Google shuts down mobile web app for Google Talk | Hacker News Reader

Google shuts down mobile web app for Google Talk

productforums.google.com

48 pointsesolyt24 comments

Why isn't Google making an official Google Talk app for iOS again? Is it because of some limitations of the iOS or they just don't want to make one?

They did, it got rejected & they created that thing instead

But there are many IM apps on the iOS App Store. Why was it rejected?

Can you have your own persistent TCP connections on iOS or are you required to use Apple Push Notifications? If not, that's probably why.

Doesn't Skype run in the bacground to receive calls and IMs?

Skype is a VoIP app and gets special privileges for that. It's just a plist entry of course, but apple is known to reject apps for claiming to be VoIP apps when they are in-fact not (like Sparrow - http://buzzingpixel.com/article/2012/03/sparrow-push).

Also, be mindful of what you ask for. Skype is a terrible battery drain. This could be because Skype just has some bugs or it could be because iOS relly sucks at dealing with background apps which would mean that GTalk would use as much battery as Skype.

GTalk's big feature is the voice/video chat, so I don't think a VoIP masquerade is the issue.

Why was it rejected? Apple.

Do you have any sources for this statement?

I was also wondering that. Because I remember a Googler saying they have never made a Google Talk app for iOS.

If they had, I would've been all over it. All existing Jabber/XMPP iOS apps are quite bad.

I can't find anything to support that. There was a native Google Voice app that was rejected (well, perma-delayed) but no native Google Talk app as far as I can tell.

This ain't true, at least for the original iOS Google chat solution. It was a deliberate bet to do it as a web app, instead of a native app. I was there and disagreed, but I still understood the willingness to make that bet.

there you go http://techcrunch.com/2009/07/27/apple-is-growing-rotten-to-...

Google Voice app was started later than the original web-based Google Chat for iOS project. The latter was already released and in use before Google Voice app was blocked. It wasn't made as a reaction to that dispute.

Google Talk uses straight XMPP, so any XMPP-capable IM-client should suffice. And there are lots of those.

I don't see a problem with this.

One of problems, definitely not a big one, is accessing messages sent to you while you were offline. You have to sign in to gmail to grab them, because you want be notified about them via XMPP. (Assuming you have turned on storing of chats.)

Use Verbs.

http://verbs.im/

Reviews aren't very good, otherwise I would be all over this.

I don't know too much about competition of Google Talk and IM apps on iOS, but http://imo.im has been good. One of Google's first 10 employees is behind the app. It seems to be the only iOS multi-IM app to support Skype text chat (including group text chat which is good for me).

Though can't deny Verbs is beautiful.

imo.im is alright, but I found it to be a battery drain and to, for some strange reason, just straight-out refuses to stay disconnected (which is really annoying for stuff like Yahoo IM, which can only be signed in on one computer at a time). The latter is also a problem on Android, though I haven't seen the battery drain problems there.

I love it on the desktop, though - I try to avoid installing distractions on my writing netbook, so when I really need to talk to somebody I just go to imo instead of starting up an app.

Ah, the not staying disconnected issue is a pain. I've gotten so used to it being an annoyance that I don't even think about it anymore, haha.

Battery drain is a bummer.

Bummer. I hope this isn't going to start a "go native" trend. I used the google talk webapp because I don't chat often and didn't think I needed to install a chat app on my phone. I know I'm taking a giant leap here but I honestly fear mobile webapps being dropped in favor of native and only native.

April 23?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com