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I'm a private person, and I frequently text things that would be difficult to vocalize. I'm not likely to use speech recognition often, regardless of how good i

I'm a private person, and I frequently text things that would be difficult to vocalize. I'm not likely to use speech recognition often, regardless of how good it gets. I also go back and re-edit my messages before sending, fairly often. That would be a pain with voice. I often use Signal for messaging (same encryption that Whatsapp is now using). It defeats the point of encryption if I'm just sending the audio off to Google to transcribe, anyhow. As for Whatsapp: I don't have any clear reason to install that instead of Viber, Line, or a half-dozen other messaging apps. Instead, I use Signal for some paranoid friends and SMS/MMS for everyone else. I've tried other apps, but I don't really see the point of using them regularly.

ngrilly 10y ago
> I often use Signal for messaging (same encryption that Whatsapp is now using). It defeats the point of encryption if I'm just sending the audio off to Google to transcribe, anyhow. Really good point. > As for Whatsapp: I don't have any clear reason to install that instead of Viber, Line, or a half-dozen other messaging apps. Instead, I use Signal for some paranoid friends and SMS/MMS for everyone else. I've tried other apps, but I don't really see the point of using them regularly. I used to think the same about WhatsApp, and just use SMS/MMS and sometimes Signal. But WhatsApp is a really big improvement over SMS/MMS (the group messaging is very useful, you got typing notifications, encrypted calls, etc.) and it's more ubiquitous than Signal.
- uola 10y ago
  While I like Signal, it's essentially dead in the water as a mainstream platform [0]. They were too late, the network effects are too great and they didn't execute the user part very well. The technology can do a lot of good for users of whatapp, but if they would have had a different perspective they could have exceeded that by becoming a protocol for encrypted communication. I think the would even have done a lot more good even just appealing to companies and make it a solution for company communication. Not as romantic though. [0] I think Hemlis were right when they came to this conclusion. [1] While it's useful if you need encrypted communication it's a mess for normal users. Not only is there a lot of confusion what it does and how it works, there's a lot of problems with notifications, messages and upgrades. And usage is extremely uncommon outside tech circles.

ngrilly 10y ago

> I often use Signal for messaging (same encryption that Whatsapp is now using). It defeats the point of encryption if I'm just sending the audio off to Google to transcribe, anyhow. Really good point. > As for Whatsapp: I don't have any clear reason to install that instead of Viber, Line, or a half-dozen other messaging apps. Instead, I use Signal for some paranoid friends and SMS/MMS for everyone else. I've tried other apps, but I don't really see the point of using them regularly. I used to think the same about WhatsApp, and just use SMS/MMS and sometimes Signal. But WhatsApp is a really big improvement over SMS/MMS (the group messaging is very useful, you got typing notifications, encrypted calls, etc.) and it's more ubiquitous than Signal.

uola 10y ago
While I like Signal, it's essentially dead in the water as a mainstream platform [0]. They were too late, the network effects are too great and they didn't execute the user part very well. The technology can do a lot of good for users of whatapp, but if they would have had a different perspective they could have exceeded that by becoming a protocol for encrypted communication. I think the would even have done a lot more good even just appealing to companies and make it a solution for company communication. Not as romantic though. [0] I think Hemlis were right when they came to this conclusion. [1] While it's useful if you need encrypted communication it's a mess for normal users. Not only is there a lot of confusion what it does and how it works, there's a lot of problems with notifications, messages and upgrades. And usage is extremely uncommon outside tech circles.