Fed up with Samsung Messages - Best SMS/MMS replacement?

[MichaelBanning]

(Because I don't know if my issues are specific to the Samsung S9+, AT&T, etc., I wasn't sure where to post this, so any help would be appreciated!)

Hello!

Samsung S9+ on AT&T. It's my first Android phone, and I've had it since April.

Anyway, I've been biting my tongue with my frustrations with the stock Samsung Messages app, but after today I need a replacement.

--Despite having the "Advanced Messaging" setting enabled, I have the WORST TIME sending gifs and pictures along with text messages in Samsung Messages. Even though it says it can handle images larger than 1MB, if it's a gif I have to use a separate app to resize the gif to smaller than 1MB or else when I send it the gif is a choppy mess.

--Additionally, there have been times were I was trying to send someone a picture, but it was never received even though on my phone it appeared to have been sent. I had to restart my phone to fix this.

--Finally, today I send a picture with some corresponding text to a friend at 12:46pm. My friend got the text, but she didn't receive the picture until 4 HOURS LATER.

I don't know if it's the Samsung Messages app, Samsung in general, or AT&T, but I've had enough, and I want to move to another texting app that will:

1.) Import all the messages I have on my phone from the Samsung Messages app.
2.) Not have ANY of the problems I described above.
3.) Allow me to effortlessly send text, gifs, and regular pictures (or in other words I suppose, both SMS and MMS) to folks successfully and with no problems.
4.) If there is an issue where something isn't sent right away or whatever, that it will TELL ME there's an issue, AND that the solution will be relatively painless.

I've heard good things about Textra and Android Messages and Pulse (though I don't need/want any of that cross-platform capability - as long as I can easily transfer my messages to a new phone whenever I get one). Which one of these (or another I didn't mention) would you guys recommend?

Thanks so much!

 

[Rukbat]

--Despite having the "Advanced Messaging" setting enabled, I have the WORST TIME sending gifs and pictures along with text messages in Samsung Messages. Even though it says it can handle images larger than 1MB, if it's a gif I have to use a separate app to resize the gif to smaller than 1MB or else when I send it the gif is a choppy mess.

Even though the app will handle pictgures larger than 1MB (it compresses them), your carrier will only accept 600kb maximum (some still limit to 300kb). Compression makes a picture look like a bunch of pixels.

--Additionally, there have been times were I was trying to send someone a picture, but it was never received even though on my phone it appeared to have been sent. I had to restart my phone to fix this.

Probably because the picture was too large.

--Finally, today I send a picture with some corresponding text to a friend at 12:46pm. My friend got the text, but she didn't receive the picture until 4 HOURS LATER.

The internet isn't immediate, it's eventual. It was designed (starting during the Eisenhower administration) to allow the IRS to send out bills for tax. It didn't matter if the notices took a few days, as long as they got there.

1.) Import all the messages I have on my phone from the Samsung Messages app.

You'll have to use a 3rd party app for that - like SMS Backup & Restore.

2.) Not have ANY of the problems I described above.

Maybe in a few years, not now.

3.) Allow me to effortlessly send text, gifs, and regular pictures (or in other words I suppose, both SMS and MMS) to folks successfully and with no problems.

See above.

4.) If there is an issue where something isn't sent right away or whatever, that it will TELL ME there's an issue, AND that the solution will be relatively painless.

Maybe in a few years, maybe never.

I've heard good things about Textra

No difference - the limit is still AT&T.

and Android Messages and Pulse (though I don't need/want any of that cross-platform capability - as long as I can easily transfer my messages to a new phone whenever I get one). Which one of these (or another I didn't mention) would you guys recommend?

Android Messages is about the best app at the moment, and it has RCS capability built in (but most carriers don't support it yet). And no app transfers messages from another app, unless it's a plain SMS app.

You're complaining about things we've learned to live with. Back in 2004, you'd be lucky to get SMS from one carrier to another, and there was no inter-carrier MMS. It took almost 10 years to get that straightened out.

 

[MichaelBanning]

Even though the app will handle pictgures larger than 1MB (it compresses them), your carrier will only accept 600kb maximum (some still limit to 300kb). Compression makes a picture look like a bunch of pixels.

If that's the case, then what is the point of the "Advanced Messaging" feature? Just to send a compressed version of a pic instead of giving you an error message? And could you please link me to where on AT&T's site it says the size max is 600kb? I looked it up just now, and it appears to be 1MB for AT&T and 1.2MB for Verizon, so I don't know what carriers you're referring to with the 600kb and 300kb numbers. Regardless, I have AT&T.

