Can someone explain Google's logic behind messaging in Android?

[R.E.N. Spells Ren]

Seriously, why are there so multiple Google messaging apps?
Google has messenger and Hangouts....what's the point of separate apps?

They did the same thing in the early days having a 'browser' app and a 'chrome' app you had to download. Truly made no sense whatsoever.


Is Google really not smart enough to see that having a common messaging system that the vast majority of Android users use would be tremendous leverage for their market share?

One thing the iOS does really well is iMessage. It's not that iMessage is such a great app (there's nothing special about it), it's just that everyone uses it so they communicate with each other flawlessly. This is really frustrating, because MMS fukking SUCKS. Yet I'm forced to use it when group texting. There's no advantage to Android to Android communication, because people use different apps so I still have to send MMS. This issue is becoming so frustrating that I'm genuinely considering moving to iOS for my next phone.

It's a bit ridiculous that Google hasn't developed a competent, system wide, messaging solution by now. Seems they don't care to.

Can someone, anyone, explain what the hell they're thinking?

 

[Stealth]

I wish they would just throw money at apple to get iMessage on android. I went back to a iPhone and bro i kid you not communicating with this is so much better than on my old android. I still miss my HTC and miss android but communicating w/ people on the iPhone is way better

 

[OfTheCross]

I thought Imessage was for Apple to Apple communication.

My best guess would have been that Google is trying to.make Hangouts their Android to Android thing and Messenger is for texting everyone else

 

[Stealth]

lets not forget at the end of the day the main function (well it should be) is communication. iPhone just does that better, strictly bc of how much better texting is on it. If everybody used whatsapp we wouldn't have that problem but nobody in america messes w/ that

 

[R.E.N. Spells Ren]

I wish they would just throw money at apple to get iMessage on android. I went back to a iPhone and bro i kid you not communicating with this is so much better than on my old android. I still miss my HTC and miss android but communicating w/ people on the iPhone is way better

I wish, but Apple would never do that. It's like BlackBerry and BBM....you'd have to pry it from their dead cold hands, which we did with BlackBerry, but by then, nobody cared about BBM

I thought Imessage was for Apple to Apple communication.

My best guess would have been that Google is trying to.make Hangouts their Android to Android thing and Messenger is for texting everyone else

I think it's technically for Apple to Apple communication, but it uses it even when folks don't think they're using it. That's why they had that scandal where people who switched from iOS to Android weren't receiving messages from iPhone users. The iPhone user would send a message not using iMessage, but because the phone marked that contact as an iPhone it used iMessage to send the message so it couldn't be delivered to their friend's new Android phone and it just ended up getting lost in the abyss

 

[GoldenGlove]

The real question is... why don't Android users just use Hangouts?

I've never heard of this "Messenger" app that you speak of

 

[R.E.N. Spells Ren]

The real question is... why don't Android users just use Hangouts?

I've never heard of this "Messenger" app that you speak of

Because it's not pre-installed.

Vast majority of users are just going to use the default app. And when they go looking for messaging apps, there are more popular apps that come up, like gosms and handcent.

 

[gtj1982]

The real question is... why don't Android users just use Hangouts?

I've never heard of this "Messenger" app that you speak of

This is true hangouts is awesome but messenger came out around the time of the nexus 6 last year. It's really good. I guess I don't know why hangouts and messenger are so different when they are both from google. I prefer messenger but use hangouts because I can do sms and hangouts in it. Messenger just does sms.

 

[ExodusNirvana]

Messenger is the text app for Android

Hangouts is the evolution of gChat, which has been out since before iMessage, and does the same thing as messenger along with gChat

Apple fanboys once again puzzled when they step out of the cave

 

[R.E.N. Spells Ren]

Messenger is the text app for Android

Hangouts is the evolution of gChat, which has been out since before iMessage, and does the same thing as messenger along with gChat

Apple fanboys once again puzzled when they step out of the cave

Do you not understand the question being posed by this thread?


Let's save the Stan wars for another thread. For the record, outside of iPods and recently an iPad I acquired for free, I've only used Android devices.

 

[ExodusNirvana]

Do you not understand the question being posed by this thread?


Let's save the Stan wars for another thread. For the record, outside of iPods and recently an iPad I acquired for free, I've only used Android devices.

Lets say you get a phone...what if you don't use Hangouts. What if you don't need it? What if it's just for work?

Then you use messenger, a solution for SMS text messaging.

Hangouts is a far more robust solution and eventually Messenger will probably be phased out. If you want to send MMS just use Hangouts.

 

[R.E.N. Spells Ren]

Lets say you get a phone...what if you don't use Hangouts. What if you don't need it? What if it's just for work?

Then you use messenger, a solution for SMS text messaging.

Hangouts is a far more robust solution and eventually Messenger will probably be phased out. If you want to send MMS just use Hangouts.

The point is, if hangouts can handle sms, why bother having a separate app for sms?

Most people want to send sms, and mms, and group texting (ideally bypassing mms, since mms SUCKS) at different times. Most don't want to use different apps for each.

Furthermore, why not make it the default? Because, again, if people have to go search for it, most won't use it. They're not realizing the advantage of their dominant market share.

 

[Gutter Life Records]

Since day one, Google's aim has been to organize information while making a profit from its human capital. Everything you do on Google is entered into its database and organized. Your search habits, your internet habits (Chrome), your phone calls, your documents, your photos, your emails etc.

Messaging is used in such as way, that the goal isn't "messaging", it's to get MORE people to join the conversation and use Google's products to do it. Google+ is failing horribly because they're trying to immerse themselves into every aspect of people's lives. Sort of like the Umbrella Corporation or Skynet. But now Facebook is falling into the same mindset, despite Zuckerberg taking a shot at Google four years ago for the same exact thing.

 

[ExodusNirvana]

The point is, if hangouts can handle sms, why bother having a separate app for sms?

Most people want to send sms, and mms, and group texting (ideally bypassing mms, since mms SUCKS) at different times. Most don't want to use different apps for each.

Furthermore, why not make it the default? Because, again, if people have to go search for it, most won't use it. They're not realizing the advantage of their dominant market share.

I mean that's what they're doing. Eventually messenger will be phased out completely and then Hangouts will be the only messaging app.

Also, Chrome is Google thinking forward as more and more websites are dropping Flash and switching over to HTML 5. The Browser app still has it's uses since you can change the User Agent as well as use Flash (if you can find the APK)

It's really just them giving you options breh...if they force everything together before it's ready it becomes a clusterfukk

 

[Golayitdown]

Switched over to GroupMe years ago because half of my people used Android (including me) couldn't reliably communicate with our iOS friends (and sometimes each other) especially with pics/video. Messages would be missed/duplicated/etc. MMS itself is still clunky sometimes on Android (I've used it much less in iOS, so I can't say how good/bad it is there)

Google has a tendency of doing a bunch of good shyt on paper, but rarely following through enough to make it great. If they could create some standards such as to use Google Play, your handset must have one and only one browser, messaging app, music player, etc. installed (the official Google version) it would go a long way in preventing some of this from happening.