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404notfound posted:That's not that unusual--too many cooks, etc. There's even a book about this software engineering phenomenon called The Mythical Man-Month. Yeah. Honestly I think it's true of a big portion of the Google apps. The only ones that are particularly good IMO are Drive, Inbox, and Youtube. Maybe Play Music, but it has its own set of issues that make it frustrating.
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May 6, 2015 19:22
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Taffer posted:Maybe Play Music, but it has its own set of issues that make it frustrating. I have literally never opened Play Music, but I have to force quit it every 4-5 days because it's causing a wake lock. I'd just disable it, but I keep reporting the bug in hopes that they'll actually fix it.
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May 6, 2015 19:29
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Taffer posted:Hangouts is an exceptionally poorly designed app, it's visually cluttered, clunky to use, and generally just ugly and slow and bad. Actually hangouts is just really bad in almost every conceivable way. And to think that for a time Google tried to make it the flagship for all messaging needs. I dunno, I like everything about Hangouts except for the fact that I still to this day find myself trying to swipe from the left to get to conversation list. It looks good, has all the functions I want, a pretty nice workflow...
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May 6, 2015 19:31
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FAUXTON posted:Messenger is a much better looking app than Hangouts, by such a huge margin it isn't even funny. Messenger is simple. Bare bones, even: just using it feels like it was designed to do one thing and do it with a minimum of fuss or thought. I think that must drive someone at Google crazy or something? It needs more features! Make it 'pop'! 404notfound posted:That's not that unusual--too many cooks, etc. There's even a book about this software engineering phenomenon called The Mythical Man-Month. I think it's more along these lines, myself
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May 6, 2015 19:45
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so I could say that I finally figured out what this god damned cube is doing. Get well Lowtax.
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Thermopyle posted:I dunno, I like everything about Hangouts except for the fact that I still to this day find myself trying to swipe from the left to get to conversation list. It looks good, has all the functions I want, a pretty nice workflow... Thank you. I still try to swipe back to the conversation lists entirely more often than I should.
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May 6, 2015 19:51
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Jmcrofts posted:I'm always scared to start an app up at work lest it start blaring music. This is why I have a Tasker profile to keep my media volume off unless headphones are plugged in or the YouTube app is open.
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May 6, 2015 23:14
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I use Messenger rather than Hangouts for SMS because it will let me assign a different notification sound to each contact while Hangouts will not.
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May 7, 2015 02:01
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wolfbiker posted:I use Messenger rather than Hangouts for SMS because it will let me assign a different notification sound to each contact while Hangouts will not. Actually you can in Hangouts. Overflow Menu > People & options > Chat Message Sound and Call Ringtone are both there.
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May 7, 2015 02:09
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bull3964 posted:Apparently, even Google isn't so keen on Hangouts being used for SMS. Sometimes I think I should just get an iPhone.
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May 7, 2015 02:12
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butt dickus posted:Not on stock. I did root, but I didn't install any custom ROMs on it. I have an LG G3.
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May 7, 2015 02:23
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hiddenriverninja posted:I did root, but I didn't install any custom ROMs on it. I have an LG G3.
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May 7, 2015 02:28
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Taffer posted:Yeah. Honestly I think it's true of a big portion of the Google apps. The only ones that are particularly good IMO are Drive, Inbox, and Youtube. Maybe Play Music, but it has its own set of issues that make it frustrating. Inbox is so confusing and user-hostile I was convinced that I didn't understand how email worked anymore. It's not just a horrible app, it's a bad idea terribly executed. It's hilariously bad. Hangouts has a few problems that could be addressed but if Google wants to revolutionize chatting they way they did email with Inbox, no thanks, it's fine the way it is.
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May 7, 2015 02:31
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butt dickus posted:Only Nexus and GPE devices have stock Android. ah gotcha.
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May 7, 2015 03:06
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Is there a way to download and use HTC emojis? Is there also a way to make it so tapping a dimmed screen doesn't activate or register as an action aside from waking the screen back up? IS THERE ALSO A WAY TO change sliding up to sliding to the right (like on iOS) from the lockscreen on CM12/Lollipop?
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May 7, 2015 05:56
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LastInLine posted:Inbox is so confusing and user-hostile I was convinced that I didn't understand how email worked anymore. It's not just a horrible app, it's a bad idea terribly executed. It's hilariously bad. I tried it out when it first came out and I never bothered switching back to Gmail. Not that I think it's better than Gmail, but I don't find it worse for my simple inbox which usually only has a couple of emails in it. I've certainly never felt it was user hostile. It doesn't seem to have particularly bad ratings...
