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Comment by _jsnk | Hacker News Reader

I'm very upset by this decision. I've been using Signal as my SMS app for a very long time.

Messages that I would have sent via SMS currently will automatically get sent via Signal if the person I'm sending to has started using Signal without my knowledge. This has happened in several instances where I was pleasantly surprised to see a friend had started using Signal. Now that I'm forced into a separate SMS app, this will no longer be a possibility. I certainly won't be firing up Signal to see if a contact has joined before sending them an SMS.

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This. Now you have to remember who is in Signal and who isn't. All because apparently the double-check mark for messages between Signal users and the unlocked icon for SMS messages is too hard to comprehend. SMH.

If I understand this, if I use SMS, I can send to everyone. If I use Signal, I can send to Signal users only. But I don't remember who's on Signal, and who's not. So I guess I will stop using Signal.

If I want to message someone I open the contact and click on one of the messengers that are listed for the phone number. Why would I leave the memorizing to my brain?

Huh. I've never used contacts that way. I suppose it could work but that's a new extra step. My Contacts list is gigantic and full of bullshit I don't care about because it's sync'd from work and flooded with people I don't know. Usually I just find the conversation from the chronological list (which is more of how I remember things). Maybe there's some way to sort contacts by recent use? It just seems like that's leaking metadata to push all of that context into Contacts. Anyway that seems maybe plausible if it can index or springboard to convos in other apps.

Usually I just find the conversation from the chronological list...

Bingo.

Theoretically couldn't an Android app be built using notification access to track notification history and coalate messaging notifications (combining notifications from all/selected/configured) messaging apps? That sort of a "messaging hub" could be even better, frankly.

You'd expect one app to have read access to the notifications of all others?

If I grant it notification access permissions.

My launcher (Niagara) does that already to display notifications in popups connected to app icons.

Notification processing is one of Android's greatest features over iOS.

What'd be even better is if there was a central "messaging" interface where all the various implementations can register as messaging service providers and all your conversations end up in one place.

Off topic slightly, but it amazes me how much SMS is used in outside my country (maybe just US?). I literally never SMS any personal contacts, usually WhatsApp. Even business stuff, sometimes initial contact may be SMS and then could often move to WhatsApp. I use signal with a small circle of friends, but no one I know uses SMS anymore.

I have WhatsApp installed for two different group chats, Google Chat for another couple of group chats, but apart from that SMS is the standard here (which means opportunistically iMessage / Signal). I'm in Australia, where SMS typically have no per-message cost (the only thing that's charged per use on most mobile plans here is data and international calls).

In Ireland, an SMS used to cost 13c, if I remember correctly.

So when apps like viber, WhatsApp, etc came on the scene, people jumped on them quickly and completely stopped texting.

This was before they even had voice calling.

With voice calling, it is also popular, as you can call someone irrespective of what country they are in and not worry about roaming or international call charges (even though in the EU now we do not have roaming charges anymore).

Some people even use WhatsApp for normal calls over normal cellular calls!

I have been receiving notifications that a person in my contact list is now using Signal for years.

Apart from that, your use case has another possible issue. If a person stops using Signal, your messages will go to the void until Signal actually removes the user and your client switches back to SMS. This has caused a lot of confusion for some of my friends when I switched my signal account to a different phone number.

I think it's more reliable to use Signal for Signal.

Exactly. Dumbest idea ever. Apparently Signal thinks they can recruit all of us as their sales force.

Well this is also a problem. As it's said in the article, you risk getting charged for an SMS, that in some countries are expensive, most mobile plan in my country have 30+Gb for 7 euros at month, but SMS are 20 cent *EACH*. Practically in my country nobody uses SMS, and SMS are used only to receive 2 factor authentication codes (and spam).

Anyway a normal person already uses multiple messaging applications: WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook Messanger, Instagram direct messages, the good old email, SMS (I guess somebody they are still used reading the comments), adding Signal it's not that big deal.

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