When Google first came on the screen they had a moniker,
"Don't Be Evil". Now I think they are amongst the most evil in the market today. They suck all the data that they can about you to use or sell to others.
I was forced to try
Google Messaging due to Samsung not supporting Samsung Messaging past July on my
Samsung phone that Google owns the OS to. Let that sink in for a minute... I decided to give it a try before being forced to use it, who knows it may not be a big change... Wrong, Google takes some of the most simplest things about texting and now you may need a class to use it.
I don't know who they got to test this system (besides Google employees), but here are some of the most simple parts of texting that Google engineer difficulty into:
- Messaging Screen to Busy:
The texting area is so much smaller than I am used to and you can almost miss it because the screen has all these other things in the way like emojis and such. When I go to text, this is all that I want to do, Emojis and such things should be secondary and not the primary focus of texting.
- Cut & Paste:
I tried to cut and paste from one message that I had already sent to apply it to a new text message with a few changes. I use to be able to bring up the old message press and hold on the message then select copy go to the new message the press and hold then select paste. it. This no longer works in this simple way. When you press and hold either Google will pick out some numbers in the message for you to copy or emojis pop up. None of this is useful to me, I cannot copy the message at all. This is so simple how did they screw this up...
- Group Texting:
This is a real nightmare, I regularly group text members weekly and so I sent out the first group text. To my surprise I got an individual copy of the text message that I sent to each member on my group. This clogs up my messages so that I cannot find anything anymore. I sent out one group text to 19 people and got 19 copies of the text messages back to indicate that Google had sent the message. This is even though I have read receipt unchecked. How is cluttering up my message box helpful? One text with the names of everyone who the text was sent to would be acceptable but this is not. Who thought this was a good idea?
- Group Text Lists:
I am really confounded by this one. Once I placed people on the group text list, I cannot remove anyone... This is utterly ridiculous, I will have to spend time to create yet another group text list missing one name. In the past all I had to do was to remove a person from the group and proceed to text. again Google engineer complexity where it was not wanted or needed. I read that because Google is using RCS messaging, that is one person in the group does not have RCS, I cannot remove them from the group. How stupid is that? They have to stay on a group text list that I created and cannot manage... BTW, if you make one mistake, hit the wrong button in creating the new group text list the whole list is lost and you have to start over again. Nothing but a time suck...
- Gemini:
This one I cannot explain. The text messaging app keep asking you to use Gemini, Google's AI creation. If you read the disclosure it clearly states that Gemini may make up things about people. Now who wants that in your texting, auto-correct is enough without your app creating lies about the people you are texting then sending it out to who knows... Why is this good and who wants this?
After this fiasco, I immediately switched back to Samsung messaging and will wait until July or until I can find another text messaging app that has no ads in it and doesn't want me to pay to text... Maybe it's time to go iPhone...