Google Hangouts Removes Merged SMS Conversations, Adds Video | Hacker News Reader

Google Hangouts Removes Merged SMS Conversations, Adds Video

arstechnica.com

30 pointsaetherson29 comments

Google's app strategy is truly bizarre. Make two of everything, then kill one a few years later, and make another.

Merged conversations are a feature that's immensely useful for users, and I can't fathom their motives behind removing that feature.

When they started deprecating Hangouts as an SMS app [1], Facebook swooped in and made their Facebook Messenger an SMS-handler app [2]. Given its massive install-base and much more assertive product strategy, I wouldn't be surprised to see Google's unclear strategy be their gain.

[1] http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/01/google-hangouts-7-0-f...

[2] https://techcrunch.com/2016/06/14/facebook-messenger-texting...

> Make two of everything, then kill one a few years later, and make another.

This may be a consequence of their sometimes-reported strategy of having two separate internal teams, as a way to try and get the benefits of competition within their company. But I agree, it leads to a mess that could be handled a lot better.

> Merged conversations are a feature that's immensely useful for users

Google's own information on customer response and usage disagrees: "Merged conversations used to let you see your Hangouts messages and text messages in the same conversation. We have decided to remove it, because it caused user confusion and had low usage." [0]

[0] https://support.google.com/hangouts/answer/6005073?hl=en

They're free to disagree; ostensibly they may have telemetry on it. But it was a feature the user could opt into if they so chose (if I recall, it was in fact opt-in [1]) and now they no longer have that choice.

[1] http://www.greenbot.com/article/2971862/android-apps/how-to-...

Well, yes, obviously it was a feature that existed and could theoretically be used -- that's not in dispute anywhere; there's a pretty big gap between that and being a feature that was, in practice, actually useful.

Unsurprising that it "caused user confusion" since unlike with imessage, SMS messages were not synced with the hangouts desktop client so chunks of a merged conversation when viewed on the phone would be missing when viewed from the desktop. If conversations are to be merged, they need to look the same everywhere. The half-assed implementation that hangouts used is worse than not merging them at all.

As someone who uses Google Voice, my SMS messages are synced with the desktop client. This is a significant loss of functionality for me.

This feature was valuable with iMessage before Apple added that synchronization, and frankly I bet in the grand scheme of things the vast majority of people using these features on both iOS and Android do not ever try to use a desktop to manage these messages (and in the case of Android probably don't even know that's possible, as at least with iOS if you have a recent version of Mac OS X you are highly likely to discover the feature by accident).

I wonder about that, given that Hangouts is directly embedded in GMail. There might be quite a few more people who use Hangouts on the desktop.

Google apps are weird. I get the sneaking feeling they just make so much money they don't give a damn about usage, and just build the way they want to- which, apparently, leads to killing apps.

I think this is taking it to the next level, even for Google.

They now make hangouts be on parity with Allo, except for no opt-in end-to-end encryption? Or is the difference that Allo allows encryption, and Hangouts allow group video chat?

BTW, I know I've used videochat via hangouts on Android some time in the past two years - but I guess maybe that was through chrome?

The good news is that there's some work on the open XMPP side, with conversations[1] (along with the OMEMO protocol [2]) and zom.im [3] -- so it looks like we're set for another xmpp revolution. And if that fails, there's always Matrix[4] (And the best part of that is that it's not either/or - we can have both. And everyone else can rot in their crummy message silos. Good riddance).

[1] https://github.com/siacs/Conversations

[2] https://conversations.im/omemo/

[3] https://github.com/zom/zom-android

[4] https://matrix.org/

Somebody should write a business book: How to be in a winning position in an emerging sector (messengers) and lose it, not once (gtalk stagnation), not twice (hangouts introductions), but three/four/five times (all this current mess).

Facebook messenger/whatsapp/skype/telegram/iOS messenger shareholders send to google BIG THANKS :)

I think Google is moving backwards in the messaging field. I've been trying to deal with having GroupMe, SMS, Hangouts, Facebook Messenger, and Telegram for years. The last thing I need is more fragmentation yet every time a Google messaging product is in the news that's exactly what they deliver.

Is there a way to force Hangouts to only use SMS?

It's annoying that if I try to text a friend with a google account that doesn't use Hangouts, it defaults to sending them a Hangout message.

Or, does anyone recommend a third-party SMS client?

This annoys me to no fucking end. Maybe one of the next 8 messaging apps will get it right.

I've found that Google's Messenger app[0] is a nice, no-frills SMS app (not to be confused with Google's other messaging apps, or any of the other apps called "Messenger")

[0] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and...

Anyone remember NetMeeting? It had amazing features in 1997, including screen sharing. Then Microsoft killed it.

Cross platform FaceTime / iMessage will be THE killer app.

Skype could've been it but Microsoft destroyed it.

Surprised Google hasn't been able to do it yet.

Hope WhatsApp doesn't win this space (shudder).

The clock is ticking.

What's wrong with Skype? UI is mostly OK, but audio and video calls work fine, especially on desktop/laptop.

After being acquired by Microsoft, their product strategy for Skype was unclear. It was still offered as a standalone application, and at one point it got Facebook login integration and eventually Microsoft account integration. In 2013, they shut down WLM [1] and told everyone to use Skype.

Meanwhile on Windows Phone, it was discontinued on WP7 [2], while WP8 had native 'iMessage'-equivalent apps backended by Skype, but also a downloadable Skype app. If you installed both, you got double notifications. Was it supposed to be the platform-native messenger? On the phone, the answer was 'yes', but on the desktop it was 'no', or 'not yet'.

Desktop Windows 8 eventually also got a Metro app, but then it was killed [3]. Now they're about to release another one [4].

[1] http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/15/3991370/windows-live-messe...

[2] http://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft-discontinues-skype-w...

[3] http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/06/micros...

[4] http://blogs.skype.com/2016/03/24/skype-universal-windows-pl...

I was wondering what's wrong with WhatsApp. Sure it lacks video calling, but it's arguably my number 2 messaging app. Rock steady, deliver/read receipts, fast..

> what's wrong with WhatsApp

It's owned by FaceBook.

That's the best knock against it you can come up with? I'll take that over "Love the app yet? Good because we're killing it" when owned by Google....

Not on Linux.

The text messaging sucks in multiple ways.

I agree with you that Facetime/iMessage could have been the standard but Apple never opened it up (API/SDK). When iMessage was announced years ago they had an opportunity, now there are too many players and too much at stake (Facebook paid how much for WhatsApp?!).

You're describing Facebook Messenger, which is my primary mode of communication

Google's arrogance again. The message they send to us is: don't use our products, we keep ruining them. How can an opt-in feature be confusing?! It's confusing, because Google still sucks at UX! Make it not confusing - it's your job, and if you can't do it, hire somebody smart!

This separation is a feature, not a bug. SMS and IP chat have different enough semantics that trying to abstract over them will leak.

In my example, I was using iMessage and it captured my SMS in the same UI as IP chat. Then I changed to an Android phone, and my SMS would not arrive on that phone -- same #, same carrier. The issue was Apple's arrangement with the telco, and it required a support call to get that magic undone. Took days.

SMS and IP chat are different. The former is device-to-device, the later is user-to-user. The former is fire-and-forget, the latter has presence. Abstracting over these is a bad temptation.

That said, Project Fi actually gets it right. It make SMS and IP chat transport-agnostic, but at the network level, not papered over in the UI. It fulfills the promise.

As a semi-regular Hangouts user, I find this change to be a yawner.

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