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Comment by petermonsson | Hacker News Reader

How is it working out? Is the messaging solid between Android and iOS? How is the group messaging working?

Sorry, I just downloaded it, but I have no friends on the list yet. I'm impatient. I really want it to work.

I've been using textsecure for a long time now: so far I haven't had any issues messaging new iOS users including mixed groups. In my experience, there might be some mms edge cases when mixing with other messaging apps, but not too many and bug reports are monitored regularly on github.

Cool, thanks. So, I got it working with some friends. The start is rough when you don't have any contacts. There is no hand holding like you'd expect from other messaging apps. Especially the first message to the first contact is a tough discovery. I managed to mistakenly call instead of texting and another friend did exactly the same.

The error message when you are not registered yet is also not totally clear. One friend complained that he couldn't see when I had read the message (compared to Facebook Messenger).

On the plus side, you've come really far in usable crypto when you're being compared to that.

yeah, i gather this can't be used to completely replaces sms? The handy part of the android textsecure is that it's my sms app for everyone whether or not they use it. I just send a message the normal way and if they're using it, a little lock icon is on the message.

Correct. As I mention above this is unfortunately not possible on iOS due to API lockdown.

Can you document how to add contacts? I've been poking around to no avail.

Signal ties into your phone's existing address book. You can add someone new using the iOS Contacts application.

I thought Signal 1.x had a way to invite people to download and install Signal over iMessage.

I gave up on TextSecure after I irrevocably lost several MMS photos that were sent to me :(

TextSecure lets you save photos out of the conversation and onto (unsecure) external storage.

The photos refused to download from the textsecure servers.

yeah, I've been burned a few times by photos. Luckily, never in a case where the sender couldn't try again using something else (it's only happened on non textsecure to textsecure, if both people use it, I haven't had any issues)

There was a bug a while back where photos would only download via cellular, but the app would try to use WiFi if you were connected. I think it is fixed now.

MMS messages are sent and received by your cellular carrier.

same here. also, what is the blue button for?

Left button/Screen is active conversations. Right side check box blue thing is the Archive.

Swipe right on a conversation, and it goes into the right hand side. No idea why it's that way. Very odd. Why even have the option if it's going to be a first level function.

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