The only features I want are setting availability status and getting online notifications for contacts.
IMs have had those features for decades, and contrary to Google's narrow worldview not everybody is online and available 24/7.
IMs have had those features for decades, and contrary to Google's narrow worldview not everybody is online and available 24/7.
Yes, and 90% of my contacts have been “away” 100% of the time for just as long. Presence information is useless, I’ve been ignoring it for years.
What is the problem you want to avoid? People interrupting you. This is much better solved with a client side option that you control, without relying on the other user’s judgment.
I really like the Do Not Disturb feature in iOS and OS X: it works for the entire system instead of a single program and I fully control it, it doesn’t depend on you interpreting my signal that I’m “busy”.
Send me whatever messages you want any time you want, if I can respond I will, if I don’t want to be interrupted my phone won't make a bleep no matter how hard you push.
Preemptive rebuttal: “the system can turn off notifications when I set myself as away” then why set away in the first place? It has no meaning other than “do not disturb me”.
Maybe it's better to track whether the user is busy or free-to-interrupt, which I think is what Google is already doing. (I believe there is also an option to broadcast if you're on your phone or your desktop, although I don't fully understand why it's that useful)
Edit: I looked up Google's documentation, and apparently they do indeed track Online/Offline in the hangouts app [1], but from what I understand, installing the android app with a data connection = online. I'm not sure what Offline means.
I guess the parent is asking for notifications about the Online/Offline change, which does not exist. (But again, if installing the app means you're always Online in hangouts, you won't get any notifications anyway)
[1] https://support.google.com/hangouts/answer/3111918?hl=en
Perhaps that's why he asked for the ability to set such status manually, in the manner of desktop IM clients.
Is user actively using their phone? "online"
It's simple. IM clients have figured this out years ago.
Mine has been sleeping for an hour, but I'm right next to it and would answer an IM if sent.
So no, not so simple.
Prior to TextSecure deprecating the encrypted SMS option, I used Voice+ (on Cyanogenmod) to send encrypted SMS over Google Voice.
Since that method has been deprecated, the trustworthiness of SMS is lacking, and Google's insistence on not providing a "native" SMS experience for Google Voice (for both Voice and Hangouts apps) is annoying.
I continue to be unable to use an alternative SMS app for ostensibly a SMS service (Google Voice), like I am able to with a hack like Voice+.
Using Hangouts forces me to use unencrypted messaging for Google chat, while also forcing me to be always online.
My current setup is Voice+ with Google Voice and TextSecure to provide encryption communications with other TextSecure users, along with SMS fallback for contacts who are not using TextSecure. I can continue to use TextSecure for Google Voice SMS, however, which is not possible in Lollipop or in any supported way via Google products on Android.
It is disappointing that the biggest reason that I cannot upgrade to Lollipop is due to Google locking users to either Voice or Hangouts for Google Voice SMS. (I really don't care to use multiple messengers for short messages if I can help it).
I'm also using Conversations for encrypted (OTR) messaging over Google chat -- who knows how long that will last. I could live with this if Google offered OTR (preferably) messaging natively from Google apps, but I am not comfortable talking in the clear, especially when it is so easy not to, by using non Google apps/platforms.
Perhaps this is all my fault for using Google Voice as my primary contact number - but that is specifically the use case sold to users - replace your public phone number (... so that we can harvest your conversations)!
Google doesn't make it easy to be private -- likely not a primary use case considered by Google here, but the result is wanting.