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May 7, 2015 06:53
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Thermopyle posted:I tried it out when it first came out and I never bothered switching back to Gmail. Not that I think it's better than Gmail, but I don't find it worse for my simple inbox which usually only has a couple of emails in it. I've certainly never felt it was user hostile. Ironically, I believe Inbox is actually designed for bigger, more cluttered inboxes. The whole approach emphasizes turning your inbox into essentially a to-do list, empowering you to tackle one message after another. For somebody who tries to stay as close to "inbox zero" as possible, there doesn't seem to be much benefit.
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May 7, 2015 07:08
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404notfound posted:Ironically, I believe Inbox is actually designed for bigger, more cluttered inboxes. The whole approach emphasizes turning your inbox into essentially a to-do list, empowering you to tackle one message after another. For somebody who tries to stay as close to "inbox zero" as possible, there doesn't seem to be much benefit. Yeah, this is totally true. I just didn't have any reason to switch back to using the regular Gmail app as there's not really a penalty for not having a ton of email either. The upside is that Inbox has a somewhat more minimal-looking UI which is nice, I guess.
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May 7, 2015 07:17
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Thermopyle posted:Yeah, this is totally true. I just didn't have any reason to switch back to using the regular Gmail app as there's not really a penalty for not having a ton of email either. Well the front is, the hamburger menu is a mess. They kinda just hide all the complicated stuff which is nice in some cases, not so nice if you're a control freak.
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May 7, 2015 08:02
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LastInLine posted:Inbox is so confusing and user-hostile I was convinced that I didn't understand how email worked anymore. It's not just a horrible app, it's a bad idea terribly executed. It's hilariously bad. Inbox has a more minimalist UI and does a better job keeping junk out of my notifications than gmail. I'm aware that I can micromanage Gmail to get exactly the right things in exactly the right places, but it's an enormous hassle that takes a ton of time. Inbox does it pretty well right out of the box without me loving with it. Honestly I probably just prefer it over Gmail because I have a burning hatred for email as a means of communication in general, and Inbox helps manage is worst traits.
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May 7, 2015 08:08
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404notfound posted:Ironically, I believe Inbox is actually designed for bigger, more cluttered inboxes. The whole approach emphasizes turning your inbox into essentially a to-do list, empowering you to tackle one message after another. For somebody who tries to stay as close to "inbox zero" as possible, there doesn't seem to be much benefit. I, too, keep no emails in my inbox so managing email is not something I'd ever need but what I'm referring to is the whole concept. Email itself is something so easy even my parents can grasp it. There's a sender and a recipient, perhaps many, and it can contain words or even things. GMail is a good extension to this, adding a robust index and search feature which again is something anyone can understand. Inbox takes this and completely upends all the knowledge everyone already had, even about GMail, and replaces it for no reason. Archive is now Done, Star is now Pushpin, Delete is now hidden (gee, I wonder why?). Items can disappear and reappear at random (no user hostility there) and it tries to force users to think of a communications medium as a to-do list which no matter how one uses email, it isn't. The app and the site itself are both bad. There are cryptic symbols everywhere and no text anywhere. Worse the symbols refer to actions which Google has helpfully renamed even compared to concepts they themselves invented (Archive > Done, represented by a Check). Neither the app nor the site make any sense unless you know both the Inbox concept (email as to-do items taking you on a Death March through your bloated, disgusting inbox), know all the Inbox jargon, and have a good grasp of what Material Design elements should ideally (but in the real world, seldom) do. By that last bit I'm referring to the Pushpin on a slider. You need to know that Pushpins are Stars and that moving that slider will alter the view to display only starred conversations. This is not something that's intuitive but something that you have to be deep in the tank before it all fits together. I'd encourage anyone go through both the app and the site actually looking at it like a normal person because it's amazing just how bad the concept, execution, and final product are.
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May 7, 2015 08:37
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LastInLine posted:I, too, keep no emails in my inbox so managing email is not something I'd ever need but what I'm referring to is the whole concept. Excellent summary. I was initially repulsed and annoyed by Inbox, but decided to give it a solid try as the default on my phone. Finally gave up on it yesterday after a couple of months of usage. (Same thing recently with Hangouts for SMS/MMS, for that matter.) In my use case, the ability to swipe-to-delete in Gmail app is reason enough alone to stay away from Inbox.
