It looks pretty, but this is yet another app in the long list of "Skype killers" or "Voice/video/text" messaging. It seems like it's the default goto for anyone that can't think of something more interesting these days.
The usual negative HN top post.
I have to disagree. We've moved from irc, to ICQ, to Microsoft Messenger, to ..., to Skype, to (what's hot now), so somehow all those people really DID want another messaging app and even adopted one.
>It looks pretty, but this is yet another app in the long list of "Skype killers" or "Voice/video/text" messaging.
Most of the Skype killers are either crap or crippled in other ways (e.g. Facetime being Apple only).
And we're ways before coming up with the "be all end all" messaging app, so there's plenty of room for innovation in the area.
In general this comment reminds me of the "640K should be enough for everybody" quote...
I have never been asked my phone number. I've only been asked my "whatsapp". Make a good enough messaging app, and you can win an entire country. Or the world.
But your "whatsapp" is your phone number.
I didn't look at it again so I don't know if they fixed it for real in the end.
It's scary how they took over communications over here.
It is amazing how Whatsapp rose everywhere but in the US.
Very disingenuous. In terms of ICQ, they were just early to market, had a competent client and... a deeply flawed method of identification. Messenger? Rolled out with Windows, just like certain other software that caused a bit of a stink in courtrooms at one point. Leverage. AOL did the same thing, pretty much.
As for Skype... it did voice competently, and more importantly did so easily and at a crucial point in time. Just like ICQ once did.
> Most of the Skype killers are either crap or crippled in other ways (e.g. Facetime being Apple only).
Absolutely. But Skype, according to most people I speak to and voice my concerns (ie. people to whom I whine) regarding the latest problem with Skype definitely echo my sentiment. Skype isn't good... it's merely acceptable. But there is no realistic option.
For my little niche there's definitely an opening for a new voice comm package, but "they" will have to raise the bar a lot if they want wide adoption.
By the same standards, I would of course say Skype has a terrible client now.
Skype really is history repeating itself. The client is becoming less usable by the day, and for some reason I was selected for a beta test that introduced the "new" flat style, at a huge cost to layout efficiency. It's truly terrible.
But I also think there is a lot of room for "Skype Killers" in different niches. I think Skype UI is getting worse for the experienced/heavy user. What is your niche? Would love to hear more.
You forgot Hangouts, which works on Android, iOS, and the desktop. It supports text, voice, and video, just like Wire. Its only negative from my personal viewpoint is no Windows Phone support, but that OS is the punchline of many jokes these days.
There's also Slack for businesses, non-profits, and private groups (my local Ingress group uses it), and it offers a ton of extensions.
I don't see where Wire offers anything that we don't have now, though it's nice to see that there is at least an attempt at innovation in this space.
So that would be the "what's hot now".
I didn't mention it because few people I know use it. And I wouldn't touch it a Google + Google+ affilicated messaging solution with a 10-feet pole anyway...
I just felt that it was a glaring omission, especially considering its more popular and more reliable precursor, Google Talk.
Have you ever tried to start a Hangout with a non-technical user? It's a nightmare.
I do remote tutoring. Skype is easy. Everyone has it, you add the username, and call.
Here's what happens when I try to do a hangout:
1. Log in to gmail. Student often takes a while to find gmail on computer and login, as they've been doing everything by phone. 2. Find the chat. Student often takes 2-3 minutes to look for chat. 3. Invite to chat. Your @domain address? No, my personal gmail. 4. Show in chat list. 5. "Send me a message". This takes them another 2-3 minutes to figure out. 6. Start a call. Another delay. 7. Often some kind of technical trouble where the call doesn't start, mic doesn't work, they must by mistake.
This is exacerbated because I'm giving instructions by text. Starting a hangout with a new user on a computer often takes 5-15 minutes. Every step has potential for failure.
If there's a better way than what I'm doing, the fact that I don't know about it is itself is a UI failure on Google's part.
1. Open https://plus.google.com/hangouts/_ to create a new Hangout
2. Copy the permanent link that is shown in the dialog, or enter mail addresses to invite.
3. Students open the link. A login is required to join the Hangout, this could be improved...
Yes, my technophobe sister in law. She got a new Android phone and was texting me via plain old SMS, which are metered on her account. I texted her back "Look for an icon that is a green circle with a double quote mark in it. Open it, follow the prompts, and send me a message". Within a minute I had a Hangout message from her, and she's been using it since.
