OK. You say it is hugely behind in features. What features is it behind in?
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OK. You say it is hugely behind in features. What features is it behind in?
These are trivial additions to a messaging app. You can already email video/audio/images. Read receipts and online status are not only not unnecessary but when those features show up in an app I disable them. The Focus feature was the worst thing Apple added to iMessage because it gives people clues about your current level of device engagement.
Oh, but these are also things already in iMessage. So while I can't see how they are essential to the function of the app they are already included in the app.
Lol you guys. I'll bite.
-Audio timeline scrubbing
-Send more than 20 pictures? whoa.. lets not get crazy now Phil!
-Reply functionality with a UX for humans - ever used it in groups? Guess not, same as Timmey. Who's idea was to put a bubble in one side of the screen, the reply on the opposite, and some rounded corner line, while also making the reply a dedicated screen blurring the rest of the content is just... they defined it while having drinks at the LGBT parade ??♂️.
-Maybe being able to listen an audio while multi-tasking in macOS - Apparently Apple is sure when we navigate away from messages we are done with audios. Another gem, likely a collaboration between them & the Safari team ?
-Audio quality is still somewhat inferior to most other apps - many times they start playing after a few seconds missing part of the audio message
-Performance is unbelievably bad for a "native" app, inline with many other Apple apps (Music, Safari, but hey M1 Max Ultra Mega Dooper right?), sending a picture takes longer than almost every single messaging app ever created by a 2 people startup - let's leave videos for another thread another day
-You have all these poor attempts at memoji/stickers, which not even Craig use, but don't have emoji search
-Inability to format words / links / code / quotes
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- I use the phone app for audio.
- I can send far more than 10 photos in a single message.
- Reply functionality is a great example of adding a feature that didn't need to be there and making the entire experience worse.
- Sending a picture takes longer because it has the ability to change how it sends it without prompting the user.
- You can search emoji.
- It's messages not myspace. It doesn't need a soundtrack or different fonts or link edits or any of that stuff. At best it would never be used and at worse it would result in hard to read text or broken links.
A general rule should be that anyone should be able to pick up any Apple device and have it visually and functionally identical to the last experience. Anything that results in UX changes between devices is by definition breaking the experience.
- Phone app for audio.. epic.
- I meant 20, though the complain it's the same. You can copy paste to get around it because messages is not suggested as sharing option. Another UX gem.
- 2022 adding group chat & reply are "features that didn't need to be added". Well if they're gonna do it this bad, we agree.
- Do you actually believe yourself? Who requested for the "ability to change itself without prompting the user", batman? Guess what, the user while not prompted, still notices how bad it drags as to wonder how it can be so bad. Apple bundling SMS/chatting in one with their assumptions but no choice as usual.
- You are right on this one, my bad.
- Myspace? Who asked for soundtracks or different fonts or "any of that stuff"? Word formatting is part of communication interaction, we're not launching a rocket here, too many bells & whistles for you, but memoji/stickers/fireball animations and other bloat colorful crap you suck it proudly eh?
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If you are sending enough images that the user has to interact with the message to see them all then there are to many images being sent. Another app would likely be ideal.
Not prompting the user has been the foundation of message since its initial release. It's a core feature of the program.
You seemed to be asking for tools to make the appearance of the message anything other than a string of text. Adding audio and changing formatting does nothing but make the message content harder to consume. Every time we give the average person the ability to modify appearance of content we get Geocities and myspace.
I think Memoji and stickers are as pointless as sharing songs, read receipts, and sending money. None of these features add to the value of the program. The problem is, every feature they add moves away from the original purpose of the app: one messaging program that sends and receives messages with all platforms. I don't even like the green vs blue bubbles.
My biggest issue with telegram is, that encryption is not activated by default.
And defaults are very powerful!
No one i know on telegram uses encryption.
(this is just my personal experience, i don't use telegram often)
It also may be a regional or EU thing, but Telegram has a very bad public reputation in Germany/Austria and Switzerland, because many known people of the following group using it:
- nazi
- far right groups
- tin foil hat
- flatearther
- conspiracy theory
(i never joined any group chat in telegram, so i don't know firsthand if its true, but its considered "common knowledge" here - this does not mean that everyone using telegram is one of those people)
And defaults are very powerful!
No one i know on telegram uses encryption.
(this is just my personal experience, i don't use telegram often)
It also may be a regional or EU thing, but Telegram has a very bad public reputation in Germany/Austria and Switzerland, because many known people of the following group using it:
- nazi
- far right groups
- tin foil hat
- flatearther
- conspiracy theory
(i never joined any group chat in telegram, so i don't know firsthand if its true, but its considered "common knowledge" here - this does not mean that everyone using telegram is one of those people)
Telegram is the best chat app out there. I'll be happy to pay yearly if they made people pay $2 a year, much like WhatApp did with their $1 year before being taken over by Facebook. I don't like the tired system of this subscription offering and what its likely to evolve into. It's the thin edge of the wedge.
I think the myspace reference speaks louder than any other words
How is that different from any other messenger app with groups/social network?..
And thus Telegram commits suicide. Reminds me of the death of Viber. A once popular messaging app, that died trying to go the way Telegram is going. Why would anyone pay for messaging when there are so many free and mature options available.
There really aren't that many that check all the boxes.
WhatsApp is the most popular globally but your phone number is mandatory for registration and it's owned by Meta.
