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> Hangouts is able to mix voice, video and text just fine. For varying values of "just fine". For me, hangouts is probably the worst performing app on mobile,

> Hangouts is able to mix voice, video and text just fine. For varying values of "just fine". For me, hangouts is probably the worst performing app on mobile, desktop and tablet. It's so bad that even Skype shames it. And FaceTime...well let's not even compare.

karma_vaccum123 10y ago
So why can't it be fixed?
Nullabillity 10y ago
At least it doesn't only run on Apple devices, like the complete joke that is FaceTime.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- jsmthrowaway 10y ago
  [Here lies a substantive question that was posed to a content-free comment. Edit lasts longer than delete, so you now get to read its depressingly gray tombstone. Let's reflect together on this.]
  - izacus 10y ago
    That's a very strong defense of a piece of software that deliberately prevents you from communicating with people that haven't bought the same piece of electronics. Think on that for a moment - "Sorry grandmama, I can't send you iMessage or talk to you in person since you didn't spend your pension on an expensive Apple device." For something as fundamental as human-to-human communication, closed, single vendor, protocols and systems deserve every criticism (and yes, Google deserves it as well).
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - tkubacki 10y ago
      In theory...in reality when it comes to Apple HN crowd has double standards (eg. see snarky comment on "closing date" at top and try to imagine such a comment on Apple not being downvoted here)
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- stephenr 10y ago
  When it comes to shitty interoperability, Google takes the cake. No one ever claimed FaceTime works on your android. They wanted to open source it and got fucked on patents. Try using gmail to send a regular iCalendar format invite to an event. If they just happen to have used that email for a google account, fuck you it ends up in the Google calendar account they likely didn't know they even had, and never goes to their email. THAT is unexpected, and arguably deceptive behaviour.
  - ethanbond 10y ago
    Is there any more info on trying to open source FaceTime? I've never heard of this before and seems interesting.
    - stephenr 10y ago
      Jobs said it at the keynote when FaceTime was announced. They never managed to follow through, and ultimately had to change the way FaceTime works, because of a lawsuit by a patent troll.
      - izacus 10y ago
        Apple, richest company on the world, couldn't pay for a patent on their chat protocol to make it open? :/
      - deong 10y ago
        But they did do the work to circumvent the patent. "Patents" can't logically be the reason FaceTime isn't an open standard today. I doubt they ever were. Apple simply realized that FaceTime was an effective sales driver for iOS hardware and wanted to keep that competitive advantage more than they wanted to follow through on Jobs's promise.
        aljones 10y ago
        The patents forced them to route through their own servers instead of peer to peer. Seems like a logical reason not to make that an open standard to me.
- simonh 10y ago
  You'll need to explain that, I genuinely don't know what you say it. Facetime is just a feature. It's a calling option in contacts and any phone call to another iPhone can be turned into a facetime call at the push of a button. That means you don't even need to think about it. There's no install process, no configuration, no account to set up, it's just there. Furthermore because it can rely on guaranteed hardware features it has the best compression, bandwidth utilization and image quality in the business. If it's a joke, I'm not sure who it is that's doing the laughing.
  - basch 10y ago
    there is an account and you do need to be signed into it in settings. if you don't sign in when you setup the phone, you separately need to sign into: app store, icloud, imessage, facetime, etc
  - Nullabillity 10y ago
    It is a service, I don't see why it being integrated into some other app should matter. It works for calling people who bought from the same brand as you, it doesn't work for the rest of people, and it pretends to work (WTF?) for people who used to have the same brand as you. That's a very different bar from just needing to install an application.
tmsam 10y ago
I only started using Hangouts a few months ago, and find the macOS experience acceptable and think the iOS implementation is dead on.
- spacemanmatt 10y ago
  I started using it lot more in the past year, mainly since it hits every platform my kids, parents, and ex use. Which is all of them, at any given moment. Being the family techie, I was the only one to note that we were virtually limited to 1 or 2 choices.
thomasahle 10y ago
Hangouts has always worked a lot better for me than Skype and Facebook video chat. Both on Android and desktop.
- vanderZwan 10y ago
  Doesn't it use VP9? Tends to kill hardware acceleration, so very battery draining. But aside from that it has generally been way more reliable for me too.
- ergo14 10y ago
  Same here, hangouts is one of best working solutions for me and my family on variety of devices and operating systems.
maruhan2 10y ago
i think it's more that skype and facetime are amazing
vmateixeira 10y ago
The fact that it needs a browser plugin in order for the video/voice features to work doesn't help either.

karma_vaccum123 10y ago

So why can't it be fixed?

