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Google is so loving confused... Hangouts works great, is integrated with Gmail, incorporates a non-confusing video chat interface, etc. Why give up on a good thing to chase several other things? So now we'll have 4 different chat offerings from Google (Hangouts, Messenger, Allo, Duo) in addition to Facebook Messenger, Whatsapp, Snapchat, Skype, etc. etc. etc. good lord. How long until Trillian resurfaces to group all other chat products together again? I get everyone wanting their own chat product, I don't get Google feeling like their products are too confusing to users so they have to break them into several new different things so they can cram worthless functionality like stickers and poo poo into them.
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Oct 18, 2016 22:47
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Star War Sex Parrot posted:Haven't we reached a point with OS integration and smart notifications or whatever it's called that it doesn't matter? I don't even think about what type of messaging notification/platform I'm replying with. It can be an SMS, iMessage, Facebook Messenger, GroupMe, KakaoTalk, WeChat, etc. and I just look at who it is and reply as needed. Beyond the initial setup of remembering which apps to download and log into, I don't feel like it's that difficult to maintain a presence on different message platforms. For us in this thread I absolutely agree. For people like my mom or non-technical friends, I think it still does matter.
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Oct 18, 2016 22:49
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My friends and I use Hangouts for most non-SMS chatting. Both for individual messages and various ongoing group chats. The main reason we gravitated to Hangouts is the Gmail/Inbox integration. Everyone has Gmail open at work already, so it was just the path of least resistance. With > 20 people in our main group chat, the path of least resistance is incredibly important. Trying to coordinate that many people to create new accounts and download/setup new apps is almost a non-starter. I think Allo needs more than a web app to get us to switch. It needs to replace Hangouts as the Gmail integrated chat client. Looking at the Allo landing page, I see how it could be a bit better than Hangouts, but at the end of the day Hangouts still works well and has all the features we need. I don't understand why Google created a new app for these incremental improvements, rather than just updating Hangouts.
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Oct 18, 2016 22:54
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MMD3 posted:Google is so loving confused... Hangouts works great, is integrated with Gmail, incorporates a non-confusing video chat interface, etc. Why give up on a good thing to chase several other things? Everything I've heard suggests that it's down to Google favoring the development of new things over refining existing things among their employees.
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Oct 18, 2016 22:55
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Apparently Google steals all the best programmers and then feeds them performance destroying drugs to get an almost working product out the door with 0 internal documentation, then fires them and hires a new set of best programmers to fix the project they screwed up, but instead they scrap the old project and start a new one while Google feeds them performance destroying drugs so they ship a new almost working product out the door with 0 internal documentation, then Google fires them and.... For as much as Google is awesome at search, and Now is decent, and Android is decent, and Gmail is decent, the rest of their product portfolio rather sucks.
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Oct 18, 2016 23:03
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docbeard posted:Everything I've heard suggests that it's down to Google favoring the development of new things over refining existing things among their employees. I read an article somewhere about their messaging app strategy actually making sense when looking at their push into markets like India.
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Oct 18, 2016 23:06
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ilkhan posted:For as much as Google is awesome at search, and Now is decent, and Android is decent, and Gmail is decent, the rest of their product portfolio rather sucks.
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Oct 18, 2016 23:09
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CLAM DOWN posted:I read an article somewhere about their messaging app strategy actually making sense when looking at their push into markets like India. Someone just on the last page claimed that the entire world outside of the USA uses Whatsapp, so it makes sense that Google would focus on a Whatsapp alternative. I don't think Hangouts is going anywhere; it's just not going to be a priority anymore (as if it ever was).
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Oct 18, 2016 23:41
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Well didn't they say it was going to transition to being business-focused?
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Oct 18, 2016 23:45
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nimper posted:We already knew that Hangouts will (allegedly) be repurposed as a business collaboration tool. 3 pages later it's still going Jesus Christ you goons
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Oct 18, 2016 23:49
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I just got an e-mail from Motorola for the unlocked Z Play @ $449.99 w/ a free extended battery. Any thoughts?
Toshimo fucked around with this message at 00:19 on Oct 19, 2016 |
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Oct 19, 2016 00:09
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CLAM DOWN posted:I read an article somewhere about their messaging app strategy actually making sense when looking at their push into markets like India. Make a new app every three years to flood the market with their own products? 