WeChat's user base is confined to China, and its web app isn't available outside of China, afaik.
Facebook Messenger is an extension of Facebook, and again, it's owned by Meta.
Snapchat doesn't have a web app and its best feature is also its worst feature (disappearing message), depending on your use case.
Skype is tied to your Microsoft account. Like Facebook Messenger, it's not a fully independent service.
Telegram is pretty much the only one out there:
- that has a large global user base
- where your phone number is optional for registration
- that has a relatively good track record in terms of privacy protection
- that's not an extension of another service
- where disappearing messages is optional
- where message translation is built-in
- where your Telegram account isn't tied to any other account and you can come and go at ease
- has native apps for iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and web
Sounds like a very bad deal for the premium customer. He pays extra money to post some special stickers, but then those stickers are only visible to people who ALSO have purchased the premium package. Why would I post a sticker and even pay for it, if most of the readers can't see it?
Not using End-to-End Encryption does not mean the messages are not encrypted.
Also if those groups can be banned simply for talking about some unwelcome opinions, any group would possibly be banned when someone creates an alt account, says something wrong there, and uses the main account to continuously reports. This has been happening frequently in China.
An example of how moderation is overused in China. Someone just said "One-Punch Man punched the glans" in Chinese, people repeated it (including the bot whose avatar holds an apple), and they were all banned by Tencent.
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Superior? I cant mark a chat as unread if I have not the time to click a link or watch a video or review a file just yet and I can’t archive or mute chats that are rarely relevant (like carrier messages), very basic features. Telegram is over the roof packed with nice and useful features, like timed or expiring messages, privat Chats, Face ID/Touch ID lock and more, also basic features nowadays - if WhatsApp has it, it should be standart. Apart from Status, that’s just unnecessary.
I can’t believe anyone actually thinks iMessage is superior. You still can’t even edit or delete sent messages FFS
Not happy with the idea of charging for stickers. No other added benefits.
You can't edit SMS. Any messaging app worth its salt needs to integrate with SMS services and is therefore limited to the ability of that service. However, the idea that non-SMS messages should be capable of being edited isn't just a bad idea it puts real people at risk. You can't have a service that allows someone to say whatever they want and then retroactively change what they said.
I have all of them (plus Signal and Instagram messaging), and I really don't care which I use, just whatever the other person uses, or whatever suits the use case the best.
- They all work for exchanging messages.
- I don't care about giving out my number. There's this thing called blocking someone if really necessary, but simply not replying works well. What's the worst that can happen if you give someone your number? They might call or message you? Oh wow, how terrifying.
- I don't care about "privacy" or which corporation has bots trawling my messages for keywords, as I use ad blockers extensively, so none of their ads ever reach me anyway. It helps that I use my MBP rather than my phone for almost everything.
- If I genuinely have a secret message to send, I use PGP and exchange public keys with the person I need to swap encrypted messages with. It's open source, which is the only possible way to know if claimed privacy is real, and you encrypt the message yourself, and then can send the encrypted package via any means you like. Only the recipient has the power to decrypt it, since you used their public key to encrypt it, and only someone who has their private key can decrypt it. Yeah, it takes some effort to do that, but you then know for sure that it really really really is private. And you've gotta ask yourself, how often do you genuinely send a message that is truly private, and if you dig deep enough, the answer is almost never.
- Some have this feature, some have that feature, so if you have them all, then you have the freedom to use whichever one serves your purpose at the time.
Note 1. the only one I don't ever use is iMessage, as our family discovered that it can lose messages. I'm serious! We had messages go missing. So we all turned iMessage off on our phones permanently.
Note 2. Surprisingly, the one I prefer to use is FB Messenger. It works wonderfully on both Mac and iPhone. It's easy to add attachments. Can do groups. Can see if a message has been sent, received, viewed. Can deal with attachments wonderfully. Can send group messages easily, simply using peoples' fb profiles. The only notifications it sends are for new message arrivals. And so on. The only downfall is they need to have an fb account, and you need to be fb friends or the message can get lost in the mystical hidden "message requests" folder. And yeah, I really don't give a toss about Meta trawling my stuff for keywords, as I ad block everything, and don't waste my time on my fb feed.
You underestimated how terrible things will become when a phone number is recorded by a stranger. Here, if a phone number is leaked, it will be used for searching for all possible data of that owner, and phone calls from loan companies or even scams will be endless.
How FB Messenger deals with multiple accounts is really terrible, as the user has to log out A first and then log in B. Moreover, I am not sure about if FB Messenger with Signal Protocol is more secure now, but some people were banned due to sending adult pictures before. The UX details in desktop clients also annoy me.
There is a myriad of reasons why you don't want a stranger to get hold your personal phone number. People whose job is fairly high stake understand. It also makes targeted SIM-swapping that much easier for potential fraudsters.
I'm sorry to inform you that ad blockers don't really protect your personal information or messages from being read by attackers. I'm surprised someone who seems to be well-versed in cryptography doesn't know this.
Facebook Messenger is extremely slow when it comes to search. Try doing a keyword search in Facebook Messenger, e.g., to find the travel plan you and your buddy talked about three months ago, it just can't do it like a 21st century messaging app should.
I don't really understand the point you're trying to make with your reply. I like Telegram. You like Facebook Messenger. To each his own. Nothing is truly private. That goes without saying. It's all a matter of degree. Old hash algorithms get deprecated as computing power explodes and quantum computers will surely usher in a new era.