Microsoft Kills Windows 10's Messaging Everywhere Texts, To Bolster Skype (pcworld.com) 122
Reader tripleevenfall writes: The ability to respond to text messages received on your phone with the same app on your PC. It's a dream that's been a reality for Mac users since 2014, and Windows 10 Mobile users were supposed to get the feature, called Messaging Everywhere, with the Anniversary Update rolling out August 2.
But that's not happening anymore. Instead, Microsoft thinks it has a better idea: add Messaging Everywhere to an upcoming version of Skype for Windows 10 PCs.Microsoft commentator Brad Sams writes, "Skype barely works; let's add new features. Texting from your phone is cool, let's remove it. 0.0% people want this."
But that's not happening anymore. Instead, Microsoft thinks it has a better idea: add Messaging Everywhere to an upcoming version of Skype for Windows 10 PCs.Microsoft commentator Brad Sams writes, "Skype barely works; let's add new features. Texting from your phone is cool, let's remove it. 0.0% people want this."
Hooray (Score:5, Insightful)
More of the Skype mentality: Taking something that could be implemented simply and cleanly - and using it to drag you kicking and screaming into an larger application that you hate.
Forget that "0.0% of people want this", as TFA states. We know what you want. We will help you want it.
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When Skype was its own company; it was much more reliable. As to the interface; the one from ten years ago was much more functional. These days they want the application to look like your desktop computer is a giant phone screen taking over all the screen real estate to emphasize the lack of functionality. Windoes needs to consider putting the windows back in their OS.
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More of the iTunes mentality: Taking something that could be implemented simply and cleanly - and using it to drag you kicking and screaming into an larger application that you hate.
Forget that "0.0% of people want this", as TFA states. We know what you want. We will help you want it.
FTFY.
Years ago iTunes was a respectable music manager and player. Now it's a bloated mess of iGadget interfaces, iCloud updates, application storefront/maintenance, digital music store/downloader, digital movie store/downloader... I feel I missed 5-6 things.
Re:Hooray (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't remember a time when iTunes was ever a respectable music manager and player. I remember trying it in the early days, but soon went back to just using WinAmp and organized folders in Explorer to play and manage my music... Unfortunately now with iDevices, I'm forced to use the abomination that is iTunes...
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It was usable until semi-recently. Now it's just a mass of "buy this!" "cloud that!" mularkey
Winamp... (Score:4, Interesting)
I have a WinNT 4.0 box with Winamp that I use to play music on; it's not networked, runs almost no power, and has almost permanent uptime.
It's on an old Barton-core 2500MHz athlon that draws ~20 watts, IIRC.
It's tied into the house A/V system, and runs from the same remote.
I keep what works, while I look for something better. :)
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I can't really think of any situations since then when iTunes has looked like the better option; but there was that one.
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'Musicmatch Jukebox'
Holy moly! I was tricked into using that for a while. What an awful nightmare. I think it might have come with a Creative music player.
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I can imagine that the people who were tricked into installing Windows 10 and then used Messaging Everywhere are a bit sour about having that taken away from them.
Perhaps it is better to stay away from Windows 10 until the support time runs out. It sucks when a company tampers with software after you have installed it.
The "We didn't want to maintain that feature anymore" mentality some companies have can quickly turn a computer useless to you.
It sucks even more when it is hooked up to $100,000 worth of meas
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I can imagine that the people who were tricked into installing Windows 10 and then used Messaging Everywhere are a bit sour about having that taken away from them.
Anyone running Windows 10 ought to get comfortable with the idea of things being taken away on a whim, and free things suddenly having a fee attached. Microsoft seems to have bet the empire on it.
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With a new W10 laptop, I found that Minesweeper was now full-screen, and I was informed I could pay extra for an ad-free Minesweeper. Not even Minesweeper is safe.
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I can imagine that the people who fully understood what they were getting into by installing an insider (preview) build of Windows 10 and then used Messaging Everywhere understand that everything is subject to change before release.
FTFY
Besides, putting it in Skype means it could come to other platforms instead of being locked to Windows.
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Incidentally, Hangouts was integrated into Gmail on the browser in 2013. It's one of the nice spin-offs from their abortive Google+ attempt. The only catch is that Google lets the us
Useless Mac mention (Score:1)
I still receive texts from AIM friends that I can text reply to or reply from my PC. AOL has had this feature in instant messenger since pre-2006. How about do some research instead of trying to act like Apple invented everything.
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What's AIM got to do with smartphones? This isn't about AIM/ICQ/etc, this is about smartphone/computer messaging.
