4 ms·
He missed the thing that's getting me really close to leaving Android after being a devout user since the G1 (with a short 3-5 month stint on an Iphone 6). I re
by swozey 8y ago
He missed the thing that's getting me really close to leaving Android after being a devout user since the G1 (with a short 3-5 month stint on an Iphone 6). I really, really dislike IOS and I absolutely don't want to be more tied to Apple than I am with my MBP and Hackintosh (technically I'm just tied to OSX right now).
RCS (the Android attempt at iMessage) is STILL not a real-world thing. Txt messaging and MMS on Android is still an absolute joke. My Samsung S8 has, what, a 12-megapixel camera (I never look at these specs anymore) that can take incredible pictures and videos but if I want to send them to someone I have to jump through a bunch of hoops. Upload them to dropbox, share it, send my friend the link, hope they click it vs it just playing in their messaging app.
If I send that video via text message it gets compressed to a 500kb blurry mess. I frequently have to explain to people that Androids don't take terrible pictures, my phone takes amazing pictures. The problem is when I send them to you I'm limited to the maximums of text messaging because phone providers haven't rolled out RCS. It also doesn't help that the Snapchat app back when I used to use it just took a screenshot of our camera app. That further shouted, "Android sucks at pictures, what a peasant phone!"
Tmobile has RCS now but it only works between Tmobile Android users who are using the stock messaging app. They might even need a recent phone with a specific version of Android, I'm not sure there. They rolled this out in June 2018. 2018! How long has imessage been around? And I still have never seen it actually kick in because 90% of the people I txt are on iphones. I also HAVE to use the built-in Messaging app to get this because the RCS API wasn't (not sure if it is now) public so other messaging apps couldn't send over RCS. If I use the Samsung messaging app then I lose the web messaging feature that the Google Messaging app gives me. The Google Messaging app is terrible, though, it doesn't even have the ability to click a person's name and see all of the media shared between us like the good messaging apps do. I have to literally scroll and scroll and scroll to see a picture that I've been sent.
There are all these tradeoffs just for messaging. Do I want an easy web experience so I don't have to pick my phone up every time I get a text? Then I lose the file library when you click a contacts name. Do I want RCS? I'm not even sure which Messaging app to use for it. It's either Samsung Messaging or I need to download Tmobile messaging.
I don't follow it but I don't believe ATT/Verizon are even going to roll out RCS, I believe they have their own implementation coming (somedayTM). Unless their "Advanced Messaging" is just RCS. Will that work with Tmobile users? Or will it just be between ATT customers?
I have plenty of other complaints about Android lately. Privacy, per-app notifications are a mess.
I LOVE the customization of Android and the lack of it is what I dislike about IOS but I'm to the point where I just want a smooth UX.
edit: Before I get the "Use Whatsapp/etc" that's just not an option. Google Hangouts was SOMEWHAT ubiquitous between my friends a few years ago and was great but if I'm taking pictures of my house for a contractor, or shooting pictures of my Jeep offroading to random Jeep friends and what not I'm not going to go "Are you on WhatsApp?" each time. I know these limits are because of carriers and not Google/Android specifically.
- j605 8y agoIf you have a smartphone, people invariably have one or two messaging apps in my experience. If it is not Whatsapp then it is something else. You need to figure out what everyone in your circle is using and switch to it or resort to sending blurry SMS. I've found sharing google photos links is much easier since it backs up anyway.
- davidgould 8y ago> If you have a smartphone, people invariably have one or two messaging apps in my experience. If it is not Whatsapp then it is something else Yes, it's called iMessage.