
Ex-Googlers Launch MightyText, An iMessage For Android Users - itsmikemags
http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/19/ex-googlers-launch-mightytext-an-imessage-for-android-users/
======
pilif
Tangentially related: I find it really ironic how the IM landscape has changed
over the decades.

At first we had proprietary protocols like ICQ, AIM and MSN. Then we got
clients that reverse-engineered the protocols and supported logging onto
multiple networks, which was nice, but the cat-and-mouse game between IM
vendors and the people reverse-engineering the protocol was annoying for all
parts (i.e clients stopping to work and wasted effort on the IM vendor side).

In all this mess, Jabber was born, trying to standardize IM with the XMPP
protocol and the Jabber implementation.

It never flied.

And now we are at a point where all these additional IM services pop up.
Ironically, all of them are using XMPP under the hood but all of them go great
lengths in adding crypto to make absolutely sure that they are not
interoperable.

This is one of the rare cases where a standard was created which everybody is
actually following, but which didn't create any kind of interoperability
between clients.

It pains me endlessly that I must know whether I can contact person X via
iMessage or WhatsApp or now this. And this time it's not even about reverse-
engineering protocols. It's just about checking whether your client is a
"legitimate" one. There's no technical reason besides actually removing checks
and making server names configurable why WhatsApp couldn't talk with iMessage
or why GTalk can't talk with WhatsApp and so on.

~~~
runn1ng
Jabber and GTalk are completely interoperable, though.

~~~
ge0rg
Except that user name quirks are required to login to gtalk with an xmpp
client :(

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moe
MightyText is a "SMS remote control" for your Android phone. It gives you a
browser-interface from which you can send/receive SMS.

It's critical to realize that you are interacting with the MightyText webapp
over the internet, it runs on _their_ servers. When your phone receives a SMS
it will upload it to _their_ servers so it shows up in the web-interface.

When you write a SMS in their web-interface then your phone will later pick it
up (by polling _their_ servers) and send it out via your phone's GSM.

Notice something?

Right, _all_ your SMS conversations now run through their servers. Also, if
their servers get compromised then the new owner will gain significant control
over your phone; at the least they will be able to send SMS in your name. This
is a disaster waiting to happen.

If you're looking for a better implementation of this concept (convenient web-
interface to send/receive SMS) then look for "EasySMS" in the android market.

EasySMS runs a webserver directly on your phone, which you connect to with
your browser. It's your own local MightyText. No middleman involved, no need
to upload all your SMS to remote servers, no need to give a third party
remote-control over your phone.

~~~
spindritf
> Right, all your SMS conversations now run through their servers.

I may misunderstand but all of your text conversations are _available_ through
their servers while they still _go_ through your phone. You can still just
directly send a text from your phone, right?

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moe
Yes, that's right.

My point was that you're then sharing all your conversations with their
servers. That's imho a bad trade-off when you can just run the web-interface
directly on your phone.

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xpose2000
People seem confused as to what this is. MightyText lets you text from your
computer as if you are texting from your phone.

I've been using this for around 2 months now. It is VERY buggy. Sometimes
you'll experience delays in receiving and sometimes you don't even know if
your text was sent out. You have to kind of get used to its 'quirks'.

Having said that, it has gotten a lot better and I expect it to continue.
Anyone who texts a lot during the day should love setting up MightyText.

~~~
paulgb
I tried it and agree it's very buggy. If they can't get rid of the obvious
bugs, how am I supposed to trust that my data is not exposed by much more
subtle ones? I've un-registered and deleted my data.

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dpn
How'd you delete your data?

I'm trying to remove my account too..

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paulgb
I revoked address book access, deleted the conversations individually (I
couldn't find a feature to delete them all), revoked access from Google
Accounts, and removed the app from my phone.

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mtgx
Why can't Google centralize its messaging apps already, including adding SMS
into it? Sure, the carriers might not like it, but get with the program
Google.

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eigenvector
I don't see how it is different from DeskSMS. This is not like iMessage at
all, it just syncs your SMS messages to your computer. It doesn't actually
enable your computer to send or receive SMS messages. So if I am roaming or
have my phone turned off, I don't get messages.

~~~
timdouche
looks pretty close to DeskSMS. they seem similar.

the problem with the "phone off" thing is -- then you don't get texts to your
# at all.

I hope carriers will work with MightyText to do direct integration.

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hobbified
I've been using MightyText in beta for months. It doesn't resemble iMessage in
any way, and it's not supposed to. I have no idea where the headline came
from. It's not an IM service. It is, simply, an app for sending and receiving
text messages _through your phone_ from a PC. So if you're at a computer and
you receive a text, or you want to text someone, instead of taking your phone
out of your pocket and using the little screen and the little keyboard, you do
it right on the computer. Simple, useful, end of story.

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yock
Okay, I'm still confused. Is it "iMessage for Androud users" in that it
automatically recognizes other MightyText users and sends those messages over
the data connection? That point isn't especially clear.

Also, why is there so much emphasis on browser sync? Is the browser install a
dependency? Does this work if, say, my browser is closed or my PC is shut
down? I would assume that it does, but with the browser sync instructions so
heavily emphasized in the install instructions, I'm not sure.

~~~
hobbified
It's not "iMessage for Android users" in any way. The headline is nonsense. If
your browser is closed or your PC is shut down, MightyText does nothing for
you. The browser interface _is_ the interface.

