Wire – Modern Communications Network • Hacker News Board

Re: Wire – Modern Communications Network

#71

Post by salimmadjd » Wed, Dec 03, 2014, 10:08 AM UTC

The UI is beautiful. However, differentiating on UI for an app that's about communication can only take you so far. I think some users will be initially wowed by all the nice colors etc. but the app is about chatting, sending images, text and taking, and no amount of beautiful color is going to impact that.

I know how long it takes to make things pretty, I'm wondering if this was a right decision vs. investing their time on something else that is more core to their value (communication).

I think there is a lot of room to innovate around ease of communication, texting, chatting, etc. on the mobile space and we'll see more apps and probably another $Billon exit.

edit: typo

Re: Wire – Modern Communications Network

#72

Post by dzhiurgis » Wed, Dec 03, 2014, 10:09 AM UTC

Skype is the most resource hungry app on my Mac. It deserves to die.

Unfortunately I am forced to resort using it whenever FaceTime fails. And that happens approx. every 15nth call.

Re: Wire – Modern Communications Network

#73

Post by tazjin » Wed, Dec 03, 2014, 10:11 AM UTC

sspiff wrote: post #18

NullReference wrote: post #4

"What we need is another messaging app" said nobody, ever. It looks pretty, but this is yet another app in the long list of "Skype killers" or "Voice/video/text" messaging. It seems like it's the default goto for anyone that can't think of something more interesting these days.

Exactly. Right now, I have installed on my phone: * Standard text messaging app, for almost everyone. * Google Hangouts, which is a pain to remove and always logs in behind my back. I don't want to chat on my phone, it's just a nuisance. (I wish people would stop talking to me through Hangouts, honestly) * Viber, with a single contact. * LINE, with a single contact. I don't have WhatsApp or Snapchat or whatever, but…

I have:

* Telegram, with all my contacts (including several rather large group chats) * SMS, for telling new contacts to get Telegram

I don't mourn XMPP, it wasn't very nice and especially not very mobile friendly.

Re: Wire – Modern Communications Network

#74

Post by hueving » Wed, Dec 03, 2014, 10:12 AM UTC

wamatt wrote: post #43

fizx wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We didn't need yet another IRC clone, and yet Slack seems to be cleaning up. The core value prop of the internet is easy communication. Don't be surprised when people continue to iterate on it.

To be fair, Slack is much more than simply an IRC clone

Right, because most IRC clones are free

Re: Wire – Modern Communications Network

#75

Post by ekianjo » Wed, Dec 03, 2014, 10:12 AM UTC

allan_ wrote: post #69

ekianjo wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, totally agree, but looks that users always like to see the wheel being reinvented. It's kind of depressing, why fix what's not broken ?

I don't think users really want the wheel to be reinvented. More like companies try to lock you in on their tech and make money with you. Fragmentation? CEO gives a shit.

Well, I rarely see users refuse to install an application even though it does the same thing as another one. That's part of the problem.

Re: Wire – Modern Communications Network

#76

Post by andor » Wed, Dec 03, 2014, 10:14 AM UTC

blueskin_ wrote: post #58

rakoo wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what XMPP is already doing.

Does XMPP support video? Edit: yes. https://xkcd.com/927/ is the kind of situation we need to avoid.

XMPP/Jingle worked, although the quality wasn't very good. You could make video calls between Google Talk (also on Android) and Empathy, the standard GNOME XMPP Client.

Re: Wire – Modern Communications Network

#77

Post by return0 » Wed, Dec 03, 2014, 10:14 AM UTC

flexie wrote: post #11

Skype has video chat. So far Wire only has audio. Skype can call a regular phone or receive calls from a regular phone. It seems like Wire can't, yet. Skype has all my contacts, Wire has none, yet. Let's call it a Skype killer if it kills Skype. Not yet.

even my browser has video chat , basically a lot more than that (e.g. https://github.com/muaz-khan/WebRTC-Experiment)

Re: Wire – Modern Communications Network

#78

Post by ape4 » Wed, Dec 03, 2014, 10:17 AM UTC

I like how Wire and Telegram are referencing old tech. I prediction the next Skype killer will be called Morse or Flip Phone.

Re: Wire – Modern Communications Network

#79

Post by warrenmiller » Wed, Dec 03, 2014, 10:17 AM UTC

Could they not get any more Hipsters on that page?

Re: Wire – Modern Communications Network

#80

Post by cJ0th » Wed, Dec 03, 2014, 10:18 AM UTC

scalayer wrote: post #49

Does anyone else feel like we're in the midst of another 1990's instant messaging war? Except now with smartphones!

Yeah and this implies that people by and large still aren't tech savvy (enough). This is very unfortunate as we have to use the software most people are wiling to tolerate. Ironically, in most of my use cases e-mail is the best solution for communication. It is based on widely accepted protocols [there is an abundance of e-mail clients you can choose from without fearing compatibility issues], delivery is (most of the time) almost instant and it is up to you which provider you use (or you can even host an e-mail server yourself). It's also good concerning encryption in that you can agree with each of your contacts whether or not you want to use some form of it. In contrast, messenger like Facebook don't give you a choice and OTR is not something everyone is willing to learn about.