Purely anecdotal, but then so was your example. I'll agree it's not so simple doing it on a computer, but they still make it fairly simple; do a Google search for "hangouts", the top link takes you to a page that has a button that says "Available for your computer".
I agree the phone is easier.
Google Talk had only chat, but I could trust it to work as intended and deliver my messages. With Hangouts:
- synchronization between devices is not as good. I will often not see everything I typed on my mobile when I open it on my desktop.
- Messages do not arrive in order !!! Sorry for the triple exclamation marks, but this is implemented in the most stupid way I have ever seen in an IM application. Say we are using Hangouts on my mobile. You send the messages
A
B
C
C
<--- I've read until this point and will ignore anything above
A
B
C
<--- I've read until this point and will ignore anything above
There's a truth to it. This one, like so many others, brings nothing new to the field. So why do we want it?
> Most of the Skype killers are either crap or crippled in other ways (e.g. Facetime being Apple only).
What's wrong with XMPP/Jabber?
We have a weekly post on new IM platforms, but all of seem to have features which are a subset of XMPP's. Including Skype.
Nothing, except it is a protocol, not an app. Go build an app based on it that's functionally equivalent to Skype and then we can talk.
* Standard text messaging app, for almost everyone.
* Google Hangouts, which is a pain to remove and always logs in behind my back. I don't want to chat on my phone, it's just a nuisance. (I wish people would stop talking to me through Hangouts, honestly)
* Viber, with a single contact.
* LINE, with a single contact.
I don't have WhatsApp or Snapchat or whatever, but most people will likely have 3 or more messaging apps.
3 years ago, everything was fine. Google used XMPP. Facebook used XMPP. Companies used XMPP. I used XMPP. I may have needed multiple accounts, but I needed only a single app. Now look where we are.
Skype doesn't work for me. I regularly have video failing or voice failing or Skype refusing to log in on some random subset of combinations of devices on my end and the other end. It's gotten steadily worse over the last decade.
Standard text messaging
ConnectBot (to an irssi session for IRC)
The answer is just to say no when people ask you install $appoftheday to contact them. No hangouts, no skype, no whatsapp, no facebook polluting my phone with their intrusiveness and always-on-in-background tendencies. One person occasionally asks me to install Whatsapp, but each time I say no.
Hangouts is a pain to remove if it came in your ROM, but you can still freeze it with Titanium Backup.
But I would prefer if I could just add them as an account to an app that I already have. And ideally an open-source, usable, attractive app.
Obviously this isn't scientific, but the point is that most people don't use IRC. I'm a software dev and I don't use IRC and I've never had a real-world non-dev even mention it. But Skype? I'm forced to use that every day. Text messages? With iMessage, it's great, but you also need to have the person's phone number -- or, you're like me and you're moving around a lot and change numbers fairly frequently, but Skype/iMessage/etc stays pretty consistent year after year.
Just my 2 cents. In terms of "always on intrusiveness" isn't SMS always on? Unless you're using a burner phone, you're being tracked, SMS is always logged, there's no illusion of security.
Besides, who the heck buys a phone is Hangouts imbedded in ROM? If you're interested in security, then I'd suggest getting something other than Android.
As for IRC, it isn't how many people use it, but who uses it; namely a huge proportion of technical communities and people I want to communicate with.
As for Hangouts, it's in the default OEM ROMs, obviously, but also in the gapps packaged for CyanogenMod unless you remove it before flashing (as I did).
Don't need to pay extra to send an image Messages don't get lost in transit and if it did, it'd let you know. It's fast, simple and usable.
I find most everything faddish, but occasionaly things win out because they suck less than what we already have. Of course, those specific problems above might be UK specific.
* Telegram, with all my contacts (including several rather large group chats) * SMS, for telling new contacts to get Telegram
I don't mourn XMPP, it wasn't very nice and especially not very mobile friendly.
The limitations I know of are 'fixed' with decent/recent clients (Stream Management comes to mind). Care to elaborate?
What's poor about it? I'm genuinely interested - not to convince you that you're wrong but to check if I missed a gotcha in my setup here. So far .. I don't see an issue. I could complain about missing features/XEPs that I'd love to have and cannot right now, but .. chatting should work just fine.
That said, you DO want Stream Management.
Besides, I don't trust the Telegram guys with their faux security claims.
We're trying to fix this with Matrix.org - folks frustrated with yet another communication silo might want to check it out and help us tear down the walls between these gardens. (obvious disclaimer: i help run matrix.org)
Nicely played.
