Is hangouts/google voice finally ready for the big time?

[cronos]

the prob with messaging apps is you have to get everyone to use them, and that simply is not going to happen

Nope. You can't tell people to use an app, on the other hand you have to use whatever your friends use, there's no way around that no matter what.

I do draw a line with Line though (!). Oh and Path Talk. I'm not installing those. Everyone has at least four other ways of reaching me, so I'm not going to install two extra apps just because of 2-3 people.

as normal SMS comes by default on every phone

I use whatsapp to talk to 1 person who flat out refuses to use txt messages. and TBH I want to kick his teeth in most times because of it

I would have been really pissed if the exact opposite happens to me, so I could imagine your annoyance. Fortunately, I'm good, as absolutely zero person now is sending me sms text

(the irony is that I'm actually fine now if someone decided to send me a text. I used to dislike it so much because I have to pay for each message coming or going, but now with the Hangouts integration I don't care anymore as everything goes through data)

 

[cronos]

I've never really understood this constant move to new messaging apps that seems to permeate. The fact that we're still looking for a messaging app highlights the fact that they're all just not that good for all inclusive use.

Seems so incredibly stupid that they can't come up with standards for messaging and voice so that we can get away from all this half-baked junk. Or maybe there are they're just that bad at implementing them? This is an area that to me has especially highlighted how woeful mobile platforms really are.

First of all, fads are fads, just like any other fads, most of these have no good reasoning behind them at all. Someone started using one thing, their friends followed, and suddenly all their friends are using the same thing, and soon everyone thinks it's cool. I really think that approaching it from technological standpoint of what and how a 'perfect' messaging app is, is not going to figure out the reason why people keep jumping around using different apps. It's just how it is.

On the other hand, I think Hangouts is as close to perfect as a communication app can be. It's completely multiplatform, supports simultaneous multiple devices (mobile or computers), it also now supports text chats, voice, video chats (even for multiple users), and ever since they decoupled it with G+, all you need is a GMail account, which 99% of people already have. It really does cover everything, and even those people with Blackberries and Windows Phone can still use Hangouts from their computers. But nope, it's not suddenly the most popular messaging app in the world. So as I mentioned above, it is pointless to try to figure this out with logic. Because it's nothing but logical.