They really didn’t have to redesign a text box. Please stop reinventing the wheel. I don’t need another pop up in my life.
Okay, so I’m not crazy. I started seeing this today, and I had to stop and think “Wait, was this always here?”
Lmao same.
Until I saw this post I thought my phone was just being buggy.
I thought this was just me but I swear this is so fucking annoying
Completely unnecessary filler space
Lol I’m glad other people are talking about it because same… I updated it and noticed immediately and thought it felt/looked a little odd. Here’s to hoping they listen to feedback if enough is provided! I’ve enjoyed the app, otherwise, for the RCS and what not.
Does anyone else feel like the quality of the keyboard swipe auto-complete has completely tanked as well?
Just like their search engine, every version of Android gets worse.
I don’t know how to edit the main post on mobile so I’ll just add this comment. The message I typed in the screenshot populates in a “pop up bar”. The message no longer gets entered where you think it should go and it looks like shit and takes up extra screen space for no reason. I really dislike this change.
They fixed it. It’s back to normal now.
Fuckin annoying tbh. Can’t stand when giga corps do this and sense it’s required for rcs I can’t just go get a better foss alternative sense none of the people I text are tech savvy or able/willing to switch to something else and rcs is pretty essential for me knowing if someone read it or not.
If I could I would ditch all google and giga corps products but I’m way to poor to do that. And it’s so ingrained into society it’s hard to find anything that works with these proprietary shit.
I don’t understand how is it essential to know if someone read your message. Shouldn’t they reply to you if they need to let you know?
Read confirmation is the first feature I disable on every instant messaging platform. Also delivery confirmation is implemented in standard SMS.
Mainly because some of the people I know read it and don’t respond, for instance my partner coming home from work and me needing something at the store and she’s driving and can’t respond but pops up on her messages so she knows but can’t respond. It’s really helpful knowing they read it then me not sure wtf is going on.
Just a scenario riddled with probably lots of flaws but hopefully you get the point.
If she is driving she cannot click on the message or on “mark message as read” either.
Legally.
I paid for Textra over a decade ago, and it’s easily the best money I’ve ever spent. It’s the best texting app I’ve ever used and I highly recommend everyone check it out. They still churn out updates regularly and the features are above and beyond most messaging apps.
The text lines up with the recipient’s text bubbles. It’s on the left, and it’s left justified, so it’s under the other person’s messages, rather than mine.
I could have sworn the old UI had the text entry closer to the right.
I hate this new layout. Why is the box smaller than the width of the screen? It was already too small. If anything they should have made it taller and kept it the same width it was before
Can Textra handle RCS yet? I bought it ages ago but ditched it when it couldn’t handle RCS
I’ve been reading articles for years about how Google say they’re going to open the RCS API to 3rd-Party apps but they have yet to do so.
This is why I scoff every time Google takes jabs at Apple about iMessage. Pot, meet kettle. Until I can use rcs with Textra, they got no room to talk
They’re proobably working on how to track messages on the way, like “hey, wanna use RCS? here’s our com.google.rcs library”, which by coincidence sends every message to Google.
Your cynicism is warranted but a big part of the advertised value is that their rcs implementation is end to end encrypted. Or they say it is, which presumably someone (not me!) would be able to verify.
Nothing can without the blessing of Google, and so far that’s limited to Google Messages and Samsung Messages (whatever it’s called)
Great standard you got there. Fucking hell
I will just drop this here:
Please dont let Google also scan your Messages?
How do I turn this off? Google search results are of no help 🤔
Use a regular SMS app
Like this one: https://github.com/FossifyOrg/Messages
I also like Deku SMS, its basically like “Silence” which implemented the Signal Protocol for SMS, but silence is unmaintained.
Both partners need to use the app to use encryption, but SMS are often accessible when cell data is used up or in areas with nearly no coverage.
Is there an alternative RCS App?
RCS is a very incomplete protocol, so the only good implementations are partly proprietary. Also it relies on centralized infrastructure afaik, and weird bureaucratical agreements with carriers.
No, and it seems pretty unlikely.
I just looked through all the settings, there doesn’t seem to be a way to change it back.
Same. I installed textra right after and everyone will have to deal with getting SMS from me or not talking to me lol.
I love textra. I wish I could just get everyone on signal though
I think the only downside to Textra is that it doesn’t support RCS - or I don’t believe it does. They have a newer app called Chomp SMS that does. I’m still using Textra because the only communication I get on it is from companies.
Do you have information on it supporting rcs? I don’t see anything on the play store mentioning it. The first Google results I see say it doesn’t. Seems like it would be a big deal because if they did and would be prominently displayed as I thought only Google messages and Samsung messages supported rcs.
https://chomp.uservoice.com/knowledgebase/articles/1895488-rcs-implementation
I think I’m mistaken. I have no idea where I got it from but I must have seen something to give me the illusion. Ignore what I said.
I had no idea they had another texting app. I’ll have to check it out and compare
It’s so bad I uninstalled all updates and went back to the version that shipped with the phone. That got rid of it.
I tried to install other versions from apkmirror but the design has been in there a while and they turned it on server side. My P8 shipped with
messages.android _20230529_03_RCO1
and it’s gone for me.
Weird. My version is from 2 weeks ago and I don’t see it.
Verizon US Pixel 8 🤷🏻
I like it. Previously it would hide a bunch of icons to give the bar more space, now it doesn’t need to
From what I noticed they only added an emoji button though. This already is on my keyboard area. Maybe I’m missing something but at least you enjoy it.
There is also the new AI response button. But not everyone sees that. I think that’s the biggest reason for this change. It looks better than the couple other ways they demoed the ai smart reply ui.
At the cost of space for the actual content on screen.
Apparently Textra itself doesn’t support desktop sync like Google’s app, but there are workarounds.
However, does Textra support RCS?
It doesn’t support RCS because Google’s implementation of it (with encryption) is not open.
This doesn’t seem correct. RCS is supposed to be supported by you mobile provider, if it isn’t only then your messaging app on Android will use Google’s service. The whole protocol was meant to be open to entice companies to adopt it.
I understand Google dropped don’t be evil, but they are not a villain in every story.
What a weird evil slow burn Google is doing. AOSP used to be an entire open phone operating system for the most part, (aside from binary driver blobs and some DRM stuff) but with each passing year, they close-source everything. It used to be a big proud point Android users celebrated, “oh well I can go read my source code, unlike iOS!” Annnnd…nope.
I want a new mobile OS to replace the shit sandwich of Gappleoogle.
LineageOS is mostly AOSP and little Google stuff, which anyway you can remove without breaking the OS.
You can use an Android phone without reliance on Google, but it’s quite some effort and possibly invalidates warranty.