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bmelton
I'm curious how this is significantly different from say, Google Voice's SMS
implementation; Aside from the obvious "making and receiving" calls
functionality, it looks just like Google Voice to me, which I use exclusively
for its ability to send text messages without having to resort to using my
phone.

Edit: Nevermind, after installing and playing with it, it even consumes my
native SMS messages. A nice touch for sure.

~~~
timdouche
yes the difference is that it integrates directly with your android phone #
and sms.

been using it for a few weeks, really like it.

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jc4p
For others like me that skimmed the article quickly trying to figure out how
it was different than all the other iMessage competitors on Android right now,
let me save you the trouble and show you the big difference:

> Uses your current Android phone number.

This is awesome. I hope it takes off quickly.

~~~
WrkInProgress
WhatsApp is also based on your phone number and it works across all major
mobile platforms (iOS, Android, WP, BB)

~~~
rndstr
> mobile platforms

And that's the problem. I want to have clients on all my devices (desktop,
tablet, smartphone) accessing the very same account, like GTalk.

~~~
WrkInProgress
I should have read the article completely first.

I was thrown off by the comparison to iMessage in the article title.

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tehh4ck3r
Calling it iMessage for Android is misleading. MightyText is basically a web
interface for your SMS's.

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murrayb
This is good but what I really want is SMS integrated with email. Think about
it SMS is a text based conversation just like email- how much better would it
be to have all the other functions of email (especially gmail) tagging,
archiving, threads, filters, ability to mark as SPAM.

SMS as a separate product made sense when it was first introduced- email on
phones didn't exist. But in 2012 it's time they were integrated.

As an aside I also wish that carriers would stop doing voicemail and the
various (broken) text->voice services and just record the message as an MP3
(low quality is good) and message it to me- again having it turn up in my
mailbox would be even better.

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dkl
Does it count toward my 250 texts per month, or is it free?

~~~
jamied556
i think its whatever your phone's plan is cause it sends from your phone.

~~~
dkl
OK, then that's not as good as google voice, for me. Thanks.

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drcube
Doesn't work for me.

<https://mightytext.net/app> -> " __Error in GetUserInfo: timeout" whether I'm
logged into Google or not.

Too bad. I like DeskSMS and I'd prefer something like it only free.

~~~
ryegye24
I get the exact same error. Have you found anything since you posted this?

~~~
drcube
A few hours later it worked on my work computer with XP. Still doesn't work on
my home computer with Arch Linux.

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akkartik
I noticed yesterday that my android gtalk app was updating a thread when I
switched to it. It seems like a recent change and it's entirely server side.
Has anybody else noticed?

~~~
RobAtticus
This is not particularly recent, in my experience. GTalk has been syncing
between gmail, my phone, and my tablet very well for a while now, but it's
certainly a welcome feature.

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dpitkin
Wait, I thought WhatsApp or Google Voice were the replacements for iMessage.
It needs to work everywhere like Google Voice, or save you international SMS
like WhatsApp does.

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evilbit
the main reason i use android over iphone is the seamless integration of
google voice, and gv already gives me access to my sms & vmail from the
browser.

imho, the solution isn't to build yet another android app but to make google
voice a natural/default choice for android users. if you have an android phone
and haven't tried google voice yet, i highly recommend you give it a shot.
having used it for the last few years, i can't imagine ever going back to
carrier sms/vmail.

~~~
jdeibele
I agree. The killer thing about Google Voice is that it lets you block calls
via a web interface.

It's not hard to figure out how to block all "private" and "unknown" calls. So
that means surveys or telemarketers or whoever have to use a number that you
can block.

The Google voice extension for Chrome works very well for texting. Nice to use
a full-size keyboard.

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hongquan
Such a simple idea, but love how it's done. Surprising that Android doesn't
offer this as a standard part of it's OS. Well done MightyText!

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mindstab
How is this different/superior to gtalk in anyway?

~~~
altrego99
If some of your friends have no access to gTalk, or prefer SMS, then this
might help. However this will store all your SMSes in their server from now
on.

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jister
We are using Chikka (<http://www.chikka.com/>) in the Philippines since 2001

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bookwormAT
For interoperability, I like email. It is well supported across most
platforms, and everyone has already adopted it.

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bicknergseng
It's not totally perfect, but HandcentSMS will auto-group iMessages sent to
you for you on Android.

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aloha676
just started using it. Its simply amazing... users seems to love this app like
crazy - <https://twitter.com/#!/mightytext/favorites>

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seanponeil
Sticking with koush's DeskSMS for now. Support the indie devs!

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eps
Let me just say it - what a silly name.

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jamied556
just downloaded. i can text so much faster now. is this for real? wow.

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smiddereens
A BBM for Android?

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drivebyacct2
How is this different (besides visually) from porting my number to Google
Voice? It seems to have the exact same set of functionality.

Also, koush's DeskSMS has been around much, much longer and _is_ the _exact_
same as this.

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cryptoz
I'm not sure if this helps, but I think Google Voice is still unavailable to
95% of the world (i.e., it's Americans-only) so that may be a large difference
(if these guys support non-Americans, anyway).

~~~
drivebyacct2
Ah, I always forget my American privilege. You're right of course.

