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If nothing else, it's impressive that they've actually managed to migrate those Google Talk users over the years (myself included in that, albeit less than I us

If nothing else, it's impressive that they've actually managed to migrate those Google Talk users over the years (myself included in that, albeit less than I used to). They probably did so extremely begrudgingly, but the path went something like: Google Talk -> Hangouts -> Google Chat People I added years ago are still reachable in Chat, which I guess is nice (in spite of everything else).

utucuro 4y ago
Who says that they managed it? I went from Google Talk to Hangouts to no Google Services aside from Play store, kept only because of Android devices... Ideally I would not rely on any Google services, but it is not feasible for me...
ehsankia 4y ago
Indeed, while not ideal, generally they've had a decent migration path. At least for the "message someone inside Gmail" usecase, as far as people are concern, for most people nothing has changed other than some slight UI. Outside of Gmail (especially on android) it is not as clean though.
- lurquer 4y ago
ghaff 4y ago
And Google Chat is pretty decent IMO if you're committed to Google Workspace. How you use it is probably a bit cultural. Where I work--or at least the teams I interact with--it seems to have developed into use Chat if you want a somewhat near-time response rather than email. At least the people I know rarely text these days and essentially never call on voice. Group chats vary by context.
- garciasn 4y ago
  The UX is absolutely horrendous. Don’t even get me started about the 4096 character limit or the fact that URLs in code blocks breaks the code block. How about not being able to sort the user list by whatever order you want or folding groups? What about it creating “Spaces” for chats with more than one contact and forcing you to “leave” if you want to hide it to keep your list clean? Maybe we should talk about how they recently started capturing, poorly, formatted text when you paste, forcing a paste with match style to strip it and no way to remove that default. Maybe we should talk about the horrendous fact that it’s a web app. Maybe we could add in there’s no user configuration ability at all. Fuck Google Chat. It’s a horrendous piece of shit and it needs to die, not third party support.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    >Maybe we should talk about the horrendous fact that it’s a web app. I don't need more apps. Unless there's a compelling reason to have one, I'd much rather be able to sit down at any PC and have the same experience. (I do have the app installed on my phone for notifications but I have those turned off on my PCs anyway.) I don't really need chat apps in general. You can send me an email but Gchat is fine because it's integrated with Gmail.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - thawaya3113 4y ago
      No one’s against the existence of a web app. But most people seem to prefer the desktop versions of chat apps. They really should have both.
- m-p-3 4y ago
  I'm still annoyed at how the "Markdown" syntax in Google Chat is not following the CommonMark specifications.
abirch 4y ago
I love Google but at this point I always expect them to drop support for anything.
- al_borland 4y ago
  What would it take for you to not love them anymore? They're like a friend who is always making plans, then bailing at the last minute.
  - WheatM 4y ago
  - pempem 4y ago
    A cohesive suite of products mimicking microsoft connected to my inbox and a text feature :D preferbly with around 10+ years of my data. I can't lie, its a heavy moat.
  - lmm 4y ago
    If maps started sucking I'd leave. We'll see how bad the new advertising features get. But right now it's just head and shoulders above anything else.
    - SoftTalker 4y ago
      Yes, Maps is the best I've used. I had Apple maps on the other day. I knew the area and knew I was close to the destination. A left turn and about 100 yards down the road. Apple wanted to take me nearly a mile north and then loop back. It does that kind of stuff all the time. I haven't compared Google Maps to a dedicated device like a Garmin. I wonder how that would do.
    - sorenjan 4y ago
      It depends on what you're using it for. Maybe it's the best for finding things like restaurants, looking up business hours, reviews, things like that. Basically a spatial view of points of interests. But as a map I find it very lacking, mainly because of their color scheme, but they're also missing data lite small roads, paths, small lakes. White roads on light gray is difficult to see, and overall it's very low contrast. Which is strange, because they have bragged multiple times of using ML to automatically classify areas and coloring them correctly, but it's only used when zoomed out. Compare these images and see which map style you prefer: https://imgur.com/a/419XB50 https://imgur.com/a/419XB50
ChrisArchitect 4y ago
Hangouts worked excellently for so many years, even after most transitioned out of Talk (aka 3rd party clients) -- available in gmail, available on web, working app etc. Actually with Chat appearing on the scene the transition has been pretty seemless also, with Hangouts still working on web if you wanted it to, and interchangable with Chat versions.