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Oct 19, 2016 00:18
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CLAM DOWN posted:No one here uses WhatsApp. Not trying to humblebrag here or anything so please don't take it as that, but I have a lot of friends in many varied social groups, and no one uses WhatsApp. I can confirm this. We exclusively communicate through GW2.
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Oct 19, 2016 00:49
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docbeard posted:Everything I've heard suggests that it's down to Google favoring the development of new things over refining existing things among their employees. I get this mentality. At work, sometimes we favor chucking a codebase in the trash rather than trying to upgrade it because it just took on so much that it wasn't initially designed to handle. At the same time, though, our user interface remains mostly unchanged, just with new features. We scrap the internals but keep the customer facing part the same.
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Oct 19, 2016 00:53
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Mr. Powers posted:I get this mentality. At work, sometimes we favor chucking a codebase in the trash rather than trying to upgrade it because it just took on so much that it wasn't initially designed to handle. At the same time, though, our user interface remains mostly unchanged, just with new features. We scrap the internals but keep the customer facing part the same. That's the correct way of doing it, and every big software product has to go through this cycle at a certain point. Google's way is just scrapping everything and coming up with a new product lacking all the important features. Over and over again. Only this time you can make the text small
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Oct 19, 2016 01:00
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FYI for people looking to upgrade, Amazon Warehouse has been having like new $225-270 (32-128 GB) Nexus 6Ps trickling out. I think a bunch got released October 1, then a handful get released each day for the last week or two. Should see a more sustained sale around that price as Thanksgiving approaches, of course.
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Oct 19, 2016 01:02
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FogHelmut posted:I use Hangouts because it uses SMS integration with Google Voice, but I often wonder why I still use Google Voice. I use Google Voice because it lets me answer phone calls on my laptop if my cellphone is in another room. It also provides excellent voicemail with text recognition, so that half the time I don't even need to listen to the call.
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Oct 19, 2016 02:16
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ilkhan posted:Apparently Google steals all the best programmers and then feeds them performance destroying drugs to get an almost working product out the door with 0 internal documentation, then fires them and hires a new set of best programmers to fix the project they screwed up, but instead they scrap the old project and start a new one while Google feeds them performance destroying drugs so they ship a new almost working product out the door with 0 internal documentation, then Google fires them and.... Google's employee turnover is quite high. It's about 1.1 years on average. So someone cranks out Allo, wipes their hands of it, and now we're stuck with a half finished product until another genius comes along and starts a new project. 
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Oct 19, 2016 02:26
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Arsenic Lupin posted:I use Google Voice because it lets me answer phone calls on my laptop if my cellphone is in another room. It also provides excellent voicemail with text recognition, so that half the time I don't even need to listen to the call. Sometimes I think I should go back to the old ways and have my actual number be on my sim and have my calls forward to Google voice for voicemail, rather than Google voice being my main number.
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Oct 19, 2016 02:48
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FogHelmut posted:Sometimes I think I should go back to the old ways and have my actual number be on my sim and have my calls forward to Google voice for voicemail, rather than Google voice being my main number. That's what I did. I never used Google Voice as my main number, because too many people knew the cell already and I didn't even know who all of them were (doctors, people who reminded me that the gutters needed cleaning, and like that.)
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Oct 19, 2016 02:50
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Whelp, Amex just warned me of a large purchase from Google. People who purchased from Verizon already had their phones ship out, but it looks like the Google Store ones may be close as well. Fingers crossed that 26th-28th is overly pessimistic.
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Oct 19, 2016 03:00
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bull3964 posted:Whelp, Amex just warned me of a large purchase from Google. People who purchased from Verizon already had their phones ship out, but it looks like the Google Store ones may be close as well. I see the $822 auth on my card, dated today, but it hasn't been posted yet. Order status is "processing" rather than pending now so the gears are indeed spinning.
