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Also synchronization sucks. I often use it from my desktop only to get "new message" notification on my phone somewhere around 10 minutes in the conversation wi

Also synchronization sucks. I often use it from my desktop only to get "new message" notification on my phone somewhere around 10 minutes in the conversation with some messages from the beginning. It also loses message regularly so I am now used to ask for copy pasting if it's obvious something got lost. Blatant disregard of things like sorting via status (or displaying that at all) or introducing more of them is another thing. It looks like some crazy manager designed his evil plan and convinced all his bosses that it's the way to go. The app sucks, everyone I know hates it, they forced feeded it to users with Android update with no way to go back to gtalk. It's amazing how they completely ignore what people want in the name of some lucid vision of how web talk should be done. Worse yet, they first lured people in by releasing an awesome app (gtalk) killing most of the competition and then changed it to "Google way of doing web" without asking anybody and with competition already (almost) dead. /rant

freyr 13y ago
I've noticed the same thing with Apple's Messages. Sometimes messages arrive on my phone, sometimes on the Messages application on my laptop, sometimes both. Even when a message arrives at both locations, there's often a significant delay between the arrivals. It's a shame these companies are taking over messaging and neither seems capable of providing a decent user experience.
ZoFreX 13y ago
> Worse yet, they first lured people in by releasing an awesome app (gtalk) killing most of the competition and then changed it to "Google way of doing web" without asking anybody and with competition already (almost) dead. I believe you could call this "Embrace, extend, extinguish"?
rryan 13y ago
Killing the competition? There is lots of healthy competition in the messaging/chat space: Facebook Chat, WhatsApp, iMessage, SnapChat, Instagram, Skype, etc. If anything gChat is a struggling platform that didn't make the transition to the mobile era -- that's the entire reason Hangouts exists. Edited: to use more polite tone.
- lawdawg 13y ago
  It's amazing that on a place like HN it seems like most people just don't get this. The vast majority of communication happens on products that: 1. Don't even have a desktop component 2. Have no "status" indication (oh noes!!!) 3. Are completely closed ecosystems And yet you never see posts about how WhatsApp, iMessage, SnapChat, etc are horrible because of the above reasons.
  - bluecalm 13y ago
    World is a big place and in some areas (like mine) all the services you mentioned aren't popular at all. I doubt 1% of communication happens through them. People around use gtalk and facebook messanger. They used to use GG (Polish product, some time ago most popular here) and Skype but most of them switched to either gtalk or fb. Maybe you don't see complaining because services you mentioned didn't come about as replacement for traditional chat clients integrating most important features of those only to get rid of all this in one go once the user base switched.
  - jsz0 13y ago
    It's the difference between must have features like the ability to communicate with people you want to talk to and features like desktop/status/etc that are nice to have but not essential. The tech community demands perfection and obsesses over anything/everything while normal people just use what works.
  - 27182818284 13y ago
    >It's amazing that on a place like HN it seems like most people just don't get this. Communication in general, business communication still is very much dominated by desktop software (e.g. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-lync-video-conferencing-and-instant-messaging-FX102004552.aspx http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-lync-video-confe...)
    - chronic25 13y ago
      Exactly. In all aspects of chat communication, Google is behind.
twistedpair 13y ago
Remember, Google services are "eventually consistent." You just haven't waited long enough.
easytiger 13y ago
> Also synchronization sucks. I often use it from my desktop only to get "new message" notification on my phone somewhere around 10 minutes in the conversation with some messages from the beginning I use it every day and don't think i get anything like this issue (for balance)

freyr 13y ago

I've noticed the same thing with Apple's Messages. Sometimes messages arrive on my phone, sometimes on the Messages application on my laptop, sometimes both. Even when a message arrives at both locations, there's often a significant delay between the arrivals. It's a shame these companies are taking over messaging and neither seems capable of providing a decent user experience.

ZoFreX 13y ago

> Worse yet, they first lured people in by releasing an awesome app (gtalk) killing most of the competition and then changed it to "Google way of doing web" without asking anybody and with competition already (almost) dead. I believe you could call this "Embrace, extend, extinguish"?

rryan 13y ago

Killing the competition? There is lots of healthy competition in the messaging/chat space: Facebook Chat, WhatsApp, iMessage, SnapChat, Instagram, Skype, etc. If anything gChat is a struggling platform that didn't make the transition to the mobile era -- that's the entire reason Hangouts exists. Edited: to use more polite tone.

lawdawg 13y ago
It's amazing that on a place like HN it seems like most people just don't get this. The vast majority of communication happens on products that: 1. Don't even have a desktop component 2. Have no "status" indication (oh noes!!!) 3. Are completely closed ecosystems And yet you never see posts about how WhatsApp, iMessage, SnapChat, etc are horrible because of the above reasons.
- bluecalm 13y ago
  World is a big place and in some areas (like mine) all the services you mentioned aren't popular at all. I doubt 1% of communication happens through them. People around use gtalk and facebook messanger. They used to use GG (Polish product, some time ago most popular here) and Skype but most of them switched to either gtalk or fb. Maybe you don't see complaining because services you mentioned didn't come about as replacement for traditional chat clients integrating most important features of those only to get rid of all this in one go once the user base switched.
- jsz0 13y ago
  It's the difference between must have features like the ability to communicate with people you want to talk to and features like desktop/status/etc that are nice to have but not essential. The tech community demands perfection and obsesses over anything/everything while normal people just use what works.
- 27182818284 13y ago
  >It's amazing that on a place like HN it seems like most people just don't get this. Communication in general, business communication still is very much dominated by desktop software (e.g. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-lync-video-conferencing-and-instant-messaging-FX102004552.aspx http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-lync-video-confe...)
  - chronic25 13y ago
    Exactly. In all aspects of chat communication, Google is behind.

twistedpair 13y ago

Remember, Google services are "eventually consistent." You just haven't waited long enough.

easytiger 13y ago

> Also synchronization sucks. I often use it from my desktop only to get "new message" notification on my phone somewhere around 10 minutes in the conversation with some messages from the beginning I use it every day and don't think i get anything like this issue (for balance)