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What's AIM got to do with smartphones? This isn't about AIM/ICQ/etc, this is about smartphone/computer messaging.
Oh - from the posts I thought it was how iTunes was a piece of shit, and Apple sucks.
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Well yes that is true. But this is about smartphone/computer messaging.
And you'll have it on your superior Windows phones. Just have to follow Microsoft 's rules.
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No one said they invented it, but in terms of having it baked into an OS, rather than being a third-party feature (which, I'll add, oftentimes comes with weird issues such as the texts that originate in an IM client coming from unrecognized phone numbers), Mac is still the only one that does it. Windows was set to match, but now it's not.
Re: Useless Mac mention (Score:1)
If Microsoft baked Skype into Windows like Apple does with their messqging the shrieking would be unbearable.
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That's because OSX Messages is a simple, purposeful app that works as designed and Skype is a bloated mess...
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Developing an deploying features that nobody wants......
Having M$ disable this feature is like having an Apple iPhone without a standard headphone jack.
Apple's hardware decisions are not the same thing as MS removing useful OS features in order to force people to use an application they hate.
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Luckily, the number of people using Windows 10 mobile phones is rapidly approaching 0, so it's not like Microsoft is actually forcing anyone to do anything.
Re:M$ Becoming Like Google (Score:2)
Heh, and how many times did Google change how they do SMS in Android / ChromeOS ?
* SMS app
* Buys Grand Central and allows people to use Google Voice for SMS via web and app (I still use this today, mostly)
* Messages app
* Hey, maybe SMS integration in Google+ ? Oh, wait, no one really uses it.
* Hangouts app gets SMS integration on both web and app, and Google kinda starts deprecating all of the above.
* Hangouts app loses SMS integration, now you should use the Messenger app
* Oh, I guess people still use Goo
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Developing an deploying features that nobody wants......
Having M$ disable this feature is like having an Apple iPhone without a standard headphone jack.
Captain ridiculous coomparison called and said that comparison was insane.
" 0.0% people want this." (Score:4, Insightful)
It should read "from the 1.0% people using WIndows on Phones, 0.0% want this" is like: who freaking cares?
This is news about how to set the corpse's arms inside the coffin!
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It should read "from both people using WIndows on Phones, 0.0% want this"
FTFY
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It should read "from both people using WIndows on Phones, 0.0% want this"
FTFY
Although if they talk one into wanting it, the number will increase dramatically.
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LOL.. Read again... this feature lets you send/receive SMS on Windows 10 on your computer by linking with Cortana on your phone... works just fine with my Android phone. This has nothing to do with Windows 10 Mobile.
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I reread it multiple times.
From the image shown on the tweet (emphasis added):
So what this actually means I have no idea. I have zero interests in texting using any MSFT product, be it a WIndows Phone, Cortana, Messaging Eve
Re: " 0.0% people want this." (Score:1)
I have zero interest in texting with any product. I would prefer an untexting feature. So when the person in front of me at the green stoplight is still texting, the app on my phone would interrupt their texting.
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I have zero interest in texting with any product.
Well why didn't you say so earlier, and texting wouldn't even have been invented?
Dumpster Fire (Score:5, Insightful)
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But from a marketing point of view, it's the right thing to do! Now you only need to make it not suck. That can't be hard, right?
Signed,
Microsoft marketing department
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But from a marketing point of view, it's the right thing to do! Now you only need to make it not suck. That can't be hard, right?
Signed, Microsoft marketing department
It is just like a nationwide wireless network. How hard can it be to not put up wires?
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The sad thing is that Skype is lightyears beyond the steaming pile of crap that is Skype for Business (Formerly Lync).
Seriously, it's 2016 and Skype for Business can't deliver a message to more than one device? Between my work PC, my home PC that is running Skype for Business, and my phone that has Skype for Business installed, it will randomly pick one of those endpoints to send incoming messages to, and won't even alert the other endpoints that a message was received. Not to mention how many times it will
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Skype ("original", or "not for business" or whatever) is also going backwards in similiar ways, at least for us Linux folks. There has been no development on the Linux client for two years.
Even though "Microsoft Loves Linux" it doesn't seem to extend to their properties like Skype.
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Feature frozen, bug fixes take months for the most trivial things. I'm guessing their Skype for Linux team is one man, working part time.
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The sad thing is that Skype is lightyears beyond the steaming pile of crap that is Skype for Business (Formerly Lync).
That's exactly my point. They are just rebranding and bundling software under the Skype umbrella. They need a well thought out set of products.
Re:Dumpster Fire (Score:5, Funny)
Coming soon to a popup notification on your windows desktop:
"Do you not want to not install Skype to not take over all your conversations you don't not want to not receive?
