force our users to stay in our ecosystem" is a very successful business model.

Steve Jobs famously believed in cannibalizing their own sales. (Or, to be less charitably, he believed in that when it was convenient to believe that).

Whether the culture has carried over, who knows.

Even as an iPhone user, I never would have thought iMessage was even in the top 5 or 10 reasons to keep using the platform. But I'm old, don't text all that much, and have unlimited SMS anyway.

I imagine all the cool kids these days are using alternative data-based services anyway. Snapchat, the like. For us old folks, WhatsApp, GroupMe, etc.

Re: Updates to our Google Voice apps

#264

Post by pooloo1 »

baggachipz wrote: post #95
wlesieutre wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's about where I am with this. I got started with GV back when carriers were charging $0.25/each to send or receive texts, and eventually paid Google $20 to port my old AT&T number into their system. Then Google stopped developing the GV app and I switched from iOS to Android to get the Hangouts Dialer integration. With the Hangouts integration instead of a real GV app, they apparently threw away the spam reporti…

I was a die-hard Google user/fanboy until about a year and a half ago. I was a Fi user, Voice user (before Fi), Hangouts, Nexus buyer, you name it (I even had a Google TV and almost bought an OnHub). I bailed on it all when I realized that Google has absolutely no long-term vision or desire to support what they produce. I went to an iPhone and despite Apple's warts, it's a night-and-day experience. I'll never again t…

I am a Google Fi user, the Pixel is by far the best phone I have ever owned, and I have zero complaints so far. To contact customer service, if I ever need to, it takes less than 10 seconds. I almost always have service, if I don't have tower service I swap to WiFi and have the same and full capabilities. I dont have any issues as it stands, though I have been using Google products since 1997 and might be a bit of a fanboy... =P

Re: Updates to our Google Voice apps

#265

Post by rconti »

Uhhrrr wrote: post #110
johansch wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never worked at Google, but... didn't Larry Page announce a full-blown program to fight that like 3-4 years ago? Work on features/depth rather than new products?

Perhaps it was launched but it literally didn't matter whether that product went on to be successful.

At least he got that promotion, though.

Re: Updates to our Google Voice apps

#266

Post by taneq »

megablast wrote: post #172
nextos wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly, I can't understand how Google is so chaotic. Perhaps it's the organization, which looks more like a conglomerate than a cohesive corporation with a clear vision. They release products, only to abandon many of them without a clear reason (like Google Talk). Or they release two products that should be one instead (Android & ChromeOS, or Allo & Duo). The Google Talk fiasco got me particularly disenchanted. A be…

Stupid theory: It is fun working on projects, it is not fun supporting projects.

Putting together what a bunch of different people have said, it's not just this (although it's this too). It's that you get promoted by producing a high profile, popular product. After which you've been promoted and you're working on something else, and so the product you got promoted for gets neglected, languishes for a bit and then dies.

Re: Updates to our Google Voice apps

#267

Post by rconti »

xales wrote: post #256
komali2 wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why they did this. I have used Voice as my primary number for maybe 5 years now. Hangouts was working fine with it. Now I need to decide between using hangouts or google voice? Honestly google, what the fuck.

Hangouts is now being marketed as a business product, they'll probably take it away from non-org accounts soon enough; perhaps this is the alternative.

I have literally no idea what products Google has in this space. I think I've used all or most of them, but they keep changing names, apps browser integration, etc.

Google still insists on using their terrible app-in-a-browser UI for everything (what do you think I have a window manager for??), the various extensions and plugins are inevitably crap, and the feature set is lacking. I can't mute a conversation on a specific device, I can't schedule when I'm on hangouts.. it's just a pain, so I leave my phone signed out even though we use hangouts at work.

Re: Updates to our Google Voice apps

#268

Post by stock_toaster »

fooey wrote: post #205
tw04 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer to this is easy: copy imessage. If Apple had even a little bit of common sense they'd support imessage on windows and android and just charge a small fee of some sort to make money off of it. They're blackberry right now, they could own the market if they were willing to eat their own market share. As for google: I have no idea what is up with the stupidity. What people want is simple: an app that works on…

Opening iMessage to other platforms would cannibalize iOS sales. I hear soo many people say they'd try Android, but they can't lose iMessage

Apple wanted to open it up, supposedly, but I read somewhere that they were apparently blocked by lawsuits with VirnetX (an apparent NPE/patent-troll), ongoing since 2010.

Re: Updates to our Google Voice apps

#270

Post by skybrian »

threeseed wrote: post #250
dragonwriter wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the specific root cause is that messaging is actually a number of different spaces with different ideal solutions, which I think Google is starting to get even though I don't think they've yet actually nailed any of the subspaces (or even necessarily correctly not identified exactly what they are.)

Except that Apple and Facebook managed to largely nail all of the spaces with a single app.

Facebook has at least two (Facebook messenger and Whatsapp.)
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