Slashdot Mirror
Android Messages Will Now Let You Send Texts From Your Computer (www.blog.google)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Google is beginning to roll out desktop browser support for Android Messages, allowing people to use their PC for sending messages and viewing those that have been received on their Android smartphone. Google says the feature is starting to go out to users today and continuing for the rest of the week. Text, images, and stickers are all supported on the web version.
To get started, the Android Messages website has you scan a QR code using the Android Messages mobile app, which creates a link between the two. In today's blog post, Google also goes over numerous other recent improvements to Android Messenger including built-in GIF search, support for smart replies on more carriers, inline link previews, and easy copy/paste for two-factor authentication messages.
To get started, the Android Messages website has you scan a QR code using the Android Messages mobile app, which creates a link between the two. In today's blog post, Google also goes over numerous other recent improvements to Android Messenger including built-in GIF search, support for smart replies on more carriers, inline link previews, and easy copy/paste for two-factor authentication messages.
Although I seem to recall I could send messages in the early days of the Internet. ICQ, Zephyr, Jabber, OSCAR, YMSG, ...
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Anyone want to take bets on how long it takes for the security flaw to show its ugly head that will allow anyone to read your SMS messages?
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
Why not just use email?
With google voice hooked up to a phone number, you can make and receive calls, as well as sms directly from google hangouts on any compatible computer system.
There has always been an issue with MMS, but from reading the summary, this looks like an announcement of capabilities that have existed for years already.
Am I missing something?
You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.
Because googlie does what googlie does in the TrumpVerse and it all seems normal.
A feature available on a Mac for years!
Thanks Google!
Sssssh! you'll upset the linux fanbots
Google wouldn't use this to scan all your texts with non-consenting people........... would they?
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
When we could send messages cross platform BY DEFAULT, and no one considered this a "feature".
For SMS ("texts"), this has worked for a long time. Seems this "great new thing" is a bit behind the times...
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
And anyone else who has an iPhone.
What would be nice though is if I could send SMS msgs from my Mac to my children's Android phones.
Sending and receiving SMS messages from the Mac to Android phones works. You need to have your phone number associated with your iMessage/iCloud/Apple ID/whatever. Setup seems kind of non-intuitive, but once it works, you have a log of all your SMS/MMS conversations on the computer.
--
"I have also mastered pomposity, even if I do say so myself." -Kryten
>"Been doing this for 10 years with my Mac+iPhone"
And could do this for 6+ years with any browser on any platform + Android through Airdroid. Not quite exactly the same, but it certainly works.
https://www.airdroid.com/
NOT. I had a palm pilot that could do this over a decade ago.
It's easy to send a text from a desktop PC, using any email client.Simply look up the SMS gateway email address, readily available online if you know the recipient's carrier, or you can use their phone# to find their carrier. Every carrier has an SMS/email gateway, and the specific phone number is itself the address. This is all easily found using any search engine. Et voila! Once again, some highly touted "app" simply provides a slick interface to something that was already dirt simple, and thereby collects even more of your personal info, while trying to strengthen your ties to their particular ecosystem.
What would be nice though is if I could send SMS msgs from my Mac to my children's Android phones.
You can.
I guess Pulse SMS proved there was a market for mobile-desktop SMS linkage by Android-Windows users. I've been using that app for several months because it could text from my computer AND sync between the two. Essentially this also acts as an infinite archive of all my text communications as well. (Assuming a diligently backed up system of the records created.) It's nice to be able to 10-finger type SMS from a keyboard and retain text threads across multiple platforms
There is no need to use a SlashDot sig for SEO...
And anyone else who has an iPhone.
What would be nice though is if I could send SMS msgs from my Mac to my children's Android phones.
Sending and receiving SMS messages from the Mac to Android phones works. You need to have your phone number associated with your iMessage/iCloud/Apple ID/whatever.
Of course I have my phone number associated with my AppleID you dipshit. That's how I am able to send SMS texts from my Mac to other iPhone owners.
And I could send texts to one of my children when he had an iPhone. Then he switched to an Android phone – same number – and sending SMS texts to him no longer works.