Probably because the picture was too large.

First, resetting the phone allowed me to successfully send the mms, so no it wasn't too large. Plus, you just stated that Advanced Messaging is supposed to compress messages that are too large. Is there another size limit for which even Advanced Messaging won't work? If so, should an error message not pop up informing the user to the error, as opposed to them staring at their phone frustrated as their friends tell them they're not getting the mms? Otherwise, again, what is the point of Advanced Messaging?

The internet isn't immediate, it's eventual. It was designed (starting during the Eisenhower administration) to allow the IRS to send out bills for tax. It didn't matter if the notices took a few days, as long as they got there.

Ok. First off, I can't help but pick up a bit of a condescending tone here, which is neither warranted nor appreciated. Not all of us have almost a half-century's worth of experience in tech development like you do.

Secondly, while I appreciate the history lesson, it doesn't answer my question. I'm a bartender. I see people send MMS all the time, and they talk to each other about their phones all the time. They never have the issue where two parts of one message are sent 4 hours apart. More specifically to me, people send me MMS all the time, and I never receive them 4 hours apart. Yes, when large text messages get split up by the carrier, they sometimes are received out of order. It's happened to everyone. But people (including people as old as you) send gifs and pictures to each other all the time, and successfully, to the point where I'm trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong or what I can do to solve this issue, which I think is reasonable 57 years after Ike left office, so while I appreciate your response, I don't appreciate being told to sit under my desk and just wait...

Besides, if "you get what you get and you don't get upset," is the response to these issues, why are there even any 3rd party apps for messaging, or for that matter the emergence of RCS style apps? Hell, why don't we all use rotary phones the way God intended!

If someone your age comes on here and tries to ask for help, do you treat them like this?

You're complaining about things we've learned to live with. Back in 2004, you'd be lucky to get SMS from one carrier to another, and there was no inter-carrier MMS. It took almost 10 years to get that straightened out.

No, I'm complaining about a terrible stock messaging app that doesn't fully explain how the Advanced Messaging feature works, and will display items as successfully sent when they weren't received for hours or were never sent at all. And I'm glad you're content to have things work or not or whatever, but some of us at least want to know when something isn't working well and if there's a better option, to use the better option. And I don't know if you used to work for Samsung and so took my questions personally, but I don't understand nor do I appreciate your condescending and mostly unhelpful reply.

 

[anon(8453378)]

As far as transferring messages to a new app...if you are referring to sms/MMS, then download another app, set it as default, and your text messages should populate. I have been using Android messages for a while; simple and the notifications are better than the Samsung default messenger.

 

[Rukbat]

If that's the case, then what is the point of the "Advanced Messaging" feature? Just to send a compressed version of a pic instead of giving you an error message?

Pretty much.

And could you please link me to where on AT&T's site it says the size max is 600kb? I looked it up just now, and it appears to be 1MB for AT&T and 1.2MB for Verizon, so I don't know what carriers you're referring to with the 600kb and 300kb numbers. Regardless, I have AT&T.

I was referring to the last time I looked. You're correct, it's 1MB now. And many seemingly small pictures are over 1MB.




Simple picture, right? 956KB. Add a few people and it would go well over 1MB.

First, resetting the phone allowed me to successfully send the mms, so no it wasn't too large. Plus, you just stated that Advanced Messaging is supposed to compress messages that are too large. Is there another size limit for which even Advanced Messaging won't work? If so, should an error message not pop up informing the user to the error, as opposed to them staring at their phone frustrated as their friends tell them they're not getting the mms? Otherwise, again, what is the point of Advanced Messaging?

We're in transition at the moment, between MMS and RCS. In transition periods (like when MMS was first introduced - and you couldn't send one to someone on a different carrier) you have to wait until the kinks are worked out.

Ok. First off, I can't help but pick up a bit of a condescending tone here, which is neither warranted nor appreciated. Not all of us have almost a half-century's worth of experience in tech development like you do.

It's not condescension, it's "this is what's happening - if you don't understand why, that's fine, but don't expect me to give you 3 weeks of an engineering degree in a post.

Secondly, while I appreciate the history lesson, it doesn't answer my question. I'm a bartender. I see people send MMS all the time, and they talk to each other about their phones all the time. They never have the issue where two parts of one message are sent 4 hours apart. More specifically to me, people send me MMS all the time, and I never receive them 4 hours apart. Yes, when large text messages get split up by the carrier, they sometimes are received out of order. It's happened to everyone. But people (including people as old as you) send gifs and pictures to each other all the time, and successfully, to the point where I'm trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong or what I can do to solve this issue, which I think is reasonable 57 years after Ike left office, so while I appreciate your response, I don't appreciate being told to sit under my desk and just wait...

