Having to open one app is in general better than opening two. One of my favorite use of whatsapp is as a Notes App. I have just created a group with only me as member and dump all my notes / to-do in there. Delete when no longer required. No need to have another app for another purpose. It serves well.

What's wrong with the actual Notes app on your phone which can probably do checklists, bullet points, etc?

When I used Android I don't think I found a notes app as easily accessible compared the iPhone. Maybe that's why?

Google Keep?

Ah yes, another Google product that will, most likely, get shutdown when Google gets bored. I fully expect Google Keep to go the way of Google Notebook [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Notebook

Yeah, that's what I have been using, but there's no obvious native choice.

Eh. Bloat is a real consideration especially for apps that I already have to give permission to run in the background (such as messaging apps).

Doing the same with Telegram. And slack for teammate related notes.

Google has lately stressed the importance of communication apps doing only one single thing (Allo, Duo, and Messenger for SMS).

But Google's competitors seem to be going in the opposite direction. Facebook messenger does SMS as well since a while back.

All I need in my life is Gmail and GTalk.

Unfortunately, Google for some insane reason killed GTalk. Chat right there in my Gmail.

So convenient. So elegant. So useful.

Killed. For No Good Reason.

GTalk didn't surreptitiously invade your privacy well enough.

None of Google or Facebook's products are truly "free".

What is the chat that shows up in my Gmail, is that a different service?

that is google hangouts. seems like the same app, but its different.

And that's why Allo is failing. I don't want to think about how I'm chatting with someone. If Google can upgrade that to a better experience than SMS with their Allo special sauce, great. But having three or more inboxes for the same types of conversations (Allo, Hangouts, iMessage, etc.) is just dumb.

> I don't want to think about how I'm chatting with someone.

I do - since I know that not 100% of my contacts use exactly 1 messenger app. I also favour diversity instead of single platform lock-in.

I feel like Google doesn't know what to do when it comes to communication apps. It was so close to perfecting hangouts. SMS, google voice, merged threads. All it needed was something similar to iMessage to crush all but then they started taking out features and then come out with Allo, Duo, etc.

You might not want to look at the party that keeps producing flops if you want to see what to do.

Snapchat only has what 100million active users and its use is anecdotally dropping because of instagram stories. Now this feature was just rolled out to a possible 1.2billion users (lots still not on speedy network smartphones but will be). Kind of a throat slash at snapchat and their future growth.

I am down for the bloat myself, one thing well is whatever when you look at the wechat world.

It's probably business 101 for Facebook to prevent people from using other competing platforms while their users get showered with features, but am I the only one who doesn't find Facebook a particularly creative company? They seem to be copying everything Snapchat does across all their apps.

I perhaps am wrong to focus on the creative aspect of things when they're doing great on so many other metrics. Still, for some reason Facebook seems like the new Microsift; and we all know who started the smartphone revolution.

Disclaimer: I rarely uses Facebook, but I use Instagram every other day or so.

Will be very interesting if they pair this feature with end-to-end encryption!

I think this continues to be a Zuckerburg f*ck you ever since Snapchat said no to his offer.

uh-oh. Bloat alert.

totally trust zuck with secrets. /s

Goodbye Snapchat IPO