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Kellen

It’s not often that you get to merge personal passions into a professional life, but that’s what Kellen did when he launched Droid Life in 2009. After working years of unsatisfying jobs in the medical and property management fields, he took a risk to try and create an online community while playing with the coolest gadgets on the planet each day, a risk that has turned out to be incredibly rewarding. Outside of Droid Life, Kellen is your typical Portlander who drinks way too much good beer, complains often about the Trail Blazers, and can be found out on the streets for a run, rain or shine.

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45 Comments

  • I’m still waiting for an Android Wear app and Google Assistant integration but whatever

  • As long as it’s tied to a single device, it’s absolutely worthless to me

  • It’s a shame so many people (comparatively many, that is) are interested in a crappy messenger like Allo that doesn’t protect users’ privacy when there are secure alternatives like Threema around. Heck, you’d even be better off using Signal, which is also free.

  • Laughing at the people saying they want iMessage and FaceTime on Android. We already have Duo and Allow and without being netnerdsheep, you can realize to that they are both awesome apps.

    • I don’t think you understand why people want imessage and FaceTime on android. Imessage is the end all by all one stop shop for iOS messages its integrated tightly into the os you can’t say the same for allo and duo which by the way should be one app. Google has a mess of half baked messengin apps, good luck getting all your family and friends to download yet another messaging app when imessage and FaceTime are seamless and just work nothing else needed

  • I don’t think I will make the switch until it simply becomes Hangouts (ie the default messenger in Gmail). I am not going to ask people to switch the service they use just to communicate with me, when a perfectly sufficient one exists. And yeah, not gonna use it on mobile until it does SMS, for the same reason.

  • Oh great another plugin that will eat resources and I’ll never use! I do hope the carriers at least start RCS messaging soon.

  • I’d prefer it live outside of a tab like the extension or desktop client for hangouts currently…

  • I will use it once I can communicate with people who DON’T use it- what I am using should be transparent to whoever is on the other end of my message, period. Today I can use Google “Messages” and no matter what the other person or group/combination thereof is using- iMessage/Hangouts/Samsung messaging….it doesn’t matter and shouldn’t matter- period. They see my message and can respond- simple as that. They don’t have to (and shouldn’t!) download anything extra…

    • How do you Android Messages to Hangouts? Hangouts killed it’s SMS a while back. iMessage / Samsung / Android Messages are all just SMS clients so technically they’re already using the same platform.

      -Honest question I’m not trying to be a dick here.

      • By asking your question. you are sort of making my point- and I am not being a dick here, either. I send them a message (to their phone #) via Messages. How they read/respond is not of my concern. Are they using iMessage, Hangouts, Samsung, other? I don’t know and don’t care. I send, they respond- that is all I want to happen and it does. If they CAN’T respond with Hangouts, that is their problem, not mine. Just like I won’t ask anyone to use Allo, I won’t start using Hangouts for just one/a few people.

        • I think we’re very much on the same page then.

          I was talking to one friend on Hangouts about this. It seems like a simple decision tree once a person has signed up. We will use hangouts as example.

          Person A Android User, Person B, Apple User, person C, Android User.

          Person A sends a hangout to Person C. Person C doesn’t have Hangouts so it goes to SMS.

          Person A sends Hangouts to Person C after they have opted into Hangouts , it goes Hangouts.

          Person A sends Person B a hangout. it does the same thing. depending on if B has authorized a hangout as default or not.

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    • You still using sms? Omfg, where I live everyone uses WhatsApp period. I don’t see where Google is trying to go with all these silly messaging apps that nobody is ever going to use, nobody uses sms, and all other messaging services are closed within themselves, and in the Western world WhatsApp is the one people use. Google should just stop trying unless they come up with some miraculous one-for-all instant messaging service that would Unite them all, until.then this is all.silly.

      • Congrats on missing the point, genius. What “we” want is a single messaging solution. We don’t care if it goes SMS, MMS, ABC, or XYZ. We want to effortlessly send and receive messages, period. How it’s sent, received, or is technically moved between devices/platforms/apps should be transparent to the user. The bottom line is that we don’t want to use certain apps for certain people- nor do we want to pimp out the apps we prefer on Google’s, Apple’s, or anyone else’s behalf. I don’t want anyone telling me what app to use, and vice versa.