utucuro 4y ago

Who says that they managed it? I went from Google Talk to Hangouts to no Google Services aside from Play store, kept only because of Android devices... Ideally I would not rely on any Google services, but it is not feasible for me...

ehsankia 4y ago

Indeed, while not ideal, generally they've had a decent migration path. At least for the "message someone inside Gmail" usecase, as far as people are concern, for most people nothing has changed other than some slight UI. Outside of Gmail (especially on android) it is not as clean though.

lurquer 4y ago

ghaff 4y ago

And Google Chat is pretty decent IMO if you're committed to Google Workspace. How you use it is probably a bit cultural. Where I work--or at least the teams I interact with--it seems to have developed into use Chat if you want a somewhat near-time response rather than email. At least the people I know rarely text these days and essentially never call on voice. Group chats vary by context.

garciasn 4y ago
The UX is absolutely horrendous. Don’t even get me started about the 4096 character limit or the fact that URLs in code blocks breaks the code block. How about not being able to sort the user list by whatever order you want or folding groups? What about it creating “Spaces” for chats with more than one contact and forcing you to “leave” if you want to hide it to keep your list clean? Maybe we should talk about how they recently started capturing, poorly, formatted text when you paste, forcing a paste with match style to strip it and no way to remove that default. Maybe we should talk about the horrendous fact that it’s a web app. Maybe we could add in there’s no user configuration ability at all. Fuck Google Chat. It’s a horrendous piece of shit and it needs to die, not third party support.
- ghaff 4y ago
  >Maybe we should talk about the horrendous fact that it’s a web app. I don't need more apps. Unless there's a compelling reason to have one, I'd much rather be able to sit down at any PC and have the same experience. (I do have the app installed on my phone for notifications but I have those turned off on my PCs anyway.) I don't really need chat apps in general. You can send me an email but Gchat is fine because it's integrated with Gmail.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - thawaya3113 4y ago
    No one’s against the existence of a web app. But most people seem to prefer the desktop versions of chat apps. They really should have both.
m-p-3 4y ago
I'm still annoyed at how the "Markdown" syntax in Google Chat is not following the CommonMark specifications.

abirch 4y ago

I love Google but at this point I always expect them to drop support for anything.

al_borland 4y ago
What would it take for you to not love them anymore? They're like a friend who is always making plans, then bailing at the last minute.
- WheatM 4y ago
- pempem 4y ago
  A cohesive suite of products mimicking microsoft connected to my inbox and a text feature :D preferbly with around 10+ years of my data. I can't lie, its a heavy moat.
- lmm 4y ago
  If maps started sucking I'd leave. We'll see how bad the new advertising features get. But right now it's just head and shoulders above anything else.
  - SoftTalker 4y ago
    Yes, Maps is the best I've used. I had Apple maps on the other day. I knew the area and knew I was close to the destination. A left turn and about 100 yards down the road. Apple wanted to take me nearly a mile north and then loop back. It does that kind of stuff all the time. I haven't compared Google Maps to a dedicated device like a Garmin. I wonder how that would do.
  - sorenjan 4y ago
    It depends on what you're using it for. Maybe it's the best for finding things like restaurants, looking up business hours, reviews, things like that. Basically a spatial view of points of interests. But as a map I find it very lacking, mainly because of their color scheme, but they're also missing data lite small roads, paths, small lakes. White roads on light gray is difficult to see, and overall it's very low contrast. Which is strange, because they have bragged multiple times of using ML to automatically classify areas and coloring them correctly, but it's only used when zoomed out. Compare these images and see which map style you prefer: https://imgur.com/a/419XB50 https://imgur.com/a/419XB50

ChrisArchitect 4y ago

Hangouts worked excellently for so many years, even after most transitioned out of Talk (aka 3rd party clients) -- available in gmail, available on web, working app etc. Actually with Chat appearing on the scene the transition has been pretty seemless also, with Hangouts still working on web if you wanted it to, and interchangable with Chat versions.