I've been using Hangouts as my messaging app for quite some time now. It's especially nice for messaging between my wife and me (she has an iPhone, meh). I like the message-read indication, I like that the other person's avatar indicates how far into the thread that they've read (especially nice in group chats of 3 or more), and the "someone's typing" indicator (the waving dots).
The latest version of Google Messenger seems to implement some of these as well.
Now, the I've just gotten the latest version of Google Voice, which also supports SMS (and now MMS) messaging.
The point is, there seems to be significant overlap across these three.
As I understand it, Google is expected to back off on Hangouts, molding it more into a business tool, not general consumer messaging tool.
I do like having all my messaging in a single app.
And, I assume Google will be getting RCA functionality into Messenger.
I'm trying to figure out which apps I should be using, and for what. Google Voice for my voice mail only? (And undo voice mail from Hangouts?). Messenger for everything else? (And abandon Hangouts entirely?)
I don't know if this adds a meaningful nuance or not, but I'm a Sprint user, and my Google Voice is the Sprint Google Voice account type. (My Google Voice phone number and my real phone number are the same).
I'm leaning toward Google Voice for voice mail, and Messenger for all other messaging, dropping Hangouts (I'll miss the Hangouts built-in stickers, though).
What are people's thoughts? (I'd love one of the Android Central columnists to do an analysis on this question.
The latest version of Google Messenger seems to implement some of these as well.
Now, the I've just gotten the latest version of Google Voice, which also supports SMS (and now MMS) messaging.
The point is, there seems to be significant overlap across these three.
As I understand it, Google is expected to back off on Hangouts, molding it more into a business tool, not general consumer messaging tool.
I do like having all my messaging in a single app.
And, I assume Google will be getting RCA functionality into Messenger.
I'm trying to figure out which apps I should be using, and for what. Google Voice for my voice mail only? (And undo voice mail from Hangouts?). Messenger for everything else? (And abandon Hangouts entirely?)
I don't know if this adds a meaningful nuance or not, but I'm a Sprint user, and my Google Voice is the Sprint Google Voice account type. (My Google Voice phone number and my real phone number are the same).
I'm leaning toward Google Voice for voice mail, and Messenger for all other messaging, dropping Hangouts (I'll miss the Hangouts built-in stickers, though).
What are people's thoughts? (I'd love one of the Android Central columnists to do an analysis on this question.