Maybe you meant that he needs to associate his number with his AppleID? He must have an AppleID, he once had a Mac, but not any more. He probably never registered that number with his AppleID.
All of you here in this thread who just blithely wave your hands and say "oh yeah, it works––" Maybe you could point to something somewhere that tell how? Because thus far I haven't found it.
Setup seems kind of non-intuitive, but once it works, you have a log of all your SMS/MMS conversations on the computer.
No shit, Sherlock. Yeah, thanks, I already know about that. I have that – have had it for years – for my friends who have iPhones.
Do I sound pissy? You bet.
Gee Google, thanks for adding some of the features that the hangouts app on Chrome had. Can I finally send and receive calls, texts and images through my desktop easily again?
Apple Messages lets you send text to anything that can at least send/receive SMS. If it sees an Apple device on the other end, it messages through the Internet with rich protocols permitted (unlimited message length, high-res images, etc.). If it sees an infidel device on the other end, it falls back to SMS. And there is a differential message background color to let you know when that happens.
I use google voice as my primary phone number. That is also where I do all of my text messaging. You can log into google voice for all kinds of things off a PC browser other than settings. I text from it all the time because it is easier not to fat finger messages, also can pull up articles for cut and paste. Hell, I tell all women I know to use google voice. You can use a phone number with a different area code. Unlimited blocking. You can mark a phone number as spam, and guess what. They get a message that this number is no longer in service. I don't worry about giving my google voice number out. You piss me off, you are marked as spam. That, you can't track me by my area code. And no, this does NOT include police/911. Thankfully I found this out when they were trying to find me during a last heart attack when I was riding a bike. No matter how often you change phones, or phone numbers. You can always have google voice forward to it.
Anonymous comments are as pathetic as the anonymous "sources" that contaminate gutless journalism from the New York Time
Can't believe this is so little known.
Mostly random stuff.
It's broken for you and your son, and fuck knows why, but it generally works fine to send texts to Android phones. Instead of pissing and moaning about it, make an appointment for support with Apple. I'll bet it's a fixable issue
There was one problem with ICQ, Zephyr, Jabber, OSCAR, YMSG, etc from the perspective of the telcos. They listen on a TCP/IP connection to achieve the instantaneous delivery. When deploying to national scale its too much, especially in earlier days when gear on poles was weaker. Because SMS is stateless, notification of a message can be a single bit on the pole. The bit becomes the notification a SMS message is available for delivery.
https://support.google.com/voice/answer/115116
I'm glad to see Google 2018 has finally caught up with Google 2009. I resented the fact that once I switched to Project Fi, I could no longer send text messages through my computer since Fi does not allow Google Voice to work with it. It would be simpler if Google just abandoned most other of its multitude of messaging services and put everything on Google Voice.
If they would allow for API integration with MMS support. For reading and sending SMS, that would be a BIG hit for us.
Whatsapp web is desktop browser support for Whatsapp. I don't see any more need for desktop message support.
This is a genuine question here, but who actually widely uses SMS? The last few countries I've lived in, (and current country as well) have almost practically standardised on some form of 3rd party messaging systems. WeChat, WhatsApp, hell I used to send more Facebook Messages than I did text messages.
In my current country complete strangers will WhatsApp you in a reply to online adverts for example. It is just a given that no one uses SMS, and when I check my message history for SMS I see 4 senders:
- Vodaphone telling me I either crossed a national border or have an unheard voicemail.
- My bank sending me a confirmation notice that money has moved.
- The government sending me a 2FA token
- An airline sending me a link to the bording pass.
Okay I lied it's actually 7 senders, there's 4 airlines in the list.
Is SMS still a thing in the USA? I thought it costs money to send SMS over there. Here it's free and people still don't use it.
Jolla/Sailfish OS user here. I can SSH into my phone from the PC and send an SMS, for bonus nerd points: https://together.jolla.com/que...
My first program:
Hell Segmentation fault
I have been using Push Bullet for at least a year. Why can't these companies with endless budgets come up with something new vs stealing other folks ideas?