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May 7, 2015 13:07
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It upends a lot of what people are used to with respect to emails, but I think "pinning" an email makes a heck of a lot more sense than "starring" one and it explains the behaviour of a pinned email better than starring would (e.g. "sweep" does not move pinned emails). I really don't think this is as terrible as anyone here believes and, moreover, there's like four buttons on the main interface and my grandmother would have figured out what they all do within ten minutes of futzing with it.
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May 7, 2015 13:28
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I switched to inbox about 3 weeks ago and it was weird at first but then things just instantly clicked. For me, it matches what I use my email for almost perfectly and the concept of either doing something with a message immediately or snoozing it until you do want to deal with it is really perfect. I won't discount that there are some weird quirks in the UI here or there, but the way it deals with email is so powerful that I'm willing to overlook them.
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May 7, 2015 14:13
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The single most annoying part of Inbox for me is that they FINALLY integrated Gmail with other email accounts into one app on Android... before splitting Gmail off into a separate app.  (obviously you can ignore Inbox, but that alone has kept me from really giving it a solid try)
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May 7, 2015 14:31
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I'm not saying it's a tool that doesn't have a use. I've seen lovely inboxes. My claim was and still is that it's user hostile when it was cited as something that's user friendly. The fact that there are "four buttons on the user interface" isn't bad per se, but it's bad when they aren't labeled and do unclear things. I honestly doubt Dr Cheeto's grandmother could figure it out unless she's far more tech savvy than your usual grandmother. There are three things the user is presented with for an email: Pushpin, Clock, and Check. When you check something it goes away but if the user wanted to find that again ("Oops wrong button, where did that go?") it doesn't go to the trash where the user would naturally look. It's simply unlabeled but labels are hidden in a hamburger where UI studies show no one looks and the only way to find it again is via search if you remember what's in the email. That's not grandma-friendly. The biggest obstacle and the one it completely fails to take into account is that everyone knows what email is and how it works and this changes many of the underlying concepts in fundamental aspects of its design. That's something nerds can deal with but it's not something average users want to even consider doing. Every single innovation in Inbox could have been inserted into GMail without having to retrain users on what email is and what you can do with it. Again, it's not an idea without a use or a problem that shouldn't be solved, it's just a bad attempt at doing so from a user perspective. It's almost like (as with everything Google) it was designed in a silo rather than as a part of an ecosystem. Why aren't reminders set via email visible on your Calendar or in Keep? Why is it an optional extension to GMail rather than an overhaul of a system people are already familiar with? I have no doubt it solves a specific problem Googlers were dealing with (which when you read the announcement blog, it was). I also don't doubt that many many people can't manage email properly and that this GMail layer can, if the user wades through the UI, help with. What I'm saying is that it's just a badly designed attempt at it. People (well, nerds) use horrible UI abortions all the time to address their corner cases (Foobar 2000 lol) but let's be real here, this isn't a product for non-nerds.
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May 7, 2015 14:37
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I would rather put a bullet through my skull than try to explain Inbox to my grandmother. No loving thank you.
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May 7, 2015 14:39
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XIII posted:I would rather put a bullet through my skull than try to explain Inbox to my grandmother. No loving thank you. This right here is truth.
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May 7, 2015 14:39
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I never archived things in the past so if I try to use Inbox there's like every email I've received ever and there's no way I'm going through all of that.
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May 7, 2015 14:51
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butt dickus posted:I never archived things in the past so if I try to use Inbox there's like every email I've received ever and there's no way I'm going through all of that. That's the best part of inbox, you can just sweep all of those old emails away
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May 7, 2015 14:58
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Having an empty inbox does nothing for me. If they're archived they still take up space. Can you even delete emails from Inbox? I'm also miffed that desktop Gmail no longer has the preview images with the trash button on promotions.
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May 7, 2015 15:04
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butt dickus posted:Having an empty inbox does nothing for me. If they're archived they still take up space. Can you even delete emails from Inbox? Yes, but you have to hit the hamburger menu to get to it. Then you can move to Trash. I like Inbox because I can scan through emails, find emails I want to read and pin them, then sweep everything else away. I occasionally will snooze something, but not a lot. I do wish that sweeping would mark stuff as read though, if you search is:unread you will find everything
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May 7, 2015 15:15
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butt dickus posted:Having an empty inbox does nothing for me. If they're archived they still take up space. Can you even delete emails from Inbox? Are you receiving so much mail that the storage of it is an issue? I mean the whole point of GMail was that you never needed to delete anything. I mean, it's obvious why they hide it, it's so they can mine it for advertising, but I also find it super convenient that it's all there and searchable. I also don't get any spam or mail ads so all of my email is relevant to me in some way so that skews my perspective on things.