Select Yes to install. Select Cancel to skip not installing. X to being install now."
Re:What's actually going on? (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.wired.com/2011/05/m... [wired.com]
You spend 8 1/2 BILLION dollars on something,That is why you have a hardon for Skype.
In simple terms, they want Skype to do things, they can then monetize. They are idiots, and users are starting to leave Skype for other apps, like Hangouts, Slack and Telegram because Skype sucks donkey balls.
The problem for Microsoft is, they think they can bully people into their way of doing things, when the reality is that there are more reasons now than ever to avoid using MS crap.
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It's not just about monetizing Skype. It's about promoting other products with exclusive features. Notice this new feature is Windows 10 only. Why? There's no technical reason it can't be done on Windows 7 or 8. They just want to give people another reason to move to 10.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Does Apple bring new features to OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, or to iPhone OS 3? Does Google bring new features to Android 1.x, or how about Chrome 2.0?
Because those are the same as expecting Windows 7, released in 2009, to get new features 7 years later.
Besides, this article is about bringing a Windows 10 exclusive feature to an app that is cross platform. I don't think that it's confirmed that this feature is cross platform but it's certainly more plausible now than before.
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Skype is not part of the OS. It's an application.
Re: What's actually going on? (Score:2)
Which was the point of my last paragraph.
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It's not the fault of the programmers. The programmers could do a radically better job, and I would even guess they'd prefer to.
You can't lay this blame at their feet. Look instead to the ones giving the marching orders: marketing and "business" people who believe that manipulating customers, vendor-lock-in, and closed protocols are the way to make money. And look even more to those customers who prove them correct.
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Why does Microsoft have such an obsessive hard-on for Skype?
I'm sure it has nothing at all [arstechnica.com] to do with Skype's longstanding status [theguardian.com] as the NSA's wet dream [eff.org] [pdf warning].
iMessage across devices is actually useful (Score:4, Insightful)
My wife has taken over the laptop, and she messages me a lot from the laptop. She'll be on some webpage and then send texts and things from a full keyboard.
If i have a phone, i have SMS. If I have a phone, i may or may not have Skype. If I actually had an MS Phone, this becomes a non-feature for me, and I'm pissed that MS decides to play these games.
Re: iMessage across devices is actually useful (Score:1)
It's Microsoft's fault that there is no iMessage client for Windows Phone?
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It's Microsoft's fault that there is no iMessage client for Windows Phone?
Probably. It's asshattery to not.
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No. It's Microsoft's part for saying they'd do something this useful (sigh, a different walled garden though) and instead dropping it for something nobody wants.
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Really, this is just MS being a day late and dollar short. Something they probably have a patent on the procedure for.
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My wife has taken over the laptop, and she messages me a lot from the laptop. She'll be on some webpage and then send texts and things from a full keyboard.
If i have a phone, i have SMS. If I have a phone, i may or may not have Skype. If I actually had an MS Phone, this becomes a non-feature for me, and I'm pissed that MS decides to play these games.
If I have a phone I most definitely don't have Skype installed on it; I found it impossible to turn Skype off on my phone. Even if I sign out from it, when a Skype message arrives somehow Skype on the phone turns itself on again. Very very annoying and the only way I found to fix it is to remove Skype from the phone completely.
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for me, this is iMessage to iMessage, SMS doesn't get involved in it.
Yes, you can also have Continuity send SMS to your desktop if they're close. But we don't do this, partly for this reason, partly because we get SMS messages more for notifications that we don't want to clutter up our laptop iMessage feed.
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My wife has taken over the laptop, and she messages me a lot from the laptop.
So MS dropping this is win win for you :D
It *IS* a better idea. (Score:2)
Is it better for the users? Who cares? May be some linux user would care, "one more opportunity to pile on and make fun of the misfortunes of poor people stuck with Microsoft". Other than that ...
Stuff I hate about Skype (Score:3)
I use Skype a lot but it can be very annoying sometimes
- Having an IM discussion that is replicated to my other Skype devices as unread messages. The annoyance is furthered by having all these unread messages show up as unread text messages on Windows mobile. This always causes me to panic for half a second when I see 40 unread text messages when I look at my phone.
- No easy way to mark unread messages as read in the desktop client. You have to click on the person's contact record and open the chat history... dumb!
- Browser integration. I disable this immediately. Why would you assume that I want to use Skype to call random numbers on a web page? Seriously... does anyone find this feature useful?
- kitchen-sink approach to software development... This is classic MS... create a huge monolithic app that does everything and nothing particularly well.
