The app has been in testing for a few months now, and in that time it accumulated over 20k members in the G+ tester community. Today, it's finally being released for the masses :)
Side note, I'm publishing an update in a couple hours to fix some of the crashes that have been showing up in this update
I think the screenshots tell most of the story here. It looks pretty incredible and I am willing to try it out.
Though my biggest question is how similar this thing is to another one called Textra. Can you talk a little bit about what's going on with both of these apps and why they look identical? Plus Textra already has 1-5 million installs.
Beta tester from the start here. QKSMS looked the way it does from the start. Two months into QKSMS development Textra released that update. They're both following material design guidelines, but QKSMS definitely had it first.
"It looks better" is a very valid answer, but honestly after reading the Google Play page, I'm still not sure. From reading the description in the Play Store, here's where I believe QKSMS differs from Hangouts:
* More visual customization
* Offers a mysterious QKReply feature (screenshot seems to suggest this is a special dialog for replying to incoming messages)
Looks great, but the permissions seem to be a bit heavy-handed. Why does it require access to Wi-Fi and have the ability to add/remove device accounts, for example?
It looks neat, I guess, but it's only really useful for those who have a mobile plan with unlimited data and limited texting. I'm not certain, but I suspect that this is a small minority of the mobile market.
Here is my biggest problem with Hangouts (and the previous Android texting apps I've used):
They seem to work pretty well most of the time. But occasionally, especially with low signal, they hit an annoying exception condition where a message will fail to be sent.
When this happens, it is never clear to me whether the message actually failed to be sent, or whether the receipt was not acknowledged. I know that sometimes it's the former, and sometimes it's the latter (leading to the sending of duplicate messages).
This is probably an artifact of the carrier that the app can do nothing about. True?
I have the same frustrations. When I had Google Voice without Hangouts, it was a buzz after I texted and a clear message that the 'message failed to be sent...retrying'. I was able to use the long press to resend immediately, view the message details or cancel the message. I really enjoyed the feedback I got with them.
I've now upgraded to Hangouts and I can't tell in low-connectivity settings whether I need to intervene or not. I'd prefer some easy feedback messages which I can identify action on. I expect network failure...but I'm honestly worried when I see Hangouts/Google Voice/phone failure.
I like search feature in your app (hangout app doesn't have it)...perhaps make it responsive by searching on the fly as user enters a search term... And may be sort messages by created time in desc order
Wow, the app is beautiful. However, personally, the number one negative experience I've dealt with using my Note 2 was group messaging. It's always fragmented, especially photos. Getting photos in group chat not connected to wifi is always hit or miss. Did you do anything with group chat to improve this problem?
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[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 53.7 ms ] threadThe app has been in testing for a few months now, and in that time it accumulated over 20k members in the G+ tester community. Today, it's finally being released for the masses :)
Side note, I'm publishing an update in a couple hours to fix some of the crashes that have been showing up in this update
Though my biggest question is how similar this thing is to another one called Textra. Can you talk a little bit about what's going on with both of these apps and why they look identical? Plus Textra already has 1-5 million installs.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.textra&hl=...
"It looks better" is a very valid answer, but honestly after reading the Google Play page, I'm still not sure. From reading the description in the Play Store, here's where I believe QKSMS differs from Hangouts:
* More visual customization
* Offers a mysterious QKReply feature (screenshot seems to suggest this is a special dialog for replying to incoming messages)
* MMS may sometimes be more difficult to set up
They seem to work pretty well most of the time. But occasionally, especially with low signal, they hit an annoying exception condition where a message will fail to be sent.
When this happens, it is never clear to me whether the message actually failed to be sent, or whether the receipt was not acknowledged. I know that sometimes it's the former, and sometimes it's the latter (leading to the sending of duplicate messages).
This is probably an artifact of the carrier that the app can do nothing about. True?
I have the same frustrations. When I had Google Voice without Hangouts, it was a buzz after I texted and a clear message that the 'message failed to be sent...retrying'. I was able to use the long press to resend immediately, view the message details or cancel the message. I really enjoyed the feedback I got with them.
I've now upgraded to Hangouts and I can't tell in low-connectivity settings whether I need to intervene or not. I'd prefer some easy feedback messages which I can identify action on. I expect network failure...but I'm honestly worried when I see Hangouts/Google Voice/phone failure.
Thanks for the feedback :) we have tons of ideas for making search better too---keep an eye out for updates in the coming weeks!
https://www.pushbullet.com/
http://www.androidpolice.com/2014/06/10/pushbullet-and-evolv...