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May 7, 2015 15:18
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It's pretty easy to setup a script to mark all archived emails as read.
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May 7, 2015 15:20
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LastInLine posted:Are you receiving so much mail that the storage of it is an issue? I mean the whole point of GMail was that you never needed to delete anything. XIII posted:It's pretty easy to setup a script to mark all archived emails as read.
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May 7, 2015 15:39
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The first time you use it inbox walks you through how everything works, because of the fact that it treats email in a new way. So yeah my grandma probably could figure it out. It's not that complicated.
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May 7, 2015 16:26
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After reading this thread I feel like I'm one of the special snowflakes they made inbox for. I was one of those guys who wanted a "marked as read" button in the gmail notification but once inbox came out it completely changed how I used it. I'm a student so I pin emails from my professors that have homework assignments or due dates in them. Once I finished them I would just mark them done. My sister's phone broke so I snoozed the email reminding me to mail the device back to the insurance company until I got home. Or even when I bought movie tickets to see Avengers 2 over a month ago, I snoozed the email with the ticket until 30 minutes before the movie started so I didn't have to worry about finding it on my phone or printing it out beforehand. I even set reminders on the emails I got from Motorola telling me when the coupon expired and then I mark them done when I used them or they expired. I can't go back to Gmail now. v v
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May 7, 2015 16:32
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Taffer posted:The first time you use it inbox walks you through how everything works, because of the fact that it treats email in a new way. So yeah my grandma probably could figure it out. It's not that complicated. My grandma just had a memory test, she thinks the current year is 1950 so....
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May 7, 2015 16:34
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I think the point that some are missing is that Inbox isn't supposed to be a new UI on email, it's a completely different interaction with email. It's not meant to replace the traditional email client any time soon. I think people forget that Gmail was nearly that revolutionary when it came out. Up until that point you used Outlook, Outlook Express, or Thunderbird to manage your individual emails in a thick client. Web UIs like Hotmail existed, but they were bare bones and not very powerful. Here comes Gmail with threaded conversations for the masses and the concept that your inbox isn't meant to store everything ever. That completely broke a lot of people and there are still people right now that haven't adapted to it and are instead managing their gmail account through IMAP with a desktop client. Inbox is sort of like that. I hate clutter. I honestly don't get a lot of emails, but I still don't like things sitting around. What I like about inbox is that it allows me to push the stuff out of sight until I'm ready to deal with it. For example, I just got a new bill notification from the electric company. I'm not paying that bill right now at work, but I know I will have time later tonight while I'm watching TV. So, I snooze the email until 8pm and it goes away and I don't have to think about it anymore. It will make itself known again later when it's time to deal with it. Otherwise, I would have either archived the email to get it out of my inbox or left it there, leaving clutter but also having no guarantee that it would serve as a reminder later tonight to pay it. The same goes for promotions or coupons. If I get an email about the new Humble Bundle, I may not decide right away whether or not I want to get it. So, I snooze the email until just before the expiration at a time that I know I will likely be able to deal with it. Then I'm automatically reminded of it before it expires. The same goes for various coupons and such. I have a $10 promo credit for Best Buy right now that expires in 2 weeks, so I snooze it until just before then so I'm sure not to forget to use it. Honestly, that's one place where I feel they could improve inbox. Have it parse out expiration dates in email and have that automatically present itself as a snooze option (well, let you define a buffer period so it notifies you like a day early as well.) bull3964 fucked around with this message at 16:43 on May 7, 2015 |
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May 7, 2015 16:40
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Inbox is basically what you get when a Googler attends one too many Getting Things Done seminars and decides everyone should use the email system he came up with while furiously listening to a motivational speaker make lame Journey references.
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May 7, 2015 17:53
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LastInLine posted:I'm not saying it's a tool that doesn't have a use. I've seen lovely inboxes. My claim was and still is that it's user hostile when it was cited as something that's user friendly. I think this is not even wrong in the same manner that someone who complains about it being hard to put gas in their Tesla is not even wrong. I completely understand your argument and I think your argument is internally consistent and I think it's completely irrelevant to whether Inbox is "user friendly" or not. This is coming from someone who would not even care if Inbox disappeared tomorrow.
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May 7, 2015 17:56
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