Google is so desperate in getting into video conferencing ....

I had Duo disabled on my phone since day one, today I woke up to see it was renabled and updated to latest version ...

Thinking for rooting this thing and taking back control of my stuff even though its just an old testing phone -_-

A non-rooted Android device is in my book almost as bad as a non-jailbroken iOS.

🤨they still undo settings?

Apple stopped that ages ago... well either that or I stopped turning things off 🤔

Gotta love it. I've had location history re enabled, all apps updated, daft.

I'd agree with you but a testing phone needs to be stock imo. Up to you obvs.

Google should first get its shit together and make one app for chat, audio and video.

Coworker: "I was calling you on duo"
Me: "Oh sorry, I had my phone muted, but I sent you a hangouts link"
Coworker: "I don't have hangouts, is that the same as Google Meet?"
Me: "I don't fucking know... It all stopped making sense somewhere between Gmail Chat and Google Wave"

@kamen True that, but as a mobile apps developer I prefer stock scenarios for testing :\

@C0D4 Apparently it is, its like they paid for the device why do we care ....

@DucksCanCode Ya I prefer it stay stock since majority of users are for sure running on stock

@bittersweet If I'm not mistaken they have plans to make messaging app on Android a rival to Apple's own messaging app, where it can chat with android users & send SMS at the same time

Its good to see Google competing with itself, at least they have a higher chance to win?

@gitpush Not really though, by competing with itself people will just be like "Fuck this confusing suite of apps, I'll use WhatsApp/Zoom/Discord/Slack/etc".

The smart thing would be to rename Hangouts to "Messaging+", turning it into a unified sms/chat/calling/conferencing app, and have a legacy "Messaging" app for people who only want SMS.

@bittersweet Good point, but from their actions it doesn't seem that's what they are working on ....

By the way out of scope question, can you please check my latest rant: https://devrant.com/rants/2533230/...

@bittersweet Well, they already kinda support RCS in their SMS app though.

Also lets not forget this badboi:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

@theuser Next month they'll launch Google Hey, Google Greet, Google Parley, Google Huddle and Google: The Gathering.

Then they merge 2 of those, discontinue 1, make 3 of them work with Google Home, and allow Google Docs sharing in the other ones.

All executed by a fork of Google Deepmind, trained to make business decisions by observing over a trillion truly random fair dice rolls.

I just want Picasa back. Charge me whatever. If my extremely non-technical wife can use it, I DON'T CARE WHAT IT COSTS!

@PaperTrail I second the Picasa. It looked simplistic but very powerful. Organizing, editing and even backup. I guess they couldn't think of a way to earn from it.

@iamai

> I second the Picasa

I've tried a fair number of so-called 'Picasa replacements', not even close.

For example, did you know in Picasa you can change the order of the images in any way you like? Have a collection of images you need a specific order? Just drag and drop the images to where you want them. Eazy-peazy. No need to concern yourself with filenames, dates, or other garbage nobody cares about.

My wife didn't understand my amazement. She was like "Shouldn't everything work like you think it should?"

@kamen This.

And this is also (this rant) why I'm very happy that I have a rooted android phone WITHOUT Google play services!

@PaperTrail I've saved its installer file like a gem since around '15. I just can't use another image viewer!