        I have no idea how that is confusing to you…Where’s Kellen when I need him? Seems like he could write an essay explaining this….

      • You missed his point entirely. He’s talking about adding support for SMS for a 1 app solution, not making a strictly SMS app. I live in the Western world, and while I do know that a lot of people use WhatsApp globally (based on install #’s), I personally don’t know more than a handful of people that use it. Carriers still push SMS hard so a lot a people are slow to move away from it or simply don’t know there are alternatives. So Google is just being stubborn in adding it. They think they’re pushing the envelope with this app, but as it is, it’s just a piece of garbage because of the lack of SMS support. I’ve said it before, they just need to add SMS support to give more incentive for people to download it, then once people are using it, the messages will fall back on Google’s services instead of SMS. They’ll get what they want when they smarten up and give the people what they want.

        • That is quite surprising I must say, the reason the rest of the world uses WhatsApp it’s because you can chat, group chat, send voice notes, images, video, audio, gifs, call people, video call people, post stories, etc all in one app, fast and reliably and the service is tied to your phone number , its so ubiquitous that when you meet people you say ” hey gimme your WhatsApp”, so it’s incredibly surprising to me that you people.in the US still use sms, I know in China and stuff they use another service that does the same as WhatsApp and that’s understandable, and in other parts of the world they use telegram which is a WhatsApp clone that it’s supposed to be more secure , but everyone uses one ubiquitous one for all communication service, so how do you people send voice notes or gifs or video to one another if all you got is sms ?(all you got I meant in the way that it’s the only service you know everyone has)

          • I believe the reason that everyone else in the world uses WhatsApp is because their wireless carriers charge for texts, and in the US texts are unlimited for the majority of the carrier plans. We Had Hangouts that could do all the things that you list for WhatsApp, but Google in it’s infinite wisdom has stripped much of the functionality from Hangouts to push everyone to Allo and Duo.

      • “in the Western world WhatsApp is the one people use”

        What world cuz you’re not talking about Earth.

          • Soooo…. Canada? Mexico? Europe? South America? Let’s say for argument’s sake, everyone in the Western world used WhatsApp. How would they send or receive a message without a data connection (cell only)?

      • The problem I would have using WhatsApp over SMS (outside of no one I message using it) is that WhatsApp requires data, SMS does not. When I’m inside certain businesses, primarily grocery stores, I get a bar or 2 of cell signal but no data. SMS still goes through just fine but no data messengers do.

  • Web client would be nice, but until they integrate SMS (not the crappy SMS proxy system in place now) I still have no use for the app.

    • Same, it’s the Only thing I want from iOS. We’ve as Android enthusiasts having given Google year after year and fail after fail with messaging to get it right. At this point I’d actually pay to just have imessage/FaceTime on android.

      • I remember a year a year or so ago that rumor was floating heavy before WWDC. Which means Apple has it built already. But I think opening up IMessage like that would be to their detriment and they know it. #1 reason iPhone users won’t leave is IMessage.

        • True, and I also remember that rumor I think someone from Apple even sort of confirmed that had builds for Android but wouldn’t release them. I think that imessage on Android would hurt them a tiny bit but not so much to the point they’d lose sales. Look at Google sometimes their apps gets updated on Android first, having access to try Google apps from an iPhone didn’t seem to slow Android sales. I just wish Google would create something to rival imessage and FaceTime but that seems very unlikely for the foreseeable future.

    • I got an iPhone for Facetime ¯_(ツ)_/¯

      iMessage is alright, typing on an iPhone is just terrible though and ruins it.

        • I switched keyboards. I just came to the conclusion that I prefer typing on Android.

        • My wife did that, but hey iPhone always switches back to the stock keyboard. Tried every fix i could find online, but nothing works long term.

  • **** you, Allo.

    And Google. Just force us to all use the same messaging app, a la iMessage. Rule with a sort-of iron first.

    • At least make Allo a real app that we can use. They killed Hangouts (at least in terms of new features), but haven’t given most of us a reason to switch to Allo.

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