4 ms·

I wish they would improve the app UI instead of focusing on features like this. Compared to other apps I use regularly, Signal feels kind of clunky -- the share

I wish they would improve the app UI instead of focusing on features like this. Compared to other apps I use regularly, Signal feels kind of clunky -- the share dialog takes forever to load from another app compared to Telegram or Messages. The app feels like it's harassing me every single day to update. On open, the app often takes a few seconds of loading in my chats. Makes me wonder what core userbase Signal thinks cares about Stories more than a functional app. Half the reason I started using Telegram a decade ago was simply because it was faster than most other apps!

robszumski 4y ago
+1 on the update harassment. Are these critical security bugs or random updates!? You never know.
- dont__panic 4y ago
  Exactly. I'm glad they update the app regularly, but the giant popup banner is an aggressive way of advertising that.
  - kiwijamo 4y ago
    What platform? I don't get this on Android or Linux Desktop (via Flatpak). Perhaps I am just good at keeping apps on both platforms up to date?
    - codethief 4y ago
      AFAIK you only get those update notifications when you install Signal by hand via the apk provided on signal.org.
- codethief 4y ago
  +1 Can we please have a changelog? I don't care whether it's in the app or on Github but it shouldn't only appear to Google Play Store users (and only temporarily).
boraoztunc 4y ago
Same here, moved to Telegram. Still use Signal though (my mother still contacts me there) but the product needs work.
- ehPReth 4y ago
  I wish I could disable those big animated emotes; they don’t always reflect what I’m feeling… Also, less super compressed images/videos. I get they have to save space but sheesh they look like garbage
  - another_kel 4y ago
    I think you can disable big emotes in settings -> general -> large emoji. To avoid compression you can send photos as a document.
daqnal 4y ago
From my experiences, Signal has the cleanest, most functional UX and design out of nearly all my apps. I have a mid-range Pixel 4a running CalyxOS and it works without hiccups. Not sure why yours is so slow.
- dont__panic 4y ago
  I am using an absolutely ancient phone (2016 iphone SE) that's perpetually in low power mode, so it's possible that this isn't a big problem for other iOS users. It's also rather slow on my mac, but I have noticed that my partner's 4a runs it smoothly.
  - NavinF 4y ago
    That would explain it.
  - yunohn 4y ago
    I love HN threads where the complainer is knowingly using an old device on power mode, while complaining about performance… all while the responder is using a custom de-googled niche ROM and claiming somehow it works flawlessly. I always wonder how non-HNers use such software, if even the dedicated people are struggling.
    - seized 4y ago
      Well as a counterpoint, I have bog standard Pixel 5 still on Android 11 and Signal works perfectly.
    - kiwijamo 4y ago
      I am using stock ROM for my S21 and it also work flawlessly. Not sure whether the ROM has anything to do with it.
    - vbezhenar 4y ago
      iPhone SE is an extremely powerful phone. AFAIR it uses iPhone 6S CPU. iPhone 7 CPU beat Intel Core i7700K in some benchmarks, just to put a comparison. Not sure how much degraded battery affects it. I recently got my iPhone 8 degraded because of battery and honestly I didn't notice anything. Even my old iPhone 4S is a little beast. I remember playing Asphalt racing game. It pushed it to 60 FPS and its graphics was stunning, better than need for speed. If phone can render AAA game at 60 FPS but struggles with some chat app, this chat app does not respect is users. I mean it's just a bunch of grey squares with some text and lame shadows. DOS on i386 could render it fast enough. Sometimes I can't decide who's more crazy - me who demands adequate performance from simplistic apps or people who accept this state of things.
anigbrowl 4y ago
Indeed. A simple example is photo-sharing, a critical function for many people. Every time you send you have to manually choose if you want higher quality over smaller size. You can't set a default option. You can crop crop photos, but the crop handles don't work properly and often spring back if you only want to crop in one dimension. There's an anti-pattern where there's a separate tool selection and tool edit UI on the screen at the same time, so if you are in a hurry and hit 'Save' without hitting 'done' (immediately above it) your changes are discarded. But if you hit the discard button, you have to confirm it in a modal dialog. It's faster to discard changes by hitting 'save'. There are pen and highlighter tools so you can draw on an image. but no shape tools, in case you wanted to blank out someone's face. There's a text tool with some display options. But it's always in the middle of the image. You can move it around, but only after you have typed the text. You can pick color but you can't change the font. It's faster to make a meme online. You can't use any text effects like italic, bold, or underline either. Remember how there were going to be blurring tools built in so you could blur faces if you were an activist or journalist? Offered in Beta, never made it to production. Well, you could just put a sticker over their face, using one of Signal's (extremely cringey) stickers, or by uploading your own. But you can't paste an emoji. On desktop, you can drag a sticker over the photo with the mouse, and it gets a little '+' in a box to show you're copying the sticker. Then it disappears. Why? Because it was designed for a touch UI and only clicking on a sticker will actually add it. These are just the problems with image handling/markup. I could make many more lists for other aspects of the app. The markup tools would be kind of superfluous, but it is useful to be able to do thm within the app...only they're implemented in a way that is a source of constant frustration. If you bring this up with them on Twitter or so people will rush to say 'well Signal is for secure messaging, use an art program if you want fancy image editing lol.' The same people who rush to defend Stories and stickers as 'broadening appeal' while simultaneously saying 'nobody uses SMS anyway' even though SMS is ubiquitous in Signal's home market. It has degenerated into fanboyism at this point.
- iudqnolq 4y ago
  Fascinating. I strongly prefer Signal's editing tools over Google Photo's. If they shipped it as a standalone app I'd get it. > Every time you send you have to manually choose if you want higher quality over smaller size. You can't set a default option. I didn't even notice I wasn't sending high quality images. The setting they picked sends photos such that they look like original quality on my phone screen. If I want to view a photo on a high quality monitor or print it I'd send it some other way. > There are pen and highlighter tools so you can draw on an image. but no shape tools, in case you wanted to blank out someone's face. It's pretty easy to scribble it out quickly. I do use a separate app for sensitive redactions. > It has degenerated into fanboyism at this point. Fair criticism. My feelings about Signal are similar to my feelings about voting. It obviously sucks, but no one has figured out anything better after quite a few years.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