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Oct 19, 2016 03:13
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bull3964 posted:Whelp, Amex just warned me of a large purchase from Google. People who purchased from Verizon already had their phones ship out, but it looks like the Google Store ones may be close as well. Did you order the regular or XL? If the former, have you been able to find any information regarding battery life? Most of the reviews I've watched are for the XL. Part of me is really curious about this phone. I like the size of the regular iPhone 7 so I'd get the regular Pixel but I know how long android phones tend to last with less than 3000mAh batteries, but I'm hoping maybe this one has a couple extra tricks up its sleeve.
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Oct 19, 2016 03:22
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I'll be interested to see what happens once people who ordered from Verizon start getting their devices tomorrow. It's looking like the fears of bootlaoder locking were unfounded as PC World said they were able to unlock the bootloader of their Verizon model. The probability is going up that there's absolutely nothing at all different or distinct about the version Verizon is selling. It's could very well be normal stock just sold through Verizon stores. Verizon seems to be throwing their full support behind it too which is good for me. For example, the native Android visual voicemail appears to be working just fine from what some people were posting on Reddit. I'm expecting wifi calling to show up eventually too. comper posted:Did you order the regular or XL? If the former, have you been able to find any information regarding battery life? Most of the reviews I've watched are for the XL. Part of me is really curious about this phone. I like the size of the regular iPhone 7 so I'd get the regular Pixel but I know how long android phones tend to last with less than 3000mAh batteries, but I'm hoping maybe this one has a couple extra tricks up its sleeve. Regular. Most of the reviews are saying that it's about 20% less SoT. It should be on par or better than my MXP and with today's fast charging, that's plenty good enough for me. bull3964 fucked around with this message at 03:26 on Oct 19, 2016 |
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Oct 19, 2016 03:23
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comper posted:Did you order the regular or XL? If the former, have you been able to find any information regarding battery life? Most of the reviews I've watched are for the XL. Part of me is really curious about this phone. I like the size of the regular iPhone 7 so I'd get the regular Pixel but I know how long android phones tend to last with less than 3000mAh batteries, but I'm hoping maybe this one has a couple extra tricks up its sleeve. Reviews seem to be all over the map (but in the top tier of contemporary flagships if that's not too broad a category) as far as battery life goes, unfortunately. It looks like the reviews that reported groundbreaking battery life were using it like regular people (I did this for X hours, that for a couple more hours, then I streamed music until bedtime and had XX% left) whereas the benchmark-style (lasted this many minutes doing this one task nonstop) put it comparable to (but a tick shy of) iphone so take it as you will. E: I think I misread your question, you were probably asking how the Pixel compares to the XL in which case I am pretty sure the XL has better life in every comparison, but the above post already laid it out more precisely. FAUXTON fucked around with this message at 03:36 on Oct 19, 2016 |
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Oct 19, 2016 03:32
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My XL got charged. Order status went from "pending" to "closed" to "processing". lol. 32GB black XL, Cali.FogHelmut posted:Sometimes I think I should go back to the old ways and have my actual number be on my sim and have my calls forward to Google voice for voicemail, rather than Google voice being my main number.  SB35 posted:Google's employee turnover is quite high. It's about 1.1 years on average. So someone cranks out Allo, wipes their hands of it, and now we're stuck with a half finished product until another genius comes along and starts a new project.
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Oct 19, 2016 03:46
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Watch it turn out that everyone gets a call from their bank at the asscrack of dawn to make sure about the transaction because Google started running cards in the evening and they probably pended the transactions until the morning when the AM shift gets in and can call.
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Oct 19, 2016 03:53
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If they leave documentation, it's easier to fire and replace them.
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Oct 19, 2016 03:53
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I use Hangouts all the time both for work and personal use. I pretty much exclusively use it, through Google voice, for phone calls, chat, and video calls. It's a perfect app for me. I don't see the appeal in whatsapp, allo, etc at all.
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Oct 19, 2016 04:02
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So I'm looking to replace an aging HTC one M8. I was considering getting the Note 7 until the whole exploding thing happened, but today a family member purchased a Moto Z to replace a dead phone. Since we're on the same Verizon plan, I can now get one for half price. First impression is that I like the phone, and have two weeks to think this over before the deal ends. What is the general consensus on the Moto Z? Worth grabbing or should I wait for something else?