(edit: disclaimer: I'm also involved with matrix.org)
Storing the history on multiple servers? Not sure I understand the use case here (okay 'server goes down' I understand, but spreading my message history to multiple servers for that seems .. unexpected).
If friend 1 and 2 have a separate conversation in a different room, only their two servers will keep a copy of the conversation history. If friend 3 joins this room, his server will receive the current history from the other servers (there's a limit for efficiency but you can explicitly get all the history via pagination).
Apps like this are the future, but nobody has quite hit the perfect spot yet in terms of features and adoption (adoption probably being most important, or some method of piggy-backing on existing services like email/SMS/mobile nos). I had a look at this and it looks pretty good but the first-run experience just isn't there yet. I don't trust some random company with my address book, certainly not on first-run, so I'm not in an empty app wondering what to do. That's far from ideal and will probably be their biggest problem.
People will always want to try new ways to message one another. Consequently we'll always get new messaging apps.
I do somewhat agree with your overall point though. And it's worth noting that sometimes that "new feature" can be things like "my parents don't use it yet", in the case of teenagers and the like.
The core value prop of the internet is easy communication. Don't be surprised when people continue to iterate on it.
Then I tried to share a Pages document...
Telegram has fantastic clients on all the platforms, but isn't secure. TextSecure is secure, but has only a mediocre app on a single platform (Android). The other alternatives are even worse.
Tox is looking really promising though: https://wiki.tox.im/FAQ
Also, messages are not encrypted by default, and there is afaik no way to encrypt group chats. You have to create a special "secret" chat for the messages to be encrypted.
So far only TextSecure does this.
One needs to have source released, audited and verified to match prebuilt binaries that are actually used by the unwashed gray masses. Without all three checked for each public build you have zero assurance that you are running a binary built from the released source and that the source doesn't have anything fishy in it.
The only app that checks all three, somewhat ironically, is TrueCrypt. PGPfone checked #1 and #3. TextSecure checks just #1 unless I am missing something, so objectively its "demonstrated security" is exactly the same as that of any another app that simply describes what it does in plain English and has a traffic to prove it.
And the article you linked points out several times that the encryption is only going to be enabled for WhatsApp's Android client for the time being.
Threema is closed sourced and thus I don't know which/how encryption are they actually using.
We have XMPP and OTR, and with chatsecure on Android or various clients on Linux it's pretty pleasant. I believe there are a few OS X clients as well, not sure about iOS.
What we need is a protocol people can make clients for. With end to end encryption and PFS, of course.
Edit: yes.
https://xkcd.com/927/ is the kind of situation we need to avoid.
True, but do you think it's easier to deploy an extension that already exists and just lacks implementations, or to create a whole new protocol from scratch ?
If you look at other successful protocols, you'll also see that some features we rely on were bolted-on as extensions to protocols that were defined before, such as DNS, IMAP, HTTP... Not that it's an excuse to do the same, but it's expected.
> it's truly decentralized, without the need for a server for the actual communication
I don't think that's not something you actually want.
- How do you send a message to someone who's offline ? You don't, you have to wait for you and your contact to be online at the same time.
- How do you traverse NATs ? You have to craft all that messy code, and it's not even guaranteed that it works... you're going to need a "known anchor" for everyone to connect, just like what we see with WebRTC. If you're aiming for a one single protocol, there's no way around that. By the way XMPP can do signaling over XMPP and actual communications over direct, P2P links (such as SOCKS5: http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0260.html)
The sad state today is that many clients still haven't implemented Jingle, but at least there's something to start from.
Tox actually does NAT traversal quite well I've found, and it does support SOCKS5 connections out of the box, albeit through TCP relay nodes rather than direct P2P.
"Yet another messaging protocol is what we need said nobody ever" will be the top comment.
In this way, a new app is a danger not only to the maker of an old app, it's a danger to the client as well.
No thanks. I already use iMessage, Hangouts, Line, and Skype at work. There's too many messengers and they all do the same thing.
Wire is not a 10x improvement. Maybe like a 0.0015 improvement which won't even convince me to download it.
The call quality with Skype and other services is decent, making it slightly better with a cleaner UI won't do much.
It's gone from a messaging app that I couldn't believe worked so well on a low-speed connection, to a messaging app that that I can't believe works so shitty on a high-speed connection. I literally tried for 20 minutes just to get a call to connect last Saturday before giving up and using FaceTime instead.