robszumski 4y ago

+1 on the update harassment. Are these critical security bugs or random updates!? You never know.

dont__panic 4y ago
Exactly. I'm glad they update the app regularly, but the giant popup banner is an aggressive way of advertising that.
- kiwijamo 4y ago
  What platform? I don't get this on Android or Linux Desktop (via Flatpak). Perhaps I am just good at keeping apps on both platforms up to date?
  - codethief 4y ago
    AFAIK you only get those update notifications when you install Signal by hand via the apk provided on signal.org.
codethief 4y ago
+1 Can we please have a changelog? I don't care whether it's in the app or on Github but it shouldn't only appear to Google Play Store users (and only temporarily).

boraoztunc 4y ago

Same here, moved to Telegram. Still use Signal though (my mother still contacts me there) but the product needs work.

ehPReth 4y ago
I wish I could disable those big animated emotes; they don’t always reflect what I’m feeling… Also, less super compressed images/videos. I get they have to save space but sheesh they look like garbage
- another_kel 4y ago
  I think you can disable big emotes in settings -> general -> large emoji. To avoid compression you can send photos as a document.

daqnal 4y ago

From my experiences, Signal has the cleanest, most functional UX and design out of nearly all my apps. I have a mid-range Pixel 4a running CalyxOS and it works without hiccups. Not sure why yours is so slow.