- No IM API for 3rd party chat client integration. TBF, no major chat client really allows this anymore (except FB I guess, but how long until that goes away too?)
- No cross compatibility between their Skype for Business (Lync) and Skype clients. If you are going to use the same product names, make them interoperable... it is too confusing otherwise...
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Pretty much the things I hated too.
On top of that, I was one of the bunch of people shafted since version 5.
Version 5 forced that video interface on everyone whether you used video-chat or not.
They got rid of the standard interface, you know, that one you see when a call ends, the typical window-controls style.
With this came inconsistent crashing if anything is even remotely active. (like, 40%+ CPU usage on average)
You can see Skype trying to draw to an uninitialized video control just a few seconds before
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- Browser integration. I disable this immediately. Why would you assume that I want to use Skype to call random numbers on a web page? Seriously... does anyone find this feature useful?
I do. I find it very useful. I find it useful on my phone and on my PC. ...
But then I do use my PC as my main desk phone at work due to recent changes in policy, so not really a common scenario.
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- No cross compatibility between their Skype for Business (Lync) and Skype clients. If you are going to use the same product names, make them interoperable... it is too confusing otherwise...
To be fair, it sounds like one of the main reasons for the existence of Skype for Business is that you don't have access to everybody on the "normal" Skype network.
Google Voice (Score:3, Insightful)
Google Voice anyone? Sending/receiving texts from every device since the beginning of time! Plus voice mailing and calling, too.
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The "dream" was available from Google first (Score:2)
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I haven't been able to use anything other that web hangouts with a windows phone -- and that with difficulty.
Hangouts? (Score:2)
Google Hangouts works on Android, IOS, Mac OS, Windows, Linux and whatever else you can run desktop Chrome on. The only odd man out is Windows Phone due to lack of cooperation from Microsoft.
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Why should Google waste their developer time on an adversarial prick of a company with less than 2%, and dive bombing mobile platform? Remember scroogled, fairsearch.org and the android tax? What would google benefit by bringing their apps to help out Win Mobile?
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Is that an error or a misprint? (Score:2)
Surely you mean that Microsoft is actually doing this to bolder Google Hangouts Video?
That is what I started using when Skype was acquired by Microsoft. Skype support on Linux was already 2nd rate. Hangouts has first class video call support on Linux, Android and other platforms I use.
MS only survives where it has a monopoly (Score:3)
They never had to deal with real competition and hence have no idea how to do it. So they keep buying stuff that works, weigh it down with useless crap and wonder why it sinks.
Another company that only survives 'cause of its monopoly position. In a real economy they'd die off so fast...
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In the real economy they survive just fine. It's only in the fantasies of economists where they won't.
Is Skype still a thing? (Score:3)
I thought Skype died about the same time as Google+
There is some high level idiot exec at Microsoft (Score:3, Insightful)
Running around with his fingers in his ears, going "LA LA LA LA LA I CANT HEAR YOU" when people say to him "you are making stupid decisions, alienating your user base and generally fucking about in a bad way'
Its like.. they forgot their core business, and now all they care about is shitty little apps making money.
They cant even get the app store in windows 10 working properly and it breaks at every opportunity that requires a windows re-installation all because they don't even bother testing their patches. Skype barely works, they still haven't fixed its terrible user interface and the difference between close, exit and quit. Office 2016 still uses the office 2007 control panel interface with its broken font scaling.
Microsoft has utterly lost its shit. All they care about is the next micro feature in windows, while completely forgetting their entire microcosm is on the brink of falling to pieces.
So their solution is to ignore what people are saying.
In other news... (Score:1)
Linked-In announced that it is shutting down in 2018.
Meanwhile (Score:2)
Meanwhile the rest of us just continue using Viber and get on with our lives.
NEWS FLASH (Score:1)
Skype is for kids. And not the smart kids either. The kids that think "Facebook is the internet" and the CD-ROM drive tray is a cupholder.
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and the CD-ROM drive tray is a cupholder.
What is this "CD-ROM" you're talking about, some new streaming protocol?
Dear Microsoft, fix embedded Skype! (Score:2)
I bought a phone in 2010 specifically to use Skype Mobile. The client stopped working not long after you shrubs got your sticky mitts on it. FIX IT, ASSHOLES!
thief (Score:1)
Who is this Microsoft you are talking about?
Is that the guy who stole money from me the last 4 times I bought a laptop? That guy said he would give me my money back but never did. I even got it in writing, but he said "sue me"... and I couldn't be bothered.
Yeah... I remember now. I hate that guy. He's very old and tired. Wish he would just die already.