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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.
bloody annoying and ugly
It's impressive how modern companies with thousands of professional designers manage to make increasingly goofy designs lol
"Modern" (i.e. Apple-chasing) design seems to be hellbent on wasting as much screen space as possible.
To prove yourself as a executive you have to make the company do stuff, so people come up with reasons to do wasteful things. It's all a circle of shit people being shitty to get ahead.
Just out of curiosity, how much people still use SMS? I can't remember last time I sent SMS.
Here in Finland we use mainly Whatsapp, FB Messenger, Telegram or Signal for messaging. Almost no one I know has sent SMS in the last 10 years.
I'm in France and I still use sms. Unlimited sms became the norm well before data plans and messaging apps, and it's much easier I can just text someone without having to look on which plateform they have an account. It's like voice calls, for sure you can call someone on messenger or Whatsapp but why bother when I can just make a regular phone call?
For voice calls, most use regular phone calls here, it just works better (and VoLTE/VoWiFi is great addition to sound quality). Apps are only used when you are making video calls.
As for messages, it's much easier to send images/videos via whatsapp/signal than it's via SMS. + replies/reactions. Probably main reason why people use apps instead SMS (even while many/most of our plans include unlimited data/sms/calls). RCS added those features IIRC, but why switch to another solution while apps works just fine and most of people already are used to Whatsapp 🤷♂️
And most of the people here has Whatsapp installed, so usually you don't have to guess what app to use :P
The US seems to primarily still use sms. I've heard it's tied to having unlimited messaging phone plans being the norm, so people weren't as drawn to other platforms.
And US still has very expensive data plans compared to Finland (I pay 21e/month for unlimited 200mbps data, calls, sms). That could also be one factor why SMS is still used there so much 🤔
Also, you don't even need a platform at all. Just a phone and a phone number.
It's not a choice, here, so much as it is the result of our smartphone culture.
In the US, using the default messaging app on your phone is the norm for most people. Third party messaging apps like WhatsApp simply never caught on over here, so we've let Apple, Google, Samsung, etc determine how we talk to each other. Vendor lock-in tactics run rampant, with barely any regulation.
The default messaging apps on iPhone is iMessage. It's locked down and can not communicate with any other messaging app except via SMS. Therefore the other apps have to use it to communicate with iPhone users.
Conversely, Google has a messaging protocol they're trying to get Apple to adopt called RCS, but Google also refuses to let RCS be used by third party apps. So SMS becomes the fallback for communication between them.
It's partially corporate bickering, partially consumers being tech illiterate and staunchly opposed to using anything third party. Particularly in the case of iPhone users, there's a strong culture of entrenchment in the Apple ecosystem, and for some people, not being in it is actually seen as worthy of derision. There's actual cases of bullying in schools if a kid doesn't use iPhone, and that's having an increasingly detrimental effect on the market.
You have to appreciate, in Europe, you're mostly using Android, a (somewhat) open ecosystem, and that mentality is stronger over there.
But here in the states, iPhones are extremely prominent, and with them comes the mentality that Apple has spent decades programming into its consumers: don't use anything non-Apple, and if that creates problems for other people, too bad, they should just buy Apple too.
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.
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.
FOSS SMS > Google RCS
Or use signal like a civilized person.
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.
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.
Can Textra handle RCS yet? I bought it ages ago but ditched it when it couldn't handle RCS
Nothing can without the blessing of Google, and so far that's limited to Google Messages and Samsung Messages (whatever it's called)
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
I'm not a fan either. I will swap to literally any FOSS texting app that supports RCS.
It boggles my mind how people in the US still use SMS.
I guess we cant all be enlightened enough to trust Facebook with everything.
Based on experience dealing with people outside the US for my job, I'd say this person is implying whatsapp as the alternative.
I personally don't see the point from within the states, given that whatsapp forces you to connect your number to it anyway.
If I had wanted all the extra bull shit that came with these updates I'd have bought an iPhone.
I just looked through all the settings, there doesn't seem to be a way to change it back.
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 thought this was just me but I swear this is so fucking annoying
Completely unnecessary filler space
Me, using Google Voice for SMS: "Y'all have nice UIs sometimes?"
Maybe they reserve that space for future AI suggestions?
Almost certainly the answer. Same reason they just hobbled their "ok Google" by not letting you access it with the screen off anymore. They're going to switch engines and they want to reintroduce the same features all over again but make it feel like an upgrade.
"We can't remember what happened last quarter, so surely our users won't remember how their phones used to be better! Genius! Moving on, time to go make and destroy a new app, how about a notepad app this time?" --Google
On the new pixels, as you start typing you get some AI tools that will rewrite your message, make suggestions, etc
Pixel 7 Pro here, haven't seen this at all, it's just dead space for me.
The 7 isn't new anymore. That person meant the 8
Pixel 8 pro here. I haven't seen it either.
A tragedy. I hate that little useless space. Those features should be on Gboard not messages
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.
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.
Download the messaging app of your choice. Get friends to download it if they want to contact you. Use that app and too bad if no one else does shrug
Damn this sucks. What are they thinking? It's a horrible way to manage a text input
Smart compose is there for me. It looks like this bar will have more icons depending on the context and maybe more in the future.