Nullabillity 10y ago

At least it doesn't only run on Apple devices, like the complete joke that is FaceTime.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
jsmthrowaway 10y ago
[Here lies a substantive question that was posed to a content-free comment. Edit lasts longer than delete, so you now get to read its depressingly gray tombstone. Let's reflect together on this.]
- izacus 10y ago
  That's a very strong defense of a piece of software that deliberately prevents you from communicating with people that haven't bought the same piece of electronics. Think on that for a moment - "Sorry grandmama, I can't send you iMessage or talk to you in person since you didn't spend your pension on an expensive Apple device." For something as fundamental as human-to-human communication, closed, single vendor, protocols and systems deserve every criticism (and yes, Google deserves it as well).
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - tkubacki 10y ago
    In theory...in reality when it comes to Apple HN crowd has double standards (eg. see snarky comment on "closing date" at top and try to imagine such a comment on Apple not being downvoted here)
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
stephenr 10y ago
When it comes to shitty interoperability, Google takes the cake. No one ever claimed FaceTime works on your android. They wanted to open source it and got fucked on patents. Try using gmail to send a regular iCalendar format invite to an event. If they just happen to have used that email for a google account, fuck you it ends up in the Google calendar account they likely didn't know they even had, and never goes to their email. THAT is unexpected, and arguably deceptive behaviour.
- ethanbond 10y ago
  Is there any more info on trying to open source FaceTime? I've never heard of this before and seems interesting.
  - stephenr 10y ago
    Jobs said it at the keynote when FaceTime was announced. They never managed to follow through, and ultimately had to change the way FaceTime works, because of a lawsuit by a patent troll.
    - izacus 10y ago
      Apple, richest company on the world, couldn't pay for a patent on their chat protocol to make it open? :/
    - deong 10y ago
      But they did do the work to circumvent the patent. "Patents" can't logically be the reason FaceTime isn't an open standard today. I doubt they ever were. Apple simply realized that FaceTime was an effective sales driver for iOS hardware and wanted to keep that competitive advantage more than they wanted to follow through on Jobs's promise.
      - aljones 10y ago
        The patents forced them to route through their own servers instead of peer to peer. Seems like a logical reason not to make that an open standard to me.
simonh 10y ago
You'll need to explain that, I genuinely don't know what you say it. Facetime is just a feature. It's a calling option in contacts and any phone call to another iPhone can be turned into a facetime call at the push of a button. That means you don't even need to think about it. There's no install process, no configuration, no account to set up, it's just there. Furthermore because it can rely on guaranteed hardware features it has the best compression, bandwidth utilization and image quality in the business. If it's a joke, I'm not sure who it is that's doing the laughing.
- basch 10y ago
  there is an account and you do need to be signed into it in settings. if you don't sign in when you setup the phone, you separately need to sign into: app store, icloud, imessage, facetime, etc
- Nullabillity 10y ago
  It is a service, I don't see why it being integrated into some other app should matter. It works for calling people who bought from the same brand as you, it doesn't work for the rest of people, and it pretends to work (WTF?) for people who used to have the same brand as you. That's a very different bar from just needing to install an application.

tmsam 10y ago

I only started using Hangouts a few months ago, and find the macOS experience acceptable and think the iOS implementation is dead on.

spacemanmatt 10y ago
I started using it lot more in the past year, mainly since it hits every platform my kids, parents, and ex use. Which is all of them, at any given moment. Being the family techie, I was the only one to note that we were virtually limited to 1 or 2 choices.

thomasahle 10y ago

Hangouts has always worked a lot better for me than Skype and Facebook video chat. Both on Android and desktop.

vanderZwan 10y ago
Doesn't it use VP9? Tends to kill hardware acceleration, so very battery draining. But aside from that it has generally been way more reliable for me too.
ergo14 10y ago
Same here, hangouts is one of best working solutions for me and my family on variety of devices and operating systems.

maruhan2 10y ago

i think it's more that skype and facetime are amazing

vmateixeira 10y ago

The fact that it needs a browser plugin in order for the video/voice features to work doesn't help either.