SMS testing from your browser isn't going to bolster web-apps, google likely are trying this so it's easier to 'scan' your texts for whatever informatics they can get from it (not just your texts, but what OS, browser, times you're likely to not be holding/using your phone, etc ,etc)
Just use Telegram or a decent desktop jabber/xmpp/etc/etc client which you have more control over
(and who uses SMS texting nowdays?)
Now that malware can just by infecting someone's computer send SMS text messages using someone's phone......
An alternative for Linux users is KDEConnect (may work on Mac/Windows with some effort, but not supported). Not quite the same and requires an application installed on the desktop computer rather than working over the web, but offers more functionality and definitely more privacy.
A short features list from the github (https://github.com/KDE/kdeconnect-kde) page:
- Shared clipboard: copy and paste between your phone and your computer (or any other device).
- Notification sync: Read and reply to your Android notifications from the desktop.
- Share files and URLs instantly from one device to another.
- Multimedia remote control: Use your phone as a remote for Linux media players.
- Virtual touchpad: Use your phone screen as your computer's touchpad and keyboard.
This operates over your existing WiFi network using TLS encryption.
The SMS support is still a work in progress, but currently you can receive notifications on your desktop of incoming text messages and reply to them. Can't initiate yet, but that's coming.
https://community.kde.org/KDEC...
You can do that with windows 10 and Cortana on Android and have been for quite awhile, nothing to see hear move along.
And to all the windows 10 mobile haters, you could do that 2 years ago with windows 10 and Windows 10 mobile.
Windows 10 Mobile was Soooooo.... much better that Android, I hope every day for a MS refresh of the platform or a Surface Phone or what ever, so I can have that great platform back.
I'd love a way to actually send texts from my computer rather than a way to tell my phone to originate a text message. I spend most of my workday in a lab with internet access, but no signal to my phone. If that's what google is doing, good for them! I'd sign up, even if they charged a fee similar to the service I use now.
But I suspect google hasn't come up with anything new here. Why do I need to scan a QR with my phone? Why is my phone even involved? Because I'm not sending texts from my computer; I'm sending them from my phone.
And for the pedantic twit who insists that "you typed it into your computer, thus you sent a text from there". Nope. What left my computer was neither a text message nor an sms. It was just a command for the phone to originate such a message.
This would hardly be google "innovating"; only using the old MS "embrace/extend/extinguish" practice.
Google gives it away for "free", but of course they're capturing and selling your attention, so it's not really "free".
Anyhow, please somebody explain how I am mistaken here and I can really send sms and text from my computer (rather than from my smart phone, which is powered off in my glove box), and I'll reply with an apology and thanks for enlightening me!
I'd love to be wrong here, but not holding my breath.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
KDE connect lets me do this.
Cheap storage VM.
Provider Email-to-SMS Address Format
AllTel number@text.wireless.alltel.com
AT&T number@txt.att.net
Boost Mobile number@myboostmobile.com
Cricket number@sms.mycricket.com
Sprint number@messaging.sprintpcs.com
T-Mobile number@tmomail.net
US Cellular number@email.uscc.net
Verizon number@vtext.com
Virgin Mobile number@vmobl.com
Send texts from anything that can send email.
... or Pushbullet
And I could send texts to one of my children when he had an iPhone. Then he switched to an Android phone – same number – and sending SMS texts to him no longer works.
And did he de-register the phone number number from iMessage? If not, Apple is trying to route the text to a device that's not picking up the message. A severe lacking on Apple's part, but extremely fixable.
WhatsApp Web is great, and WA is so much better than SMS. You can send much larger messages, and it handles large attachments. I sent a friend a 30MB PDF via WA, and I get photos/videos daily from various friends across the country in a big group chat. The only downside of WA is that Facebook bought them, and up to that point FB didn't have any of my info.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
last thing we need is more SPAM
This apparently doesn't happen anymore.
I just moved the SIM card from an iphone to an android phone and sent texts to the number from another iphone. The phone with the SIM always got the texts and the color of the message bubble accurately reflected the method of delivery (blue: imessage, green: SMS).
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.