100% this. I found it very disappointing that in order to achieve their arbitrary security policy that they sacrificed SMS fallback
I have no idea why it wasn't just an option on setup or a configuration setting so that it defaults to encrypted messaging by default and then falls back to SMS for numbers that don't support it (if enabled)
From their statement back in the days it always felt like they could have found a way to make this work but simply didn't want to
Yeah, me too. I had started making headway on getting my extended circle trying it, then they did that and killed any chance of it gardening happening.
I believe that as painful as this decision was for the user, it was the right one. Supporting such a poorly documented, glitchy protocol makes further development very difficult. And users demand new features and bug fixes yesterday. Besides, I think that SMS will soon retire, and it will be replaced by the "new" RCS standard, which is much more stable and documented. Painful, but necessary to compete for the title of good messenger!
SMS is not going anywhere on a global scale and removing SMS meant everyone I had convinced to install signal because it was a drop-in messaging replacement for SMS has immediately stopped using signal. It's now completely DOA for anyone that isn't a tech privacy evangelist.
But they didn't implement rcs, which isn't even new, android messaging has supported rcs for four years. Rcs as a whole is 15 years old.
If the plan was to implement rcs, they could have done that during the phase out of sms. But just removing one of the key features that helped people adopt signal (a feature which no other real messaging app did since the dissolution of Google hangouts), with no plan or consumer messaging about a replacement, and basically no real reasoning communicated to the end user is a pretty bad decision regardless of a 'we know best' mentality.
SMS via 3rd party apps has and always will be buggy in some way, shape, or form, at least on Android. No clue why. Since the dawn of Android phones and after some 25-30 Android-specific phones owned in my life, I've yet to use a non stock SMS app that worked flawlessly all the time. Closest I've come, unfortunately, is Google Messages, and even that isn't perfect.
My parents use Signal and are the most tech averse people I know, so it isn't that hard. I converted all my friends to Signal. Switched wife to Signal.
SMS is maybe 3% of my usage these days and about 2% of that is just restaurant reservations or spam. There are two people I message via SMS like once a quarter and that's it.
I already moved on to SimpleX. Now that signal is just another internet only messaging app why shouldn't I switch to a service that has entirely eliminated the prerequisite of a phone or account number.
SimpleX is very good as of now. Hope development direction will be same in the future! There is one inconvenience, finding new people to write. Definetly weird part of experience for non-techy users.
Yeah, all necessary features are implemented now the UI just has to get a little bit more organised and the sharing process simplified. Actually I really like the QR-code approach. It's straightforward and gives you full anonmity. Perfect for talking to strangers.
Its very rare for me to find a bug on Signal. The app has been really stable over the past few years. In the rare occasions when I did come across one in the past, I reported them in the support forum.
I just want to be able to regulate the vibration intensity or pattern. Signal vs. Snapchat for instance. Quiet ish vibes vs. an earthquake. I think they had that feature a long time ago in android 7 or something like that.