surely i can't be the only one who thinks this?
i thing my thoughts can be mostly summed up as it feels like their client is an afterthought, and they only focus on how amazingly secure the protocol is, when really the front facing user experience should just as big of a focus.
like having a good secure protocol is nice and all, but its expected. from an end user perspective the only thing i want is low downtime and that my messages actually get sent and received
meanwhile, theres so many minor AND major issues with the clients.
- there is a feature disparity between the mobile app and desktop client
- the desktop client can't set a chat background so it looks really bare
- the desktop client can't search installed sticker packs
android -- search bar to search by pack name AND search button in the lower left to search individual stickers by emoji name:
desktop -- nothing. you can click on them with your mouse:
- related but putting it under its own point: typing an emoji by itself pops up sticker suggestions on the app. this doesn't exist in the desktop app.
- embeds often fail to work or don't display rich images. proxies such as fxfuraffinity (doesn't even give an embed), tnktok (same), and fxtwitter (gives an embed of a TINY image, and doesn't display videos as videos) do not work properly like they do on discord and telegram. you have to leave the client to view linked images
- you cannot install signal on your tablet. i mean you can, you can install the android app on your android tablet, but it goes through the flow of adding a new phone, theres no flow for adding a new "not-a-phone" device. having your phone as a primary device and at the same other android or ios devices as secondary devices connected to your account is not something that's possible?? only the desktop client can be connected, but there's not a similar flow for mobile devices??
- this means that if i draw something on my tablet and want to share it with a friend over signal, i need to upload it somewhere else or message it to myself over discord, download it on my phone, and then send it from there
- ????????????
summarizing all these points, using it feels like stepping 20 years back into the past. it feels like a pure text chat, it feels like SMSing my friends. it doesn't feel "playful" or fun to chat. and most of all it feels like they aren't actually using their clients themselves.
i would love to switch away from telegram and its weird bullshit and start using signal but as it stands, its the least usable chat client out of any of them, which makes me really sad.