dont__panic 4y ago
I am using an absolutely ancient phone (2016 iphone SE) that's perpetually in low power mode, so it's possible that this isn't a big problem for other iOS users. It's also rather slow on my mac, but I have noticed that my partner's 4a runs it smoothly.
- NavinF 4y ago
  That would explain it.
- yunohn 4y ago
  I love HN threads where the complainer is knowingly using an old device on power mode, while complaining about performance… all while the responder is using a custom de-googled niche ROM and claiming somehow it works flawlessly. I always wonder how non-HNers use such software, if even the dedicated people are struggling.
  - seized 4y ago
    Well as a counterpoint, I have bog standard Pixel 5 still on Android 11 and Signal works perfectly.
  - kiwijamo 4y ago
    I am using stock ROM for my S21 and it also work flawlessly. Not sure whether the ROM has anything to do with it.
  - vbezhenar 4y ago
    iPhone SE is an extremely powerful phone. AFAIR it uses iPhone 6S CPU. iPhone 7 CPU beat Intel Core i7700K in some benchmarks, just to put a comparison. Not sure how much degraded battery affects it. I recently got my iPhone 8 degraded because of battery and honestly I didn't notice anything. Even my old iPhone 4S is a little beast. I remember playing Asphalt racing game. It pushed it to 60 FPS and its graphics was stunning, better than need for speed. If phone can render AAA game at 60 FPS but struggles with some chat app, this chat app does not respect is users. I mean it's just a bunch of grey squares with some text and lame shadows. DOS on i386 could render it fast enough. Sometimes I can't decide who's more crazy - me who demands adequate performance from simplistic apps or people who accept this state of things.

anigbrowl 4y ago

Indeed. A simple example is photo-sharing, a critical function for many people. Every time you send you have to manually choose if you want higher quality over smaller size. You can't set a default option. You can crop crop photos, but the crop handles don't work properly and often spring back if you only want to crop in one dimension. There's an anti-pattern where there's a separate tool selection and tool edit UI on the screen at the same time, so if you are in a hurry and hit 'Save' without hitting 'done' (immediately above it) your changes are discarded. But if you hit the discard button, you have to confirm it in a modal dialog. It's faster to discard changes by hitting 'save'. There are pen and highlighter tools so you can draw on an image. but no shape tools, in case you wanted to blank out someone's face. There's a text tool with some display options. But it's always in the middle of the image. You can move it around, but only after you have typed the text. You can pick color but you can't change the font. It's faster to make a meme online. You can't use any text effects like italic, bold, or underline either. Remember how there were going to be blurring tools built in so you could blur faces if you were an activist or journalist? Offered in Beta, never made it to production. Well, you could just put a sticker over their face, using one of Signal's (extremely cringey) stickers, or by uploading your own. But you can't paste an emoji. On desktop, you can drag a sticker over the photo with the mouse, and it gets a little '+' in a box to show you're copying the sticker. Then it disappears. Why? Because it was designed for a touch UI and only clicking on a sticker will actually add it. These are just the problems with image handling/markup. I could make many more lists for other aspects of the app. The markup tools would be kind of superfluous, but it is useful to be able to do thm within the app...only they're implemented in a way that is a source of constant frustration. If you bring this up with them on Twitter or so people will rush to say 'well Signal is for secure messaging, use an art program if you want fancy image editing lol.' The same people who rush to defend Stories and stickers as 'broadening appeal' while simultaneously saying 'nobody uses SMS anyway' even though SMS is ubiquitous in Signal's home market. It has degenerated into fanboyism at this point.

iudqnolq 4y ago
Fascinating. I strongly prefer Signal's editing tools over Google Photo's. If they shipped it as a standalone app I'd get it. > Every time you send you have to manually choose if you want higher quality over smaller size. You can't set a default option. I didn't even notice I wasn't sending high quality images. The setting they picked sends photos such that they look like original quality on my phone screen. If I want to view a photo on a high quality monitor or print it I'd send it some other way. > There are pen and highlighter tools so you can draw on an image. but no shape tools, in case you wanted to blank out someone's face. It's pretty easy to scribble it out quickly. I do use a separate app for sensitive redactions. > It has degenerated into fanboyism at this point. Fair criticism. My feelings about Signal are similar to my feelings about voting. It obviously sucks, but no one has figured out anything better after quite a few years.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]