What you can do is wait until the engineers who are working on it figure it out (sometimes the tiniest little problem takes 6 months just to figure out how to cause it - you don't think AT&T engineers have sent pictures and gotten them chopped up?) but until then all you can do is ... wait under your desk over your desk, not near your desk, but unless you have the engineering expertise to help, all you can do is come to a site like this and add your complaint to the thousands ll the carriers already know about - and haven't figured out an answer to yet. (And probably won't, because they're working on getting RCS working, which will initially come with its own problems.

Besides, if "you get what you get and you don't get upset," is the response to these issues, why are there even any 3rd party apps for messaging

Read app "developer" board. A common question is "how can I make an app and earn money?" That's why. Initially it was because the carrier-supplied apps didn't offer everything. But these days? Everyone wants to be an "app maker", as if apps are just something you turn a handle on some machine and get out the other end.

or for that matter the emergence of RCS style apps?

The reason for RCS is Apple. We could all be using iMessage - but Apple owns the protocol and won't let anyone else use it. So Android (and others) is coming up with the next generation protocol - text, pictures, no cellphone account needed (it will eventually work over Wifi).

Hell, why don't we all use rotary phones the way God intended!

What was that about condescension?

If someone your age comes on here and tries to ask for help, do you treat them like this?

Would you rather "It's too technical for you to understand, so just wait a few years until the people who know how to do it fix it"? It is, but I never say that. I try to explain it in simple terms. I guess you don't like that either.

No, I'm complaining about a terrible stock messaging app that doesn't fully explain how the Advanced Messaging feature works

Which is Android Central's fault? AT&T explains it - they just don't add on "some time in the future, most of this hasn't been worked out yet". No business does.

From AT&T's site about Advanced Messaging:

Advanced Messaging offers the following:

• Up to 10MB file transfer: Send high-quality pictures and longer videos.
• Delivery & read receipt: See when your messages have been delivered and read.
• Typing notification: Know when the person you're messaging with is typing a response.
• Chatbots: Interact directly with your favorite brands through the use of intelligent software-driven robots that communicate with you.
• Digital content: Enhance your messages with stickers, GIFs or animated pictures and emojis, and more through digital content providers and stores.

And it will work - when it works. Software isn't like making sausages - if you crank the handle at this speed you'll get so much product a day. It's "Oh, this isn't right, let's see why." "Hmm, that's funny, it seems to be working now." A few hours later, "Oops, there's that bug again. Okay, team, let's stop and try to duplicate this bug." And it can be 6 months before someone can finally say, "do X, Y and Z, in that order, and the bug occurs". (And you can't fix software until you can do that - duplicate a bug on demand.) Or maybe no one does, and they go back to square one and attack doing "that" some other way. That's why there are software bugs - because a lot of companies allow Marketing to announce a release date a few months before the product is ready to ship ... and someone finds a bug. Well, nothing they can do about that, tomorrow's shipping day. Companies that allow Development to announce release dates release working products. (And there are very few of those.) A few years ago, TMobile announced the release of a new Android version. I have no idea what the bug was, but they found some bug the evening before release that caused them to stop the release. It must have been something like "the phone gets welded to your ear" or something almost that serious.

AT&T is basically announcing RCS, but calling it Advanced Messaging. But there's no file transfer in RCS yet - it still drops to MMS for file transfer (which is still limited to 1MB by AT&T). No read receipts yet (that I'm aware of). No typing notification (unless, maybe, you're texting someone else on AT&T). Chatbots? That's not even in the spec yet, let alone in code.

And the only carrier that claims to support RCS is TMobile. They don't, not fully. And not inter-carrier.

It's 2004 all over again, just a different protocol, larger file sizes - but the same "we promise this - but we have no idea when, or how to implement some of it". Not even Google has developed all the code yet - or even outlines a lot of it.

If the farmer promised to tie his bulls to stakes, but hasn't yet, you can run across the field if you want - but don't complain about being gored. He's going to, he hasn't yet. (I probably lost about 1,000 customers to Verizon when they came out with MMS [lucky for me, I made my money with Nextel], because if your friend was on Verizon and you wanted to send pictures to him, you had to be on Verizon too. TMobile may have RCS and if you want all the benefits, you'll have to change carriers. I try not to predict the future.)