Won't this just drain the battery very quickly?
Still, people asked for an option to use Signal without Play Services, and here it is. Even if it will drain their battery a lot faster. Moxie actually said this beforehand:
> I expect it to have high battery consumption and an unreliable user experience
So for those who are still running on devices with Play Services, it will still use GCM, and hence won't be a drain on the battery?
Correct
Personally, I think it is a pretty poor critique but this allows people to make that choice for themselves, which for some people is important.
Though to be fair, every android phone I've used seems to have a problem with occasionally "forgetting" to get messages until I check for some reason or another.