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Oct 19, 2016 04:21
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Mister Macys posted:If they leave documentation, it's easier to fire and replace them. That's why the trick is to document nothing so you're invaluable 
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Oct 19, 2016 04:33
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This is really dumb, but I'm really pleased with the flashlight color on my 5X. It's a much warmer white compared to my 5, and it feels more like an old school incandescent flashlight.
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Oct 19, 2016 04:42
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Taffer posted:That's why the trick is to document nothing so you're invaluable The BOFH rule to live by 
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Oct 19, 2016 05:00
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I love how The Verge has two separate reviews of the Pixel where one says battery life is poor and the other says it's fantastic. I also have no idea why Walt Mossberg insists the phone only works on Verizon. Dude is old please get rid of him.
Mu Zeta fucked around with this message at 05:19 on Oct 19, 2016 |
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Oct 19, 2016 05:17
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Mu Zeta posted:I love how The Verge has two separate reviews of the Pixel where one says battery life is poor and the other says it's fantastic. I also have no idea why Walt Mossberg insists the phone only works on Verizon. Dude is old please get rid of him. To be fair, he said it that it seemed to be an anomaly. I find anecdotal battery "impressions" to be pretty useless in reviews. The only real way to compare consumption is a completely synthetic test suite. Otherwise, things like waking the phone up to check out that little home button animation every few minutes gets lost in "I didn't really use the phone much, why is the battery life so bad?" Do an idle test with a fixed rate of notifications coming in from a number of sources. Do a web browsing test on wifi and cellular using a fixed script against a server with consistent performance. Do a local video rundown test at a specific NIT level.
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Oct 19, 2016 05:28
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SB35 posted:Google's employee turnover is quite high. It's about 1.1 years on average. So someone cranks out Allo, wipes their hands of it, and now we're stuck with a half finished product until another genius comes along and starts a new project. This is laughably wrong, starting with the employee turnover numbers and ending with "Google employees just like to create new stuff". Fact is, Google is getting its rear end handed to it in messaging by WhatsApp/Facebook Messenger/iMessage/Wechat/LINE/etc etc and decided Hangouts was too overloaded of a product to try to compete with all of the above and so created a bunch of one use case focused products (Allo, Duo) designed to appeal to non power users (simplicity). Whether or not they are right on that decision, the reason behind it is not "Google employees wanted to create something new".
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Oct 19, 2016 05:30
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Which new messaging app will let me idle on IRC like I've been doing for 20 years? None? Pass.
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Oct 19, 2016 05:54
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Evil Robot posted:This is laughably wrong, starting with the employee turnover numbers and ending with "Google employees just like to create new stuff". Fact is, Google is getting its rear end handed to it in messaging by WhatsApp/Facebook Messenger/iMessage/Wechat/LINE/etc etc and decided Hangouts was too overloaded of a product to try to compete with all of the above and so created a bunch of one use case focused products (Allo, Duo) designed to appeal to non power users (simplicity). Whether or not they are right on that decision, the reason behind it is not "Google employees wanted to create something new". It's certainly true that their culture rewards starting anew over maintaining the old. Also from what I've heard from people who work there that there's a bit of a bubble, where people inside seem to believe in a weirdly wrong set of facts while the rest of the world is working from another, true, set of facts. (One example that comes to mind was a belief in the company line that the Motorola acquistion and sale was a carefully planned out, three-dimensional chess move that was a success all the way around, when the truth is that it was a kneejerk reaction that resulted in nothing but losses and a bucket full of FRAND-encumbered, worthless patents.) When it comes to (poorly executed) messaging platforms though you aren't exactly wrong about their asses being kicked. I'd still say it's more of a cultural problem because at Google it's either an instant overnight success or a complete failure which is a weirdly autistic way to view things until you realize that Google has corporate autism.
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Oct 19, 2016 06:08
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Got an email saying that my order is on hold because my card was not accepted. Had to use my wife's credit card because google wouldn't accept mine. Gotta call my bank what was up with that. Bank fuckery or Google fuckery? Can't wait to find out.
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Oct 19, 2016 06:10
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the LG V20, thoughts? I'm hoping it has an unlocked bootloader and root is easy to get. Getting a nexus phone/pixel is out - I'm poor and use the ATT Next program currently - there aren't many good options. So I'm hoping the V20 is good?
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Oct 19, 2016 06:50
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